Stormi/Kathy
The Funhouse by Owen West, Dean Koontz Genres: Horror
on November 1, 1980
Pages: 278
Format: Paperback
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Also by this author: The City, Saint Odd, The Silent Corner, The Whispering Room, The Crooked Staircase, The Forbidden Door, The Night WindowTonight, Amy Harper and her friends are spending the night in The Funhouse, a place for gondola rides, gory delights and midnight terror.
But there is unspeakable Evil waiting for Amy in the dark bowels of The Funhouse, a secret Evil that began twenty-five years ago... when a lonely woman destroyed her monstrous offspring, and a disturbed man vowed to exact his terrible revenge.
Now it's innocent Amy's turn as she must keep her date with horror in The Funhouse... CARNIVAL OF TERROR
Retro reviews are a new post that Barb and I are both doing where we read an older horror and tell you what we think about it. We don’t read the same book so you get two different reviews, so go check out the book she picked at BookerTsFarm as I think she liked hers a whole lot more than I liked mine!
Here is what I thought
So let’s just say that The Funhouse was not fun and prepare yourself for a bit of a rant! Could be spoilery!
First off I think I am beginning to see that if the book is by Dean Koontz under a different name then maybe I should stay away from it because his older works are just horrid! This is my second one that I have hated. I remember loving his books in the 90’s so he obviously got better but this lovely one is from 1980 and it’s very very dated.
So the prologue which was 26 pages or so was about a young girl who gets married to a Carnie to get away from her mother, then gets pregnant and the baby isn’t human. It’s some sort of hideous looking thing and it’s pretty much 26 pages of her trying to get up the courage to kill it. When her husband comes home and sees what she did he curses her, divorces her Carnival style and vows that when she has kids he will hunt them down and kill them.
Now it’s present day and Ellen is forty-five with a husband and two kids. She turned into some sort of religious zealot which was portrayed way over the top and just plan annoying. Her daughter is seventeen and her boy is around nine or ten, I can’t remember.
So there is a lot about Amy and how she is pregnant and just knows her mother will kill her, so she needs to get rid of the baby but figures her mother will kill her more for doing that. The father bailed after finding out she was pregnant, and this part is all a bit of a snoozefest.
In between that and the funhouse section there are some interesting things and you find out exactly what Conrad the carnie has planned and who is helping him then finally we get to The Funhouse and it was sort of like this happens, then this and bam it’s over. The fast ending to a horror book that I can remember. I mean all the build up and I felt like nothing really happened.
Don’t even get me started on the characters! I mean if there was ever a cast of characters that you wanted everyone to die (well except for the kid Joey) it was this cast. Amy was so dull, she was not a fleshed out character and I had no feelings for her problems at all. It was like you got yourself in that predicament, deal. She seemed to let her friend Liz dictate her life and well Liz was a real great character. I mean her ambitions after school was to become a high class call girl in Vegas!!! The two guys they went to the funhouse with were the stereotypical horny teen boys who only thought about sex…boring!!!!
I don’t even have anything good to say about this book, I tried to think of something and there was nothing. I can see that guys back in the 80’s probably loving this book but to me it just didn’t live up to what I thought might be a fun horror. I bought this at a used bookstore and so I am glad I didn’t spend but a couple bucks on it!!!
I remember liking his books from later in the 80’s and now I am kind of curious if I would still like them now. Hmmm should I torture myself and try some. 🙂
Tammy @ Books, Bones & Buffy
I sort of remember this book and now I wonder if I have a copy. Sounds like your typical 80s horror, but too bad it was so boring for you!
Stormi
I usually find old horror fun and entertaining but this wasn’t even that…lol. Oh well, hopefully I pick better next time…lol.
Barb @ Booker T's Farm
Hope your next read is better. Such a dud!
Stormi
Me too! 🙂
sherry fundin
bummer, although i do like a book where i want the worst for the characters. can make for some fun reading when it happens. LOL
Stormi
That would have been more fun if the book was a bit more interesting…lol. 🙂
Laura Thomas
I’ve been reading his books for a lot of years. I didn’t read this one and probably won’t now.