"Atmospheric and genuinely scary."





- John McCarty, Official Splatter Movie Guide





"It's not every day that the fright genre produces a film capable of commenting on epic subjects like the ties that bind and the disintegration of the modern family, the foolishnes of dabbling voyeuristically in others' pain, and the possible detrimental effect of the Polaroid Instamatic on American moral fibre (a theme touched upon also in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Hooper's extreme pro-vegetarianism tract), while doing its proper job providing plenty of cheap thrills."





- Time Out London Film Guide





"...A spitty movie, full of great expectorations. That is, there's more drool on view than blood, which is a new twist for the horror genre."





- Variety





"Five dead bodies.

Two breasts.

Mutant farm animals.

Strangling.

Stabbing.

Shooting.

Hanging.

Impaling.

Drooling.

Ax to the head.

Crowbar to the head.

Electrocution.

Mutant-grinding.

Side-show stripping.

Exhaust fan Fu."





- Joe Bob Briggs, Monstervision





"Often lumped in with the cash-in slashers of the same year, it's actually an exuberant collision between classic monster tropes and the splatter body horror of its day...Rather than spooking us with images of murder and mayhem, we have been treated to body mutation, both human and animal, and mounds of aging twisted flesh, the real horror of mortality and age. Happy clown faces, images of childhood crack, peal and mockingly laugh. This ride has been going on forever. Something wicked does indeed, this way come..."





- Kindertrauma.com





"The New Horror was always described by its critical defenders as a radical attempt to shock its audiences with visions more graphic and confrontational and real than had been shown in the past. This ignored just how connected the genre is to the past, how self-conscious these new directors were. Hooper, Bogdanovich, Polanski, Carpenter and Romero were making movies that were as much about movies as they were about monsters. They were sold as honest and frighteningly real, but these films were made in a film language that was either referencing or dialoguing with movies of the past."





- Jason Zinoman, Shock Value

"For whom is the funhouse fun? Perhaps for lovers...He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator - though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed."





- John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse (1968)





"Everyone was getting fleeced and shortchanged, to boot, at the ten-in-one. Hell, that's why we went there. This was a carnival - this wasn't a merry-go-round and cotton candy, this was a carnival - and we were making fun of the horror of existence, saying, 'Fuck you; tonight I'm going to party."







- David Mamet, A Time For Mickey Mouse (1989)







"WHO will be The Bride of Frankenstein? WHO will dare?"





- tagline, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)