The Funhouse/Fun Facts
From The Grindhouse Cinema Database
- The opening sequence is an homage to both Psycho (1960) and Halloween (1978).
- Steven Spielberg asked Tobe Hooper to direct E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) but he turned it down because he was busy on this movie. However Hooper and Spielberg would work together on Poltergeist (1982).
- Dean R. Koontz wrote a novelization of the screenplay under the pseudonym Owen West. The book contains a lot of backstory added by Koontz. Because of this, and the fact that the book was released before the movie due to a delay in post production, it is often mistaken that the movie is based on the book, but the book is in fact based on the movie.
- The film was briefly banned in the UK and labeled as a 'video nasty'. This was because the movie was mistaken for "The Fun House", one of the many alternate titles for The Last House on Dead End Street (1977).
- The title for the film's French release is 'Massacres dans le train fantôme', meaning 'Massacres on the Ghost Train'.