Before Goosebumps or Fear Street, and right in the midst of the 80s slasher craze came the Point series of books. Starting from 1986 and stretching almost three decades full to 2014, Point (Also known as Point Horror in the UK) was an anthology series of horror stories aimed at a teen market and published by Scholastic. The series featured various authors. From R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike to D.E. Athkins (Deathkins), Caroline Cooney or in the case of our debut blog, Diane Hoh. Hoh has a long history with teen horror as she not only released several books within Point, but also wrote for her own book series, Nightmare Hall. But let's look at her first notable entry in the Point series, Funhouse.
Since many books for Point have their own unique covers for North America and the UK, I'll cover them both whenever possible. But, Funhouse has the same cover for both. And it's not bad. Not the most dynamic or scary, but I do like the ominous beam of light exiting from the door. Inviting the reader in for whatever this book has to offer. Overall, not bad.
Shelley is heading off for a European trip, leaving Tess to end up with her father and her brother, Guy Joe Jr. My god, this is the closest I think we're ever going to get to a "Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo" name in these books. Tess isn't fond of living with her father for a while, but staying in Shelley's condo, referred to as The Shadows, isn't a picnic either. But let's get out of exposition as Tess meets up with her friend Gina Giambone. Gina is interested in the ring toss boy Doss Beecham despite him having a history of being a loner and always in a foul mood. Mostly due to his family losing all their money. But she's also with a boy named Robert Rapp, who is referred to as "Beak" due to his nose. I don't know which is worse for a nickname, Bird or Beak, but both seem pretty god awful.
Tess, Gina and Doss head to the Devil's Elbow ride. The only one missing is Sam Oliver, Tess' boyfriend, kinda? As they wait for the coaster cars to make their way to the front, suddenly, they fly right off the rail and crash to the ground below. Eleven cars total. A whole bunch of people flung to other booths and some people below even being crushed by the cars. Tess, like everyone else, is in a state of panic. But she briefly sees some figure in a ski mask holding a metal pipe run off.
So, this book has a bit of a strange setup. Some chapters are in the third person, focusing on Tess. Then there are shorter chapters that focus on our villain of the book and they're written in the first person. It's a little janky in terms of how it's handled, but it's unique, I guess? Our saboteur talks about how easy it was. How they went underneath the tracks and placed the metal pipe in between, causing the coaster to go off its tracks. The saboteur gleefully mentions how three of the riders, Dade Lewis, Sheree Buchanan and Joey Furman, had it coming, while mentioning there are five more to go. These were the three victims mentioned in the first paragraph. Dade dies, Joey loses his left leg and Sheree's face gets mangled.
As Tess, Doss and Gina look at the carnage and try to help, they run into Sam who just arrived, not being witness to the coaster crash. They learn of Dade's death and see how badly Sheree became, but then learn of Joey's leg, which, being that Joey was a member of the track team is just the worst kind of irony. Some time passes and the group meet with Guy Joe Jr., Beak, and Sam's sister Candice. They also run into Trudy Slaughter (Oof, worst timing to have that last name), whose father is one of the owners of the boardwalk. Tess and Trudy have issues after Tess wouldn't vote for her in school. Tess mentions seeing some sort of figure running off, and Doss suggests the police. But Sam says that the police chief Chalmers is paid off by the board to not say anything bad about the amusement park.
Back to another quick chapter for the saboteur, who mentions reading a diary of a woman named Lila O'Hare. She was married to Tully O'Hare, the owner of the boardwalk. The pair ran it fine until they got into bad money problems. Worried about losing the boardwalk and with a baby on the way, they hope for some banker named Buddy to save them.
Tess and Sam have an argument involving Shelley, who Sam thinks is a bad parent, and Tess leaves on her own. Tess suspects Sam as the one who was under the Devil's Elbow, but thinks that somehow he'd just admit that, so she's also not that logical. She thinks that this figure in a ski mask must have been trying to help. She returns to her condo, now all alone. Gina calls her, as the pair talk about how the park had been there for a hundred years yet never had any accident. Gina tells Tess that there was something that happened at the funhouse, but it was so long ago that nobody really remembers just what as it had been remodeled long after. Tess believes that the coaster was sabotaged, while Gina believes it must have been from being so old. Tess then sees a note written in marker mocking what happened to Dade, Joey and Sheree and saying that she'll soon be next.
Back to the saboteur who admits to sending the note. They mention more about Lila's diary, mentioning that Buddy won't give them a loan. It's revealed that Buddy and a few friends invested in the boardwalk behind Lila and Tully's back and screwed them over.
Tess, no surprise, is shaken bad by the note, but decides to stay in the condo and not go anywhere else. So she leaves all the lights on and finally fades. She wakes up the next day and takes the note to the cops who, shocker, don't believe her about the note or it really being a threat. They think it's a joke, but tell her they'll look into it. Gina also doesn't believe the note either despite there hasn't been any reason for anyone to suddenly think Tess is lying, but we're still early in the book, so pad we shall. Gina does mention more on the funhouse incident and that some man hung himself inside. Due to Dade's death, the school gets the day off, so she heads to Gina's for the time being, but still worries she'll be next.
Back to the saboteur. They watched Tess all night in the house, then saw her take the note, but believes that she wasn't believed. Back to the diary of Lila who reveals that sure enough, it was Tully O'Hare who hung himself in the funhouse. Buddy, feeling sorry for Lila, says that he'll fix everything, despite being the ones who made this worse, of course.
The next day, Gina suggests that Tess should join them at the boardwalk, to show that it's still safe. Tess, of course, is hesitant because there really hasn't been any evidence that it is safe. But seeing as everyone's doubting her, she ends up doing so. They also decide to go to the funhouse, since that hasn't been built up as a bad place yet or anything. But since it's not near the Devil's Elbow, then Tess is okay with it. Gina, Beak, Candace, Sam, Guy Joe and Tess enter the funhouse which seems like any normal funhouse with the rolling floor and one spot that's weird and uneven, and a floor of spinning tiles. Tess is trying her best to enjoy it, but her lingering fears, not to mention the fact that the cops haven't investigated squat, make it hard. She gets out, but lost her keys inside.
Gina goes to get the keys, but everyone complains that Tess should do it, so Tess ends up following her in. Because it's been well established that Tess has god awful friends aside from Gina. As Tess enters, she hears Gina's scream. spinning circle area and sees that the floor has been tampered with. And, much worse, Gina's on the ground, motionless. Cut to the saboteur who said that the plan was to initially get Tess. They swiped her keys, then waited for Tess to return, only to get rid of Gina instead. That's now tampering with their plans and they vow vengeance on Tess. A bit more from the diary as Buddy suggests that Lila put her baby up for adoption, so that whole "helping" thing turned out to not be that great. He tells her that a family from England want to take the baby as soon as it's born. Lila Agreed, but writes that no one is getting her baby.
Gina isn't dead, but obviously hurt from the fall. At worst, a fractured leg. Jim Mancini, the boardwalk manager, is already having a rough time after the Roller Coaster, so this doesn't help. Tess goes back to the room with the spinning circles, only none are missing now. So now people think that Tess is even crazier. Tess ends up questioned by the police, who remember her from the note earlier. And, stacking to all this blaming of Tess, believe that she's been making everything up, but not saying the obvious, that they think she pushed Gina. Tess begins to suspect everyone. Could it be shy Candace, joker Beak, or Trudy? She suspects Doss, since he works at the amusement park, but knowing his feelings for Gina, doubts he could have actually hurt her.
But that theory dissipates quickly when Tess remembers that it was her keys that disappeared. That she was meant to fall down that hole. Maybe Doss did do it, but she stops her sleuthing after seeing how shook Gina's mother is. Tess returns home and sees a white object on the light fixture. She turns on the light to see it's the corpse of Gina's cat Trilby who she was taking care of. Back to the saboteur who admits to giving Tess the furry gift. They also return to the diary. Buddy has yet to tell Lila who wants her baby, but Lila believes she knows who, and vows not to let them get it, but admits that maybe this is being selfish and not in the baby's best interests.
Guy Joe, Sam, Trudy and Candace arrive and see the cat corpse. Sam tells Tess that it's fake. A stuffed animal and not an actual cat corpse. Trudy, who seems to only be in this book to be the bitch, thinks Tess is acting crazy, even when Tess mentions the note. Candace stays with Tess overnight while Tess, freaked out, stays up petting the cat. She gets a call from our saboteur who asks if she enjoyed the gift, then meows. Another quick chapter as the saboteur mentions that Lila's writing has gotten more erratic with Buddy pressuring her more. They wonder if Buddy is still alive, and furthermore, why the diary was in their house.
The teens return to school, and Trudy is more than ready to move on from everything. Despite Tess' concerns about what happened with the coaster, they learn that the cops ultimately said it was a loose rail and moved on. And more important for Trudy, she's holding her birthday party at the boardwalk. She then begins to blame Tess for the weirdness lately, particularly what happened to Gina. Tess heads to the hospital to see Gina and notices the boardwalk is less busy. She begins to suspect that the accidents were intended to cripple the boardwalk. She also remembers that Gina, Sheree, Dade and Joey's parents all on the board of directors, as is her father. Eight people on the board, and the note mentioned five to go, including herself.
Tess talks to Gina about the fall, but Gina has no memory of it due to the injuries. Everyone but Doss shows up as well, leaving Tess to think that maybe he is the culprit after all. Doss' father was fired by the board of directors, which led to his family losing their money. Maybe the coaster sabotage was an act of revenge. She also begin to suspect Beak, who despite being a prankster, might have jealousy considering Gina's interest in Doss. As Tess leaves the hospital, she goes to her car, only to find all four tires have been slashed. The saboteur then talks about how they're enjoying seeing Tess' paranoia grow before returning to the diary. Lila, despite not knowing if this is the right thing to do, signs the adoption papers.
Tires now slashed, Tess has no way to get home. She also realizes that she can't exactly go to the cops right now either. First because she still has no clue who is pursuing her and second with her suspecting the kids of the boardwalk directors, she'd never be believed. So she makes the walk home. As she heads up the hill and through the woods, she hears someone behind her, mocking her. Panicked, she runs to another part of the hill, only to get shoved off and falling for seemingly forever. The saboteur says they could have finished Tess off now, but we're still 60 odd pages away. But they say that she deserves to suffer. That her family and the other families that ran the boardwalk deserved to suffer. Back to the diary.
Lila gave birth to the baby, but never even got to see it when it came out. She was immediately hit with a sedative that knocked her out. When she woke up, everyone was gone. Buddy returned to her a while later, saying the baby is in a good home. He leaves her a check for a substantial amount. Mortified and enraged that her baby had been sold, she tears up the check. The pieces still in the diary. She wants revenge, but the boardwalk directors are too powerful for her to do anything. She writes her final entry and mentions leaving the diary in her secret place before planning to join Tully in the afterlife. The saboteur finds the check pieces in the book and goes to tape them up. To see what the baby's life was worth.
Tess falls into a strange rectangle of mud. She soon learns that this was built for a swimming pool. The man is Kevin Slaughter, Trudy's father and one of the boardwalk owners as previously mentioned. He takes Tess back home where Sam is waiting. Sam tells Tess that Chief Chalmers will be announcing that the Devil's Elbow incident was an unavoidable accident. She goes and showers off the mud, but gets another phone call that sings "Happy Birthday Trudy". So Tess now realizes that something bad is going to happen at the party.
The saboteur is not happy that the incident is being called an accident. They believe that the boardwalk owners are getting suspicious, and are trying to quiet down any controversy. They put the check back together and instantly notices the signature. It's their father's. Our saboteur is Lila O'Hare's baby.
Tess heads to Trudy's party which is mostly being held at the beach just below the boardwalk. Everyone else has resigned to the belief about the accident except Tess, but her say has been pretty much beaten out of her by this point. Sam takes her to the wreckage, which of course bothers her. Tess then tells Sam that he should be worried given the crash affected three kids of the boardwalk directors. And Sam's father is one too. Sam doesn't believe her theory about a saboteur, but kisses her to shut her up, because that's a great idea. Turns out it isn't as Tess makes her leave, still convinced she's right. She then finds an odd stone. A jewel from a class ring. She thinks maybe whoever lost this may have been the saboteur.
Tess returns to the others, who are now clutching their stomachs. All sick from Sam's brownies. The parents arrive and suspect that they must have been pot brownies, but the doctor, Dr. Joe Tanner, tells them that they pumped the stomachs, but no sign of drugs. But they were poisoned. All but Doss who didn't eat any brownies, making Tess even more certain that he's the culprit. Trudy also never had any, and she was the one who brought them to the party, so now Tess suspects her more as well. Sam suggests Tess should go back with her father, but Tess is still extremely hesitant. But she stays in the hospital with Gina for the time being.
The saboteur is still angry over the revelation that they are the O'Hare baby. That their life was stolen from them and the life they knew was all a lie. Now the saboteur vows to make all the board directors pay. While the directors themselves aren't as easy to get to, their kids are. Their plan of revenge has gone through so far with the coaster accident, but they still plan to finish the job. And this won't be a happy ending as the saboteur plans to commit suicide after, to join their real parents. Sadly, they still don't know who Buddy was, as they'd make him pay as well. But right now, the main target is Tess, and time's running out to finish her off. They plan to take her with them before they go.
Tess heads to her father's home with Guy Joe. Their father also seems tight lipped about anything involving the coaster accident and leaves. As she looks for her headphones, she finds a room filled with objects. Objects like a school ring without a stone, her key case. a napkin with brownie parts, and a marker. All set up like a shrine. And sure enough, Guy Joe enters the room and reveals the bombshell. He's the child of Lila O'Hare! He's our saboteur. Tess is confused, not knowing what he's talking about. He tells her that he was stolen by Guy Joe Landers Sr. and his wife. That she ruined his plans at the funhouse, but now they're going to have some real fun. Tess resists, but gets slapped. He then tells her that he plans to take her to his parents in the afterlife and drags her off to the boardwalk and into the funhouse.
Tess begs for Guy Joe to let her go and that she didn't know anything about him being adopted. But he tells her that this is about getting revenge on her father while making her suffer for being his child. He ties her to a hook attached to a skeleton, he'll then make her jump off the platform and die. They make it to the platform, but Tess mentions her foot is cut. In the distraction, she takes the chain belt and hits Guy Joe with it. She runs and removes the circle in the spinning floor. As Guy Joe catches up to her, he ends up falling through the hole to the ground below. Sam arrives, telling Tess that Gina had been sent Lila's diary and one Guy Joe had made. They see Guy Joe's body on the ground and call for an ambulance.
Guy Joe is now in an asylum where he pretends to be unconscious. But he did overhear the doctor mention Kevin "Buddy" Slaughter and realizes it was Trudy's dad that was the one who sold him from his mother. He says that he'll play the long game. He'll do what he's told in the asylum until the day he's a free man. And then he'll pay Buddy a visit.
For our first foray into Point, I come out positive with Funhouse. While not the deepest mystery, and the writing makes it too obvious that the culprit couldn't be anyone Tess suspected, we're still left with a really decent thriller. Starting strong with the crash of the Devil's Elbow and finishing with an intense, yet rushed, finale involving Guy Joe. I will say the formatting of this book is interesting. How the story splits between the events of the story, then interjects with Guy Joe's narration, or most likely his own entries in his diary. It could have been structured a little better, possibly making those chapters their own thing instead of the next chapter in the book like normal.
While I'm not sure if Diane Hoh came up with the general plot on her own, it definitely feels like the concept was based around the stories of black market babies, particularly the ones stolen by Dr. Hicks from McCaysville Georgia. During the 50s and 60s, Hicks would coax women to birth, then steal their baby to sell to a black market, stealing over 200 children. So, the concept of having this happen to Guy Joe and his mother makes the story feel like just that. Only in this case, it was steal her child for one of his fellow boardwalk members, the same ones who led Lila's husband Tully to suicide. It also explains the setup that Tess' dad seems cold and callous. And why the other boardwalk directors want to hide the Devil's Elbow incident in case their actions in not just leading two people to suicide, but stealing their child gets revealed to the public. Definitely feels like rich businessmen to me.
Tess is a solid protagonist. One you do feel bad for over the course of the story. How her fear and paranoia grows as she gets stalked, how nobody believes her, and how she becomes unable to trust anyone but the one man she wouldn't suspect. And that gives us a solid 163 pages of story that adds enough mystery and suspense to keep you invested in what does feel like a denser book than what we on this blog are used to. Scares all work great, though some do feel stock. But they all work in ramping up the horror. And the titular funhouse works fine, especially as the finale to the story.
Funhouse is a strong way to start off the look into Point. Far from perfect and could have been cleaned up or even lightened a bit, but still works fine. It's a strong thriller with a decent mystery and some dark moments. Leaves me interested in covering more Diane Hoh in the future as well as going further into Point in the coming months. It's not the most sturdy carnival ride, but it's still fun. Funhouse gets a B+.
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