The Funhouse

The Funhouse is a 1980 novelization by American author Dean Koontz, based on a Larry Block (aka Lawrence J. Block) screenplay, which was made into the 1981 film The Funhouse, directed by Tobe Hooper. As the film production took longer than expected, the book was released before the film. Koontz originally published the novel under the pseudonym Owen West. Plot synopsis In 1955, Ellen, a young woman tired of being oppressed by her meek father and psychotically religious mother, falls in love with a barker from a traveling carnival named Conrad. Despite her mother's pleas, she runs away with the carnival and marries him. However, it quickly becomes clear that Conrad is using Ellen to spawn the Antichrist, as she later finds out he is a Satan worshiper. Stuck at the fair as she cannot go back to her parents, she eventually gives birth to a hideously deformed infant. One stormy night, the demonic baby attacks Ellen. She crushes it to death just as Conrad comes home. Enraged, he beats but does not kill her, stating that he will hunt her down one day and murder her own children. Ellen runs off into the night.