I remember being pretty disappointed when I first saw “The Funhouse”. I found it a little too … pointless. The storyline was too slim. Sure, most of these old ‘80s horror flicks have slim storylines; a bunch of kids you don’t care about go someplace they shouldn’t and get killed. Have sex and die! But “The Funhouse” felt unusually weak -- it has a great basic idea, but doesn’t deliver.

The opening titles play over a prologue that takes place in Spain during the Dark Ages. No, the Dark Ages aren’t those awful years in the early 1980s when grunge was popular (and washing your hair wasn’t), but the Middle Ages. Father Esteban (Richard Moll) is some kind of satanic priest, wearing a hood and all, and he and his gang are up to bad things on a beach, when members of the church arrive and banish Esteban and his devilish mob from Spain.

Calling “Night of Fear” a movie is a bit misleading. At least calling it a feature film. Bourke’s film runs only about 54 minutes or so. This is because this was supposed to be the pilot episode of a new horror TV series called “Fright”. This film has typical “TV opening titles” which clips from the film we’re about to see, and title cards scream “Fright”, “Night of Fear” and “Created by Terry Bourke”.