Funny Man (1994)

Thanks for the memories!

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

If there's one thing I've learned from reading the other reviews around here, it's definitely that "Funny Man" is the type of film that you either praise into the heavens or hate with a passion; there doesn't appear to be a middle way. Personally I'm tempted to unite with the hate crew, but that is preeminently because the fan-boys are exaggeratedly enthusiast without using real arguments. They merely just claim that "Funny Man" is awesomely hilarious; period. I even encountered some reviews where people dreadfully stated that the adversaries of this movie simply "don't get" the type of humor. See, I really hate that… What exactly is there to "get"? It's a cheesy and low-budgeted 90's horror movie about an ugly jester killing off uninteresting characters whilst firing off lousy and wannabe clever one-liners, so it's fairly safe to say there's absolutely nothing specific "to get" here. I'll be the first to admit that "Funny Man" also contains a handful of ingenious elements and mildly amusing gags. The main problem, however, are the bad ratios. For every brief flash of inventiveness, there's an intolerably large amount of tedious sequences. For every effective joke, there's literally a truckload of embarrassingly lame and painfully misplaced farces. After approximately 50 minutes of running time, you've pretty much seen and heard about as much as any normal person can take and the last half hour is practically unendurable to sit through. "Funny Man" is probably the most atypical British horror movie I've seen. Traditionally speaking, British genre movies implement a distinct and easy recognizable sense of humor, but this one is as vulgar and insipid as any random amateur US trash production. Most likely more than half of the entire budget was spent on convincing the almighty Christopher Lee to make a cameo appearance among an extended cast of untalented nobodies. Lee briefly pops up at the beginning of the film and portrays a sinister guy in a white suit who gambles his ancestral house in a game of poker and loses it to a sleazy drug-addicted record producer. The joke's on him – literally – because Christopher forgot to mention anything about the psychopathic buffoon living there. The Funny Man quickly disposes of the producer's family and eagerly awaits the next shipment of brainless victims to waste. They arrive in the form of a van filled with dimwits looking like runaways from a canceled Scooby-Doo episode. Some of the killing scenes are amusing and imaginatively repellent (like the duck hunting and puppet theater), but the majority of them are plain dull and overlong. The Jester may sound like a potentially cool new horror icon, but he's actually rather uninspired and boring. His appearance seems to be based on Jack Nicholson in "Batman" mixed with a "Killer Klown from Outer Space", with the stand-up comedian talents of Chucky the Good Guy Doll or maybe even Freddy Kruger in the later installments of "Nightmare on Elm Street". He has no bizarre background or occult myth attached to him and even the house he operates in doesn't have a morbid history. Well, there we have the problem… "Funny Man" is a movie without depth. Get that?

Funny Man the Harlequin from the deep bowels of the earth, waiting for his calling in this exceedingly surreal fantasy horror of the B-movie genre. Concerning the obnoxious Taylor family, victims of the modern age with their indifference to each other let along anyone else. With father and mothers little habit and with their young son and teenage daughter left to their own devises, and their lucky win, at the time, via a poker game, of the family home, in the English countryside, of one Callum Chance (Christopher Lee). A win that will have this unexpected family playing more than the joker for their lives. Simon Sprackling, both director and writer of this very British movie, has a humour that delivers wit and slapstick that is all very bizarre and horrific, and English.Shock and startle, this is what Funny Man does best, and with his touch of poetic justice, he delivers a blend of fiery retribution and with his fearsome and disturbing looks. Funny Man will deal you your fate on the spin of the wheel of fortune. His justice is all sift, callous, graphic and controlled.This movie is low key, but at the same time high on imagination with an exceptionally amusing script, albeit the delivery and sarcasms from Funny Man himself, and its visual persona. Enough in fact to bring several highly fictitious individual characters together, such as the malice ridden Hard Man, played here by Yorkshire born Chris Walker, the dippy hippie George Morton as the Crap Puppeteer, and the wonderful Pauline Black as the Psychic Commando. Ms Black is more commonly known as the singer with The Selector, formed during the late 1970's and emerging from the Two Tone movement in late 1970's and early 1980's Britain, with such bands as The Specials, Madness, The Beat and Bad Manners. Here she plays a Caribbean type voodoo superwoman who can generate a blaster type gun from her arm, and boy, does she know how to use it. But the best is yet to come, with these vagabonds we have the superb Thelma Fudd, played with zest by Scottish born Rhona Cameron, an amusing 3-D variant on the Velma character from the Scooby Doo cartoon franchise, fantastic parody right down to the thickset-rimmed spec's, haircut, attitude and short orange shirt, fantastic.With its opposing members, each from varying social backgrounds, they just cannot seem, or just do not want to, get along. With this in mind, do these victims actually deserve their fate? If fate had turned down the right road, with compassion, respect and understanding, then maybe social indifference's, apathy and intolerance would have surfaced another day, but no, the fool of fools, the court jester, the Funny Man was called, called to cull these misfits and tyrants of social decay and decadence. Just deserts for just causes.This is a British movie through and through, with its heavy accents, cast and with Simon Sprackling being nominated the International Fantasy Film Award by Fantasporto during 1995 for Best Film. Its no wonder really, as the cinematography, by Tom Ingle, is both interesting and along with Simon Sprackling's script and overall direction of macabre horror makes Funny Man seriously horrific and at the same time funny, man.

This film needed polishing. It just never seems to get going. although maybe that is the point. I would have preferred to have some deeper explanation than Christopher Lee playing cards in an asylum.The victims are so stupid, it could have been set in Troma land. I would have hoped that the victims would at least put up a fight and not just sit / stand there and take it. We don't care about the victims (which is not necessarily a bad thing). Unfortunately, there is little encouragement to side with the Jester and we are merely observers in someone's wandering vision.In 10 years time, maybe someone will remake it and put more emphasis behind the ideas and give the film some impetus.

Do you like jesters? Do you like demons? If the answer is 'yes' to both, then this is the film for you. The 'Funnyman' is basically a jester-demon with a Lancastrian accent, which turns into Welsh at various points in the film, who likes to kill people via hilarious (?) pranks in his big scary house. Surreal? Yes indeed. I won't go into too much detail about the wild-afro'd weirdy voodoo lady who's hand changed into a gun. The film, in general, is rubbish... but it has loads of comedy value and lots of gore that everyone should see. By the time you've finished watching this film, you can't help but say the word "Sorted", accompanied by a thumb-up.