Fun in Balloon Land

Throughout the early days of films, there were lots of poorly made low budget Christmas films such as "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and "Santa Claus" which have been lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000. This movie however is SO BAD that I am not going to describe all of it.

The "film" is about a boy named sonny who is being read a story about Balloon Land by his mother. After this the rest of the "film" is just amateur footage from a balloon parade. The balloons are so badly made and creepy looking. If you want a good balloon parade watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Overall, avoid this "Film" at all costs. Please!

Fun in Balloon Land is not so much a movie, in the conventional sense, as it is a series of semi connected events that happen to take place mostly in front of a camera. There is no plot, no logic, no real acting or actors, and no explanation for why such a thing should exist.

The "story" (if it can be described as such) is that little Sonny falls asleep while his mother reads him bedtime stories, then dreams of various adventures in the magical word of Balloon Land, which is filled with giant balloon animals and fairy tale people. What we actually get is Sonny and other unnamed children wandering around a warehouse and interacting with strange balloon people, plus unrelated footage of a balloon parade, narrated by a crazy woman.

One of the first things you notice, aside from grotesque the balloon people are, is that whenever Sonny talks to them, it takes an awkwardly long time for the balloons to mumble something back. Much of this dialog is completely unintelligible, and it's obvious that whoever's voicing the balloon people is just shouting from offscreen. No effort is taken to hide the fact that the "set" is just a warehouse, and at several points workers, set lights, or the end of the stage are clearly visible. Throughout this section the camera moves so rarely that I suspect there was no actual cameraman.

The parade section is somewhat better, insofar as we can tell what's going on, and aren't worried about the safety of the children involved. Sadly, this is mostly offset by the dismal appearance of the balloons, and the extreme length and slowness of the parade. The one source of entertainment Is the woman narrating all this. She's oddly animated, unreasonably excited about each and every lackluster balloon float, and keeps insisting against all evidence that the bored, shivering children love the parade as much as she does. I'm not sure if she's seriously overcaffeinated or just trying way too hard, but either way it's kind of surreal.

So is the whole movie for that matter. Surreal, bizarre, baffling, and utterly incompetent on every level. So incompetent that it makes Ed Wood and Tommy Wisaeu look like real directors by comparison. The only possible reason for its existence is as an extended advertisement for its creators, Gigantic Balloon Parade co, which makes it a strong contender for the worst commercial ever released.

I hesitate to call this the worst movie ever made, because it's not nearly as grating or cringy as some of the other "worst ever" candidates, and aside from a pair of unbelievably racist balloons, there's little that's outright objectionable. That said, it is probably the cheapest, most pitiful excuse for a movie I've ever witnessed, and I can't imagine watching it without help from Rifftrax.

This was obviously a parade that was shot so it could be shown on television, only it did not stop there. No, instead, we get a strange story thrown in to balloon this up to a nearly one hour show. So, if I had to guess, I am thinking they needed to fill an hour time slot on television so they padded this thing so it would fill said time slot using a very creepy story and basically a review of what had just happened. I think they should have simply condensed down the parade footage so that they could simply fill a half an hour slot and just do a Christmas special for the other half hour.

The story, hm, that's a tough one. First you get a song singing about balloon land before switching to a mother reading to her son. He gets up and sticks his nose in the corner and we are off to balloon land where they make no attempt to really make balloons do much and instead have children running around on different sets. The most disturbing being the young boy running around in a golden diaper. Then you watch the average cities Christmas parade which is like every parade...BORING! Seriously have yet to figure out the point of them. Finally, we get a recap of what we saw...

The most crazy thing about the film was the host of the parade who would shout as the balloons went by and describe them in some absurd way. She definitely sounded as if she had a few drinks too as she announced how gay everything was. I realize gay back then was used to describe a happy person, but seriously, she still used it way too much! Get a thesaurus!

So this is not really a film in the truest sense. Just a parade filmed and padded so it could fill the allotted time period. I saw this thanks to the guys at Rifftrax and they made watching this 'film' entertaining as even they were perplexed by exactly who would be watching this thing. So if you want to watch a very strange boy walking around and looking at big balloons and people shouting from a distance as if they were talking, a parade hosted by a tipsy woman and a pointless recap of what you have just seen, this is your movie!

I have to write a review of this as part of my therapy program. I landed in therapy as a direct result of this film.

In order to confront my fears now I must face this film. As a warning I suggest no parent ever subject their child to the acid trip known as Fun in Balloon Land.

There really is nothing to spoil, but if you watch this movie and start seeing the ghostly spectre of a tiny boy in gold lame shorts while holding hands with a lobster, I can recommend a good therapist.

The film is what I can only assume passes for fun in hell. Oh and it's set in Balloon Land.

So if a movie was filmed, edited, released, and seen by more people than just the director and his mom, it gets an entry on IMDb? You learn something new every day!