Funland

Regardless of how you label this, surprisingly good or absolutely terrible, one thing is for sure: "Funland" is not what you expect. I was hoping for a bloody and violent horror/revenge thriller set in an amusement park; - especially since this is what the awesome DVD cover-art and the plot description promise. Well, guess again... Instead, this is a strange combo of black comedy and downright slapstick, albeit peppered with a few (too few...) sinister aspects.

Is the element of surprise a good thing? Not really, because the concept of a deranged clown-mascot seeking bloody vengeance against a clan of mobsters that took over his beloved theme park sounds tremendously cool, and now I very much regret that I didn't get to see just that.

"Funland" stars an actor named Bruce Mahler, and throughout most of the film I couldn't quite figure out where I knew his face from. Then, suddenly, I remembered he's the clumsy geek Fackler from the "Police Academy" series. And, bizarrely enough, "Funland" actually has a lot more in common with "Police Academy" than with any random horror movie/thriller from the 80s. It's the type of comedy that makes you laugh hard several times, but overall, it's poor and unmemorable.

There are strong moments, for sure. Whenever main character Bruce Burger turns schizophrenic, the story benefices from a moodily ominous atmosphere. His speech at the funeral of the murdered park owner, complete with black clown make-up, is also hilarious! Heck, I could even smile at Robert Sacchi's double-role as stereotypical Italian mafia-patriarch and - obviously - Humphrey Bogart's wax statue coming to life. The rest of the gags and running jokes are borderline pathetic, though, and the complete lack of action is unforgivable. The "revenge" of clown Burger is hardly even worth mentioning, and the ending is beyond dumb.

The box said "Non-stop action."... is this legal?! The whole movie is just a stupid clown talking about his state of mind... who honnestly want to see this! The only action during this movie is the clown shooting some guy. Don't rent it, unless you want to be bored and waste your time.(I know it all sound crude but I wan't to save some from making the same mistake as me.)

Lavern and Shirley, SNL and the Police Academy films are all represented by the main characters and films writers. The director is also responsible for Sleepaway Camp II & III, the goofy sequels to the legit original. Add a parody of the Godfather and every stereotype of 80s movie characters, and you get this movie. It's slightly funny, but it doesn't come close to being horror, or even horror comedy. Watch it for the over the top acting and ridiculous plot, which at times is pretty funny. But the best parts are the background conversations "you kids are gonna have fun if I have to beat it out of you" (look for the mom of this scene, a pre-Trump Marla Maples), or the jokes in the sets, like the sign before the line of a ride that shows a clown holding a rubber sphere that says "you must be as tall as my balls to ride this attraction". It's all stupid sophomoric humor, but it's still funny. Not a must see, but a good rainy day movie with friends trying to spot the little hidden jokes.

As disorganized, bewildering, and downright strange as Michael A. Simpson's Funland is, to say I didn't enjoy it at all would be a blatant lie. To say I don't admire or appreciate the culture or saga of films it belongs to would be another hurtful jab at the very era I have grown to love and provide ample amounts of respect to over the years. That specific era is the eighties horror film era, where popular slasher films like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, immensely successful films financially that were made on a shoestring budget, proved to ambitious writers/directors that you didn't need to have millions of dollars and studio connections to make and release a film (the original Friday the 13th had an unmissable advertisement in a magazine before a script was even written).

Because of this new trend, directors and writers were racing to a neverending finish line to make their own slasher films, which is why there are so many unsung gems (and duds) that still haven't gotten their recognition. Many of these films achieved a cult following and, if one were to peruse a catalog or one of the many websites dedicated to the preservation and admiration of such films, they could find these kinds of films quite easily. It's films like Funland that you need to dig deeper for; the kind of quirky, unabashedly ridiculous, low-key effort that you almost can't believe passed the script stages. Whether or not the film was released in theaters is a mystery to me, but if it was, this may indeed be the most forgotten American horror film to ever grace the silver screen.

The film focuses on the titular amusement park, which is owned by the goofy Angus Perry (William Windom). The amusement park is a sore for sight eyes, as the employees are bored and uninterested in their positions, the rides have an unsafe look to them, and the entire environment reeks of cheesiness and sleaze. However, the most dedicated member of Funland appears to be Niel Stickney (David L. Lander), who plays "Bruce Burger," the clown mascot of the park, who is draped with a slice of pizza. Neil has played Bruce for so long that he no longer wants to be called "Neil," nor have his checks made out to him in that name. This all adheres to his grip on reality, which is becoming looser and looser as time goes on.

The back-breaking straw is when Angus dies under circumstances almost too unbelievable, and the park becomes overtaken by a mob family, who oversee a great deal of changes to the park, one of which is getting rid of the park's signature clown character in favor of the corporate mascot. Angus always defended the relevancy of Neil and the character he passionately plays, but now that he's gone, the mob ousts him at once. The mob's pawn is the park's careless manager Mike Spencer (the great Bruce Mahler), who agrees to let Neil go, leading Neil to buy a rifle and take revenge on the park that has let go of him.

Despite a great deal of lovable cheesiness, stemming from everything from the acting to the production quality (the opening titles have a strange fuzziness to them, as well as the catchy opening music being a bit louder than normal), Funland's biggest misstep is that it's a horror film that never realizes it's a horror film. It toys with genres of dark comedy, action, and mystery, and occasionally masquerades as a horror film with suspense and unpredictability within its tone, but never does the film forgo its numerous other genres to work as what it should be trying to achieve. Most of the film, however, operates with a wonderful sense of blackness to its comedy, which works wonderfully, especially in the first half hour, when we're getting acquainted with this demented Funland Amusement Park. During this time, humor flows in unrestricted free-form, while characters say and do the most outlandish things possible, with humor arousing from almost every circumstance.

With this, I was kind of disappointed to realize that Funland doesn't keep up this sense of dark humor all the way through, and instead goes for a more potboiling thriller in the weakest sense towards the end, while only emphasizing a small element of the blackness in the meantime. However, during the first half hour there's a certain hilarity that almost can't be replicated, as it's a hilarity that exists because of our unfamiliarity with this crazy world. Indeed, the film exists in a world of its own, and for that, operates as one of the most humble and ridiculous films of the 1980's I have yet to see.

Starring: David L. Lander, William Windom, and Bruce Mahler. Directed by: Michael A. Simpson.

I'm sure many people sit down to watch this film expecting horror. Although the chintzy tagline does suggest an even chintzier slasher flick, this movie rises above that genre. It's not a slasher flick at all, which is just fine. If anything, I would definitely classify this film in the Dark Comedy genre. It's almost an amusing and mocking look at insanity. The story is an interesting one, and a very creative one at that. Watch it if you enjoy a good chuckle, but not if you're looking for some cheap gore or contrived "pop-out" scare tactics. Prepare yourself for lots and lots of ethnic stereotyping, but done in such a way that it mocks those who actually believe in such stereotypes. The thing that makes this film a dark comedy is not only its ability to poke fun at bigots by catering to their ridiculous beliefs, but also at the utter random (and often crude) humor. If you enjoy films like Better Off Dead and I Love You to Death, it's almost guaranteed that you'll like this movie.