Funland

Michael A. Simpson is great at creating satire with exaggerated archetypical characters. Funland (1986), like Simpson's Sleepaway Camp films (2 & 3), features funny and interesting characters with good dialogue, decent settings, and a tongue-in-cheek storyline. There's some pretty zany stuff going on in this movie, some of which you might miss if you divert your attention for too long. For example, there's a sign at the gate of one of the rides of a clown holding a ball in each hand and it reads something like, "You must be as tall as my balls to ride." The camera aims momentarily at the clown's crotch. Also the whole absurd lectures given by managers who'd like their minimum wage employees to believe they were working in a powerful profession and to have them give them respect as if he/she were Bill Gates or someone all-important. There's a hilarious pizza-making speech. Once again, as with the Sleepaway Camp films, Simpson gets away with racial and homosexual slights because they're too obvious, so flagrant that no intelligent viewer could begin to take them seriously, in fact, they're very comical. Funland is good up to a point. About halfway through the film falls flat when it opts for quasi serious approach instead of evolving into a horror comedy. I strongly believe Funland could have been 100% better if it would have become a horror film. The two teenage leads should have had more camera time and the deeply troubled clown, Bruce Burger, played convincingly by David L. Lander of Laverne & Shirley fame, Andrew 'Squiggy' Squiggmann, should have went on a murderous bloody rampage, in which the two lovers would have had to fight to stay alive. Had Funland been closer to Sleepaway Camp 2 & 3 in its production it would have done much better in finding an audience. Sleepaway Camp 3 fans might notice the television reporter in Funland as the same actress in SC3 who also played the reporter. There are lots of familiar faces in Funland, actors and actresses who have appeared in many low-budget goodies over the decades. There's an overweight female character who acts like someone right out of a SNL skit, and she pulls the humor off quite well as an overzealous park security guard. All in all, Funland is an enjoyable little slapstick flick. But it could have really turned into a memorable cult classic if horror would have played a major part, and that's too bad. I suggest you watch Simpson's Sleepaway Camp 2 & 3 to see what Funland could have aspired to.

Understandably some people view this movie as a waste of time, but one man's trash is another's treasure. Funland was the creation of a couple of Saturday night live writers - and it shows. Some sections appear to be nothing more than skits filling out the storyline . . . and while some jokes work, some don't, but it's often in the eye of the beholder. Promo posters make it look like a psychotic clown on the rampage but Bruce Burger is the unwitting protagonist trying to save the one thing he believes in. When a mob family take over an amusement park and fire the mentally unstable resident clown he retreats to the closed down wax museum. Here the film takes a bizarre turn as he finds companionship with Marilyn Monroe, Bogart and his hand puppet Peter Pepperoni. They all come 'alive' sometimes preaching tolerance and other times revenge. He's also visited by the murdered ex-owner who wants him to stop the mob destroying the park they both love. Watch out for Bruce's hilarious descent into madness (complete with scantily clad angel of death) when the cafeteria men start rapping and a poster advertising the new roller-coaster, 'Man's Biggest Thrill Is Coming'.

There are definitely several shining moments in "Funland", including some very "dark comedy", and an absolutely terrific Humphrey Bogart imitation by Robert Sacchi. David Lander is great as the delusional clown "Bruce Burger", the lovable "Funland" mascot. "Funland" reminds me of several others films, including in no small way, "Death to Smoochy". The problem is not the acting or the actors, which seem appropriate for the limited budget, it's the story line, which is quite scattershot, flipping between comedy, drama, and thriller. One thing it is not is a horror film, and anyone seeking splatter will be sorely disappointed. In summary, the whole movie does not amount to much, but there are some hidden gems in a very muddled story. - MERK

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.)