disgusting, overrated, pointless

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

FUNLAND is a locally made US comedy drama shot in Georgia. The tale is about a run-down amusement park that's purchased by a ruthless company who decide to keep on a single employee, a crazy guy who thinks he's a clown in real life. This is a bizarre movie, low budget and shot in a real-life fairground. It's an interesting backdrop but the story doesn't really know what it wants to be and feels sluggish and uninvolving as a result.

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.

Sometimes I have the luxury of reading IMDb comments about a movie before watching the flick. Such was the instance here. So I was anticipating that this might be one of the worst. But it didn't impress me that way. Don't get me wrong...we ain't got no Citizen Kane here. However, my opinion is that it's not as awful as some. The jist is that a long-time, unstable employee of Funland is eventually given the heave-ho when the park's ownership changes. The takeover family arranged the death of their predecessor. Wacky as he is (he's a clown, with a puppet which he talks to), our hero deduces this, and snipes at his replacement. Oh yeah - he's also so goofy as to converse with his deceased boss and a wax figure of Humphrey Bogart. It's one of those films that can't possibly be taken seriously. The most intelligent reaction is for the audience to realize that it has been "put on", because we sure have a campy result.

Don't waste your time. This movie is so stupid I wonder why it got 2 votes of 10. It was probably the creators, trust me on this. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!