Funny Man
Dir. Simon Sprackling
Reviewed by Matt Adcock (X @cleric20, Bluesky @cleric20.bsky.social)
“You're a funny man, Mister Taylor, but I've known funnier… and so will you.”
ðŸŽðŸ’€ If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if The Mask had a dark, demented British cousin who moonlights as a supernatural killer, Funny Man is your answer.
This 1994 cult oddity serves up a twisted cocktail of surreal humour, low-budget horror, and unapologetic absurdity that feels like an unholy lovechild of Monty Python and Clive Barker. And yes, it’s as weird as it sounds.
The plot kicks off with a shady card game resulting in a mansion being passed to a hapless winner. Said mansion, however, comes with a gruesome bonus: a murderous jester who thrives on torturing and dispatching victims in gleefully bizarre ways. Enter the Funnyman himself, played with unhinged glee by Tim James, whose charisma and cackling menace turn even his worst one-liners into oddly memorable zingers. Is he scary? A little. Entertaining? Absolutely!!
Director Simon Sprackling isn’t afraid to embrace the bonkers premise, leaning into the low-budget charm with inventive kills and fourth-wall-breaking antics. The Funnyman’s habit of addressing the audience directly adds a twisted theatricality, making you feel like a complicit spectator in his macabre vaudeville - kind of like Funny Games but not quite as bleak. One moment you’re laughing at his pun-laden quips; the next, you’re questioning your sense of humour as he gleefully carves up his victims.
The supporting cast is a grab bag of eccentric characters who range from oblivious to outright ridiculous. Highlights include Christopher Lee’s cameo (yes, Christopher ‘The Wicker Man’ Lee) as a devilishly droll gambler who seems to have wandered effortlessly adds a ton of classy gravitas.
The film’s refusal to take itself seriously is both its charm and its Achilles’ heel, I absolutely love the madness but I can see that if you’re not on its bizarre wavelength, Funny Man might feel a bit tedious and account for the underwhelming 2.7/5 score on Letterboxd!?
Visually, the film punches above its weight with its creative gore effects and surreal set pieces. The mansion itself becomes a character, a nightmarish playground for the titular killer’s antics. There’s a hallucinatory quality to the whole affair, as if the filmmakers decided that reality was optional and just rolled with it.
Funny Man is proudly crass, chaotic, and occasionally nonsensical. If you have taste for offbeat horror-comedies, and haven’t watched this yet - GO WATCH IT NOW!! For my money, it’s a hidden gem that offers something truly unique. Beneath the silliness lies a sly commentary on genre conventions, as the film gleefully skewers tropes while revelling in them at the same time.
So, if you’re in the mood for a film that’s equal parts twisted pantomime and gore-soaked fever dream, Funny Man is worth your time. Just don’t expect it to make senseðŸŽðŸ”ª
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(5 - A stunningly creative and insanely fun comedy horror)
Read my day-to-day film-watching review over here: https://letterboxd.com/Cleric20/
Recollections of Funnyman -- Dominic Hailstone
The Funny Man was the first feature film that myself and effects artist Duncan Jarman worked on.
Up until that point, we were both making shot-on-video horror films and doing odd fx jobs for fetish magazines, so we were both eager to cut our teeth on something more substantial.
It was probably the craziest film I’ve ever worked on in more ways than one.
Our boss was Neil Gorton, who now runs Millennium fx. He pulled us in to help but then graciously handed us the keys as he was busy on another job, so we effectively got to get a taste of what it was like to run an
actual show.
It was exceptionally hard work. Literally trying to figure out how to tackle the job, thrown in at the deep end, sink or swim stuff. Absolute hell, but I now look back on it fondly because we were basically left alone, something which is rare nowadays.
The film was directed and written by Simon Sprackling who whilst a lovely guy, isn’t one to spend money. At all! The film was made for next to nothing and the FX budget was about ten grand or so. In fact, we still haven’t been paid!
Because of this the crew weren’t exactly professional. There were a few pros there, but most of it was made up of a rag tag gang of characters that Simon knew. There was a lot of hash to smoke and beer to drink, so that smoothed things over.
The location was a huge, disused insane asylum -- Fairmile Hospital near Reading -- And the place was as spooky as you’d expect. It was like being part of a horror film it’s self, wandering the deserted, dusty halls and finding old medical records and implements. Quite disturbing stuff.
The stairwells all had nets, like a prison might, to stop people jumping off and there were various secret passages and odd rooms. The place was fully kitted out with bunks and showers like a military building, so we slept in a sort of barracks. It was often impossible to get sleep simply because of the amount of squeaky bed springs we’d hear when members of the crew were getting busy with each other.
There was also the very real problem of the patients coming back -- The ex-patients who used to live in asylum saw it as a place of comfort, and so they’d often escape their care and travel miles just to get back home. It’s very sad but what it meant was that you’d see these poor fellows wandering the grounds just wanting to come inside.
This understandably scared the crew. Our workshop was a few hundred yards away from the main building, and we used to giggle as the AD’s would come to visit us, act calm, then run like the clappers back to the main building terrified out of their skin.
Then, one night we heard commotion outside our workshop. The threat was real. A helicopter was buzzing and we were told us to get inside as a dangerous patient had escaped and was seen in the area. He was caught soon afterwards... Or was he? We never really knew.
It was a very dangerous location though. People were riding dirt bikes, van surfing and generally behaving like idiots most of the time. I almost lost some fingers due to a mishap with some piano wire and choked to death due to cyanide fumes at one point. This was on top of the constant Asbestos signs that we’d find everywhere and ignore.
Christopher Lee was the guest star in the film and the whole crew had dinner with him at the beginning of the shoot. My memory of him was that he sat at the head of a huge dinner table, a fire roaring at one end, talking endlessly. Simon the director dutifully listened to him as he got tireder and tireder and more and more drunk. I
was on LSD at the time though, and had better things to do.
Once the main shoot was over we relocated to Shepperton studios which made things much easier. Some extra money was thrown around and we got to add some more effects.
There was a old set there that was being used for a period drama and Simon wrangled a deal to blow it up. It’s always a lot of fun seeing things explode and I remember being impressed that Simon was basically able to take advantage of the set being there (it was going to get knocked down anyway) and add value to his film for very little money.
Proper Roger Corman stuff.
One of my fondest memories wasn’t about the film though, but a production that was working nearby.
When we were in the Shepperton pub, the doors opened and Béatrice Dalle, Betty Blue herself walked in. She was the pinup of the moment and the pub literally stopped dead as she sauntered through the bar swinging her
hips. The hilarious thing was though, that as soon as she entered we saw she had a train of about five men, all drooling, following her like dogs. In a few moments she was gone, smiling with all the confidence in
the world.
--
Read more about the film here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funny_Man_(film)
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