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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Slasher > Funny Man (1994)

Funny Man (1994)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: C

 

 

In the late 1970s, Christopher Lee made the mistake of turning down the role Donald Pleasance eventually took in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978, reviewed elsewhere on this site) occasionally surfacing in later films in the “star slasher” cycle from the “slice and dice” films of the 1980s and beyond.  Simon Sprackling’s Funny Man is a later generation of such films and one of the dullest.

 

Lee owns a mansion a young record producer wins in a card game, but there is a joker in the deck almost literally as the place is haunted by a killer who may have been on drugs and/or had too much brain damage when watching old episodes of the game show The Joker’s Wild.  Unfortunately, any episode of that show has far more entertainment value than this mess, which does not have enough of Lee in it or anything new or original to offer.  The curious might be interested, but it is too bad the script is a few cards short of a full deck.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is not bad, but not great and shows its age.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has no real surrounds and the combination is just old enough to reflect the old cycle it comes from.  Extras include trailers, a Pop promo, making of featurette, Lee interview, original short version of the film, an audio commentary by the director and actor who played the title annoyance and an 8-page booklet featuring the director’s production diary.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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