Director: Michael A. Simpson
Written by: Michael A. Simpson, Bonnie Turner & Terry Turner
Starring: William Windom, David L. Lander, Bruce Mahler, Robert Sacchi, Clark Brandon, Jill Carroll, Michael McManus
Music by: James Oliverio
Taglines: “Welcome to the abusement park.”
“They stole the park and his job… He wants them both back!”
SYNOPSIS
Neil Stickney works as a clown for the Funland amusement park under the name of Bruce Burger. He also used to be the park accountant, but he suffered a nervous breakdown and started calling himself Bruce, and seems to pretty much believe he is the character he plays. He and his “sidekick”, a hand puppet name Peter Pepperoni are tolerated only because the founder of the park still has a soft spot for him, despite the fact that a much more popular version of Bruce plays on a national level.
After the founder is found dead, the park is sold off to a company with Mafia roots who decide to change the park to a much more exploitative design. They also replace Stickney with the national version of the character, a stuck-up “serious” actor who hates the job. Spurred on by various manifestations of his own broken mind, Stickney decides to take drastic action to save the park from the hands of the Mob.
OPINION
The biggest problems with Funland are that it’s a victim of both circumstance and misleading promotion. You wouldn’t know it from the posters above, but Funland is much more of a comedy than a horror or thriller, with the revenge/horror elements not really coming into play until the climax. Sure, there’s a few hints that Stickney isn’t right in the head, and that he is likely to snap, but the tone of the movie doesn’t really go down that path until very late.
What we get until then is a rather broad, silly comedy following the exploits of not only Stickney but the people surrounding him in the park. So, teen staff members play pranks on each other, we get “gangsters” too broadly stereotypical to be threatening (think Fat Tony’s gang from The Simpsons) and various hallucinations as Stickney tries to fight his inner demons – eventually teaming up with the ghost of his dead boss and wax dummy of Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca! Add that to the fact that it shares a title with a classic (albeit yet unfilmed) Funland, and the audience is set up for disappointment.
To be fair, if you know what you’re in for, it’s not too bad. It shares the look and feel of many low budget comedies of the 80s, and the script is OK. It’s extremely uneven and never really finds its own identity, but it’s decent enough was of time if you’re in the right mood… Director Michael A Simpson went on to direct the fairly well-received and similarly tongue-in-cheek Sleepaway Camp 2 & 3, both starring Pamela Springsteen. I’ll throw up reviews of both of those when I get the chance, but for my money they’re a little better than this outing.
Rating: 
TRAILER
Actually, I couldn’t find the trailer for this movie, so here’s a clip that demonstrates the movie perfectly…