I was good enough to give Simon and his motley crew a grounding at Tollcross Community Centre in Edinburgh to make the trailer for a spoof Bond movie, "A view to a Shandy", in the 1980s, which turned out to be a load of rubbish like this film. Simon has admirable leadership skills but fails to realise that his writing and directing abilities fall far short of what is required to be successful in the film industry.Barry Norman was right. And if Simon had not annoyed Barry so much at the Cannes Film Festival, he may have been less acerbic regarding what he described as one of the worse film.Typical Simon. Suicidal anti-critical baloney. The film was crap, Simon. The Police Sergeant in "Doctors" actually got a line from another character, "You are a 'funny man'". That, perhaps, was the closest you got to success. And you never said thanks, Drew.And Pauline still owes me a tenner. If she is still with you and still worried about you cutting your scrotum until it bleeds (and she held tightly onto me as you did that in public at night club "gastallweekendo") , tell her she still owes me £6.45, plus interest. ie a tenner.Funny Man is a load of rubbish.Simon, I wish you had allowed your real strengths to trust others to decide what was best. You lost sight of your own abilities and became confused. You were never a creative person. You were a leader. Like your father.Sorry to say all that. I really liked you Simon but you never really liked yourself. That was clear.

This film needed polishing. It just never seems to get going. although maybe that is the point. I would have preferred to have some deeper explanation than Christopher Lee playing cards in an asylum.The victims are so stupid, it could have been set in Troma land. I would have hoped that the victims would at least put up a fight and not just sit / stand there and take it. We don't care about the victims (which is not necessarily a bad thing). Unfortunately, there is little encouragement to side with the Jester and we are merely observers in someone's wandering vision.In 10 years time, maybe someone will remake it and put more emphasis behind the ideas and give the film some impetus.

We now investigate the case of Funny Man. This movie tries to be a horror take on "The Mask" which if handled correctly could have been cool however the movie jumps around way to much and is way to uneven to be considered good. The "story" (and I use that term loosely) is about a man who looses at a game of cards (one of my favorite horror actors Christopher Lee) and his house in the process. The house itself is a family house that has been passed down from generation to generation and appears to have an otherworldly presence that goes along with it known as The Funny Man.The movie under normal circumstances could have been good however the director and those involved tended this to be a hodge podge of sporadic moments that try to be funny but for the most part just come out as ho hum. I did like the Funny Man character and the guy playing him did a good job but this movie was just so random in parts that even that could not help.In the end this movie is just a plain and simple miss. despite some OK kills that happen the rest of the film just didn't do a thing for me. In the end Funny Man gets the not so funny score of: 4/10 Below Average, just a missed opportunity to make and interesting comedy splat fest. The movie is not a total bag of crap but you better be really desperate for entertainment or have some kind of Joker Fetish to really pick this movie over all the other fine horror films that are out there. Watch this for the main character only and don't try to make much since of things and you will have a better time than most.

As long as you get the original UK uncut VHS version this film it is a treat for those who appreciate a very typically British sense of humour.The film presents us with at least 8 loathsome stereotypes who are humorously dispatched by our anti-hero Funnyman.In the full version of the film (not available in the US as I found to my cost when I ordered the DVD from some place in Chicago) the violent scenes are a campy gore fest accompanied by suitably humorous music, in the cutting down of those scenes for the US market much of the humour is lost to the cutting room floor.Unfortunately it seems that the authorities responsible for censoring movies in the US find the humour a little TOO violent for American Sensibilities (Something that I am sure many Americans would disagree with had they been given the opportunity to see this film in its entirety).This is a cult movie of the first order, not everybody's taste in comedy (which is what gives it its cult movie status) but certainly a movie that is unworthy of deletion and unworthy of the philistine cutting room in the US censors office.Like the comment on the VHS and DVD cover of Funnyman says "He's cheeky and he's cruel" and sometimes cruelty is involved in humour to deny that is to deny humour of which this film is Jammed packed full from the very simple humour of slapstick to the more cerebral humour of irony, farce and parody.If you are going to venture a rental or a buy, make sure that you go for the uncut / uncensored version it is infinitely more funny.This is a film that works well if you are familiar with Britain and British culture, if you don't know who Jimmy Saville is or are so out of touch with Britain that you think any of the accents employed by the characters were "Cockney" (Which none of them were) then clearly you will not understand the gags or parodies and can be forgiven for your lack of appreciation for them.Additional Background Information of Interest:Whether or not Simon Sprackling based the Funny Man character on an old English legend is not known but people who view this film should be aware that there was a real life funny man counterpart in history, his name was "Thomas Skelton" (Tom Fool) and he was the Jester and Sheriff to the Pennington family.Legend has it that Thomas would often be seen sitting at a tree on the roadway waiting for travellers to go by, he would then engage them in conversation and decide whether or not he liked them, the unfortunate travellers that Tom decided he didn't like he directed towards the local marshes and quicksands where they would meet their grizzly fates.Thomas Skelton (Tom Fool) died around 1600 and gave the phrase "Tomfoolery" to the English language even being cited as the inspiration behind the Jester in Shakespeares King Lear.Today Mucaster Castle in Cumbria claims to be the home of Thomas's Ghost who is apparently every bit as mischievous today as he always was.I would rather like to think that the inspiration for Funny Man came from this ancient legend than from some Hollywood garbage, something others unfamiliar with the legend might find hard to believe, but life did exist before Hollywood and Hollywood is NOT the ONLY source of inspiration to those with access to other cultural sources.Thomas Skelton was the original Psychotic Jester predating "Freddie Krugger" by a mere 400+ years and predating the USA by a mere 200.