Funland (1987)

Oh man look at that cover!  Clowns are scary and this one looks insane and has a gun!  And it's set in an amusement park?  Killer clowns at an amusement park, this must be great right?  No, it's fucking horrible and I hate the lovely poster art this movie has cause of how misleading it is.

 This represents how watching this movie feels.

Funland is a very weird movie, and right away it's clear that whoever tried to market this film was trying to fool people into picking it up.  Besides the misleading cover, the movie was often classified in the horror section of video stores.  The only horror is what you will feel watching this.  The movie has also been classified as action and comedy, which this movie really is nothing of the sort and some studio execs clearly knew they had no idea how to market this turkey.  Bizarre is the only description one could give this film. 

Meeting our rapping cafeteria workers..... before the dance number... what the f.....

So the basic story of the movie follows our star clown named Bruce Burger, and his talking pepperoni stick puppet.  Hey wait, that clown with the talking pepperoni is Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley!  Yea it's kind of off putting and the tone of the film in general is one that seems to be really corny comedy.  Is it supposed to be a kids movie or at some point was and then they decided to try and put some serious elements into it?  Bruce is sort of loved by the kids and the park?  It's hard to tell because it seems like everyone just tolerates this goofball. All the characters are overacting stereotypes, everyone is clearly not playing a serious role in this.  At one point the cafeteria of employees break out into a dance number out of nowhere while out main character seems to be oblivious to it all.  I've read it described as a dark comedy, but the movie is not dark enough, nor funny enough to be classified as either.  Bruce Burger is basically the mascot of the park and clearly not sane.  Bruce is invested mentally into his clown character in an unhealthy manner.   

OMG where is the killer clown when we need him!

The main plot of the movie kicks off when the head of the amusement park (which is Six Flags BTW) dies, and new ownership takes control.  The problem being the new owners is the mob.  So we have super stereotype Italian mobsters coming into the park to take control because that's what they do.  I guess it's supposed to be funny how these badly acted Godfather rejects fail to understand how to run an amusement park, but it's just all cringe worthy Brando and Deniro impersonations.  Anyways the point of it all is just an excuse to push aside Bruce Burger out of the park to be replaced by new mascots.  Like Milton from Office Space, the new owners of the park can't seem to get rid of Bruce and they keep trying to make his life hell in an attempt to get him to leave, but eventually they just push Bruce too far!

Bozo: First Blood

Bruce Burger is mentally unstable and besides talking to his pepperoni, he starts getting visitors from famous dead movie stars. We meet all kinds of bad impersonators that live in Bruce's head as Burger undergoes a descent into madness akin to Apocalypse Now.  Or I was the one going mad watching this piece of crap.  The acting is awful and overall this felt like it was a TV movie with how it was shot and general look of it all.  All the comedy falls flat and what at times felt like a bad kids movie takes a turn when suddenly Bruce Burger gets ahold of a gun from one of the mob mooks. Oh boy the movie is going to go into a murderous frenzy just like the poster art promise!  Nope.

YES DO IT!  UNLEASH THE DOGS OF WAR!

The built up rampage really falls flat and nothing really happens, and pretty much one bad guy is killed by accident essentially.  Some shooting happens but no one really gets hurt.  Even the climatic killer clown in the tower segment goes sour when Bruce's pepperoni starts to try and talk him out of it. Yep, puppet pepperoni cock blocks the climax.  The movie is total shit and it fails at doing anything good besides having a cool box cover.  I want my 98 minutes of life I wasted on this one back!