After the one-two punch of emotional battery that was the bittersweet Sex is Zero and the disturbing propaganda of Triumph of the Will, I needed something good and simple to wind down. I followed up with my own one-two counter punch of X3: The Last Stand (COMICS!) and the absurdly silly slaughter of Simon Sprackling's FunnyMan. Drawing comparisons to both A Nightmare on Elm Street and Monty Python(!), I certainly went in expecting something completely ridiculous, over-the-top, and utterly brainless.

I certainly hit that nail right on the head. The best way to describe FunnyMan is cinematic meringue. Light and fluffy, and just sweet enough to make it enjoyable. However, can you imagine making a whole meal out of meringue? If any of you say “yes,” you're a revolting human being.

All kidding aside, FunnyMan is one of those films that works well for what it's trying to do: present a handful of pre-corpses to be massacred in a variety of goofy ways at the hands of the main monster, the titular FunnyMan. Unfortunately, that's really the whole plot. Sure there's the buildup, in which coke snorting record producer Max Taylor (Benny Young) wins the keys to the home of Callum Chance (the always enjoyable Christopher Lee) in a extremely high-stakes game of poker. Excited to have a dwelling in his home country of England (to match his two other homes), Taylor moves his family in almost immediately, despite the protests of his wife. “I'm too rich to be unhappy,” his wife whines, her snotty remark cementing her imminent death at the hands of the FunnyMan.

Which is one thing you really can't complain about. The film's got a remarkably terse, get-to-the-point attitude. There is no tension or fear being built: the FunnyMan is summoned within minutes by Taylor flicking a board-game spinner, which lands on the ominous LOSE. A little smoke and latex-stretching later, and the FunnyMan is on the loose, ready to do in anyone who crosses his path. Which is certainly the high point of the film. When the demonic jester, played with vicious glee by Tim James, marks someone for death you know it's going to be enjoyable. Between the absurdity and irony, James mugs for the camera, breaking down the fourth wall and talking to the viewer. When he electrocutes the daughter with a car battery in a twisted parody of her ever-present Game Boy headphones, he peers into the lens, peels down an eyelid and snorts “Notice the concern.” He becomes a football goalie that snatches severed heads out of the net, a grotesquely bosomy stripper, a sombrero-wearing gunslinger, and so much more.

But when you really could care less about any of these soon-to-be-victims, the shtick tends to grow stale. Every moment that the FunnyMan isn't on screen becomes laborious, as these people that you genuinely want to die (and the sooner, the better) begin to grate on your nerves or simply turn you off with how weird they are. Sure, the woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Velma from Scooby-Doo (even more so than Linda Cardellini in the recent flicks) is amusing enough as a one-note sight gag, but they could've run with it much further. Instead, we get stoners, perverts, and The Psychic Commando.

The Psychic Commando, played by Pauline Black of The Selector (a second-wave British ska band), is a Jamaican blaxploitation princess who reads tarot cards and smokes cigars. Already an odd character to say the least. However, she then injects some sort of drug into her hand, which makes it split apart like Benny from Total Recall and sprout some form of small rocket launcher which she uses to pepper the FunnyMan with incendiary rounds. It's bizarre to the point that I actually found myself enjoying the movie less for it, simply because it made no sense whatsoever. Was it some inside joke that I wasn't in on? Somehow, I guess a purple-clad Cleopatra Jones knockoff with a missile-hand is lost on me.

Subversive Cinema's treatment of this lost oddity, however, isn't questionable in the least. Despite the cheap, rather damaged stock, the transfer itself is clean and bold, with rich colors that pop off the screen...very important in a film this visually bright and colorful. The stereo soundtrack was clear, although the this British accents led to some difficulty in understanding some of the dialogue. Extras on this one are certainly the high point, however. We're given an amusing commentary by Sprackling and Tim James, an interview with Christopher Lee (in one hell of a white suit), a few trailers, and the original short on which the feature length was based. Interestingly enough, the short seems to work better than the 90-minute version, mixing some genuinely creepy scenes (the FunnyMan's hide-and-seek with Taylor's son is oddly chilling) with a slightly more serious tone. It shows that, despite its refreshing silliness, FunnyMan might have worked better with some of its cheekiness reined in. Most fascinating of all, however, is the eight-page booklet reprinting Sprackling's production diary, and what a troubled production the movie was. Given the frequency in which Spracking discusses the drunkenness of his cast and crew, I expected it to come out much worse. As it stands, it's an amusing oddity, but far from being truly memorable. If all of the jokes had been held together with the glue of plot or conflict, it would've been a classic.