10 Horror Films That Aren't Talked About Enough

Mr Chance (played by Sir Christopher Lee) loses his ancestral home to Max Taylor in a game of poker. In defeat, Chance cryptically tells him: “you’re a funny man, Mister Taylor, but I’ve known funnier… and so will you.” It isn’t until Taylor and his family arrive to inspect their winnings that he discovers what Chance was referring to: the property is haunted by a mischievous, goblin-like court jester. Taylor’s brother is also en route to check the place out, accompanied by a camper van full of hitchhikers, blissfully unaware of what the Funny Man has in store for each of them.

Funny Man is most certainly not a good film, in fact Christopher Lee was reportedly mortified when he saw it, and disowned it. It’s baffling, though, that so few horror fans are aware of this film; the sheer, unrestrained craziness of it is entirely unlike any other horror-comedy. The film hardly has any narrative structure whatsoever, and is basically little more than a sequence of disturbing disguises, bad impression, mind-bogglingly stupid gags and ludicrous deaths. To put it bluntly, the whole film exists for the starring ‘comedian’, Tim James, to show off.

Despite all of this, it’s hard not to admire this film, even just a little bit. It might well have some deep, metaphorical meaning behind it, and the people who saw it were simply blind to its subtle genius; or perhaps (as is more likely) everybody involved was high.

It’s impossible to do justice to how much of an experience this film is – you really just have to watch it yourself (once only, and then burn the DVD).