When 8 celebrities from around the globe are invited to compete in an online reality show, they soon realize that they are playing for their very lives, as those voted off suffer horrific consequences, broadcast live to the entire world.
Human death games are a genre of horror that flourished in the last two decades. “Saw” really put the subgenre off to an incredible start with many highs. For every “Saw,” there are ten more “Saw V”’s and “Funhouse” fits squarely on the less interesting side of the spectrum. It rips in on internet stardom and reality TV personalities by forcing them to live in a house (get it? “Big Brother”?) and kill each other when someone’s voted off the island. It tries to come across as slick or nihilistic but reads more tone-deaf and shallow with narrow characters, thin plotting, and creativity that almost highlights its bare-bones budget.
I admit: I turned this off after thirty minutes. It wasn’t so awful I’d rather do something else, I simply have too busy a day to invest in a movie that otherwise didn’t hold my attention. “Funhouse”’s greatest sin is being mediocre enough to invite attention, but never good enough for my attention to last. Everything about this movie feels shallow and pedantic to the point of feeling more imitation than actual art. In gross terms, “Funhouse” feels like a “Black Mirror” episode the writers shelved after deciding it was too simple.
Jason William Lee’s third feature packs in as much angst and drama as an actual reality TV show, withholding carnage for as long as possible. Eight international third-tier celebrities all vie for five million dollars as they live their entire lives inside of one house while millions stream the show and vote for their favorites week after week. Each time someone gets voted off, they die in a gruesome mouse trap.
Each personality invited on this film seems almost a parody of similar third-tier celebrities. A rowdy Irish boxer, a YouTube commenter, former fashion models, Spanish gossip blog queens, and one sulking Dane (a Skarsgård no less.) I hate to admit it but these personalities come from a previous time when “Jersey Shore” ruled MTV and they don’t quite fit in the modern world. That’s why the near parodic levels of character on display here feel shallow and out of touch. Several of these characters feel like thin stereotypes written by an older Millennial. Sure they’re shallow in and of themselves, but few demonstrate anything more than mouthing pithy reminiscences that feign depth and show poor writing. The performances certainly don’t help.
There’s something ever-so-slightly off about the chemistry in this program. Whether it’s Valter Skarsgård pouting about (and somehow managing to not get voted last) or Christopher Gerard’s bright green hair completely taking me out of every scene he’s in the actors feel like they’re just warming up. Sure they don’t have a lot to work with, but the talent on display wears itself out quickly. The trouble is these characters feel like sophomoric attempts to lambast the more wild personalities in reality tv and mostly succeed in being ghostly shadows.
Much of the film screams “holier than thou” and I can tolerate the tone if it’s successful. Without much carnage or violence (so practical effects and stunts) to appreciate the film’s a lot of thin reality TV than an actual horror film. What violence I got in the first thirty minutes seemed to demonstrate the balancing act that was budgeting this film.
It started off strongly with some grisly knife sawing, but in the twenty-five minutes after, I gained next to nothing. I waited until the first real death to gauge if I would continue on with the film. Ultimately, I decided this wasn’t going to entertain or fulfill me so I decided to get more work done. I want to appreciate this film I just found little cause to invest in it. I hope the death sequences grow more elaborate and contrived or that bones break and blood spurts but what little I saw showed such a visual commitment to its budget it failed to cause any shock.
The film feels incredibly tight-budgeted due to its singular location and sparse use of deaths. It leaned heavily on its parodic characters to carry us in-between death sequences. Its cheap satire of our obsession with celebrity comes out of step with the current world of fame, feeling out of touch but from an era better left forgotten. Truthfully, if I wanted to watch reality stars be obnoxious and kill each other, I’d watch an actual reality TV show. I find much more to work with there than the hollow first thirty minutes of “Funhouse.”
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