Anybody want to hear a joke? What did the deranged, psychopathic masked murderer say to his helpless victim?
“Say something funny…”
Okay, that wasn’t a very funny joke, but it really isn’t intended to be because those are the last words that countless victims heard in writer/director Jake Barsha’s “The Funny Man,” a ten-episode horror web series produced by Daily Motion and Right Hook Films.
Originally, “The Funny Man” began as a feature length screenplay of the same title. “I had this idea for this story about a serial killer, kind of a comedian who is also a killer. And that eventually became ‘The Funny Man,’” Barsha told LAHorror.com. And though the title suggests it’s humorous, don’t be fooled. This is a super gory horror show that isn’t afraid to pull any punches. You’d be surprised how many people you can kill in just ten short episodes.
This was not Barsha’s first plunge into the macabre. After directing his first feature film,“Eugene,” he went on to create a web-series entitled “Leidy’s New Boyfriend,” another creepy show about a psychopathic woman who meets the boy of her dreams. Naturally, she locks him up in her basement and keeps him as her captive.
It was then that the door opened for Barsha to make “The Funny Man.” “Around 2010, I made a video content, like a web series, called “Leidy’s New Boyfriend,” and it was about a guy who gets kidnapped by a woman and held in the basement, and she basically captures him as her new boyfriend. And this company called Daily Motion found “Leidy’s Boyfriend” on Youtube and asked if I would upload it on to Daily Motion…I did, and somehow, I think I put out a newsletter or something describing “The Funny Man” or what I was up to and somehow they got wind of it, and they contacted me and asked me if I wanted to make it into a web series…they were basically offering to finance it.”
After some creative re-writes and adaptation, Barsha took his feature film script and made it into an episodic format. And with the help of Daily Motion, production for “The Funny Man” began. In just three short weeks, Barsha and his crew shot and edited the entire series. It premiered on line last fall during Halloween, and since then has garnished over 250,000 hits. The series has also recently won five awards at the Los Angeles Web Festival, including Best Director and Best Horror Series.
“I’m super excited that it was received well, that people seem to like it a lot, and that’s really motivating because I really want to do some more stuff…I think that there’s a lot of horror material out there and there’s a lot of people making horror and doing stuff, but it’s such a dynamic genre to think creatively, you know, to really think about different ways to do something or different ways to make something scary…It’s a really exciting platform to lend your energy to,” Barsha said.
The energy that “The Funny Man” delivers is intense; it’s raw and its, well, not very funny.
Watch “The Funny Man.” For more information on Jake Barsha and Right Hook Films, please visit their official website. You can also connect with “The Funny Man” on Facebook as well as “The Funny Man” blog. Please read LAHorror.com’s full review of “The Funny Man” here.
LAHorror.com 