For a movie about stand-up comedians, not to mention from a frequent Mel Brooks collaborator, The Funny Farm is stunningly unfunny. Ron Clark’s Farm withers in such a laughter drought, Willie Nelson could stage a benefit concert. It’s also not to be confused with the 1988 Chevy Chase vehicle Funny Farm, but should you accidentally stumble on that instead of this, good on you.

Our alleged protagonist, 20-year-old Mark (Miles Chapin, French Postcards), leaves home to chase fame and fortune in the titular L.A. comedy club. Actually shot in Canada, the pic never lets you forget his Midwest origins. Like a frickin’ psychopath, the beady-eyed Mark approaches strangers throughout the film with an extended hand and a hearty “Mark Champlin! Cleveland, Ohio!” On the street, in parking lots, inside places of business, he does this to everybody. Honestly, he’d be more effective selling Amway than trying his hand at the mic. 

You’ll find him annoying as soon as he unleashes his Groucho Marx impression with no warning, invisible cigar and all; this happens in the first true scene. That dislike will increase with each groaner that passes his lips: “You’ve heard of Best Western? I’m at Worst Western!” By the time he charms the club’s clumsy waitress (Tracey E. Bregman, Happy Birthday to Me) into bed with the words “boppo sock ’em,” you may want to die.

Because The Funny Farm thinks itself to be a ribald bundle of high jinks, it needs a villain. That falls to Private Benjamin’s Eileen Brennan as the tight-fisted club manager. Assumedly a Mitzi Shore analogue, she’s (mis)treated as an ersatz Dean Wormer. On and off the Funny Farm stage, we’re asked to root for its roster of comics, including Howie Mandel, Peter Aykroyd and Maurice LaMarche, yet none of them are funny. Worse, these guys are never not performing. They won’t shut up.

Undaunted, Clark leans hard on showcasing their sets at length because he’s got to will this thing into theaters. Several bits he chooses to spotlight had to smell past their expiration date even at the time, from Richard Nixon and Howard Cosell to Fantasy Island and Midnight Express. Nonetheless, constant cutaways to Mark’s amazed mug try to convince us the punchlines are golden. What they really are is something of a horror show, befitting of producer Pierre David, the money man behind the Scanners franchise. —Rod Lott

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You know folk horror has enjoyed a cultural moment when it’s earned a parody. For the UK comedy Get Away, Shaun of the Dead sidekick Nick Frost gives it just that, scripting himself in the lead role as the patriarch of a family on summer holiday. They’re headed to Svälta, a Swedish island commune days away from its decennial festival commemorating a 19th-century incident that turned its inhabitants either into corpses or cannibals. The main event: a reenactment, of course.

Despite every frickin’ red flag unfurled, hoisted and erratically waved inches from their faces, the family of four rents an Airbnb on the otherwise stuck-in-the-past isle. The cottage’s owner is a pervy, Roman Polanski lookalike (Eero Milonoff, Border) who has eyes for their daughter (newcomer Maisie Ayres).

You can see where this is going: The Wicker Man meets National Lampoon’s Vacation. Except Frost and screen wife Aisling Bea (Home Sweet Home Alone) are both Clark Griswold, with their longtime-spouse interactions giving Get Away an immediate leg up for laughs. Their marriage as well-worn as a college sweatshirt, they call each other “Mummy” and “Daddy,” much to the disgust of their son (Sebastian Croft of Netflix’s Heartstopper series). Frost may be the draw, but Bea, a deadpan delight, stakes her claim as Get Away’s winsome secret weapon.

Get Away suffers whenever those two aren’t front and center. This is especially true with the Festival of Karantän — essentially the Svältans’ bloodier, duckier version of Christianity’s passion play — which director Steffen Haars (New Kids Turbo) allows to overstay its welcome by half. The overstuffed sequence then gives way to a polarizing loop-de-loop in plotting, depicted with enough pulverizing excess — underneath Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” on the soundtrack, no less — to make your head spin in disbelief as the movie becomes something else.

With this redirect, Get Away gets away from itself. After a strong hour, that shift qualifies as a misstep. Unfortunately, the movie never regains its footing, losing not only the goodwill it worked so hard to build, but much of its sense of humor. In particular, Frost’s last line just before the credits roll is a real groaner, so many rungs lower than the film’s established place on the comedic ladder, it’s embarrassing. —Rod Lott