Clowning Around (and around, and around, and around…)

Back in my teenage years, my friends found it ridiculous that I found clowns terrifying. If there’s one good thing about the cultural shifts of the new millennium, it’s that the world has finally accepted the very obvious truth that, you know, clowns are creepy.

Quick Plot: It’s Halloween night, and a college partiers Tara and Dawn are a little too drunk to drive home. Responsibly, they head to a small pizza joint to sober up, only to find themselves followed by a silent but flirty clown (possibly named Art). It’s an unsettling way to chew through a slice, but they slink back to their car (conveniently parked in front of an abandoned, rat-infested apartment building), leaving Art behind to chop his way through the two disgruntled employees.

What follows is a cat-and-multiple-mice chase throughout this randomly empty slum. In addition to Tara and Dawn, there’s Tara’s hard-studying sister Victoria, a homeless woman believing a doll to be her child, and a friendly, if dim exterminator with extremely limited survival instincts.

That latter detail is true of everyone in Terrifier, Damien Leone’s expansion of an earlier short film. While Tara shows early signs of being a competent final girl, she also has the tragic horror movie disease of always running from an injured villain whom she could easily end with one extra stab. This is true of every single character in Terrifier, and it becomes genuinely exhausting.

Serious flaw aside, Leone’s film is fun in a gross, mean way. So long as you head into it knowing you’re going to see ridiculously cruel acts of torture at the hands of a possibly supernaturally powered clown, you’re getting what expect.

High Points

As Art (if that IS his name), David Howard Thornton takes the token creepy clown to incredible levels. The makeup design is on point, but Thornton’s facial expressions and movement style are what truly sell Art as a nightmare

Low Points

I meant what I said earlier. I’m usually the first person to defend a film when an audience member complains about a character’s lack of survival instinct, but when not one or two but THREE would-be victims in Terrifier witness Art brutally murder someone, then temporarily disable him to the point where he’s knocked down for at least a few minutes, only to then, you know, LIMP AWAY even though it’s already been established that there’s no easy way out of this horror house, it’s hard to still care

Lessons Learned

Just because a horror movie coroner isn’t seen eating a sandwich doesn’t mean he won’t immediately request one, preferably with bacon

Possibly the least responsible lesson to ever be learned, but ultimately, the theme of the movie: if choosing between driving home while intoxicated and getting away from a creepy silent clown making eyes at you, stick to the speed limit and hope for the best

Rusty saws are incredibly effective at sawing through solid bone with the speed and smoothness of a Ginju slicing through a tomato

Wacky Credits

Two things jump out in wonderful, very different ways:

Though I know “Music By Paul Wiley” does not mean Olympic silver medalist figure skater Paul Wylie changed the spelling of his name and composed the score, it’s nice to dream that Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie has retired to a life of writing music for cheap killer clown flicks

Meet the Falcones, a busy family who get credited here for acting producing, stunt driving, props, makeup, and, you guessed it, catering

Rent/Bury/Buy

Terrifier is streaming on Netflix, and if you want to fill 80 minutes with some solid clown horror, it fits a certain bill. Just accept that humanity is incredibly dumb, that clowns are intellectually superior, and that bones are very fragile. 

When the Spelling of Your Title Is the Most Interesting Thing About Your Movie

One can never judge a straight-to-streaming horror film by its cover, but that certainly doesn't stop many a viewer from watching one because it has a good one.

Then you watch it, and remember the adage goes two ways.

Quick Plot: Jo is in a bit of a slump, having lost her track scholarship due to an injury and her faith in her boyfriend after learning that he cheated on her. Now, she spends most of her time arguing with her parents, running, or not paying attention to the two little boys she babysits.

One afternoon, Jo notices Elliot, the younger of her charges, fleeing the ice cream man in mysterious fear. Considering her wears clown makeup, it's not hard to understand why, although Willie, as he calls himself, takes things a little further with a racist puppet show and some creepy overtones to Jo.

Before you know it--well, after a whole lot of nothing, actually--young Elliot disappears right under Jo's negligent watch. Ben, Jo's ex, is convinced that the same shady ice cream man was last seen in the same fateful late where Elliot's shoes (but not body) were discovered. Could this unbalanced dairy lover be a child-killing, ex-high-school-track-star-stalking murderer?

Describing Kruel with the above synopsis has probably led you to picture a fairly standard horror movie. In reality, what you get is essentially a Lifetime flick with maybe 8 oz. more blood.

Written and directed by Robert Henderson, Kruel is ultimately more about a young woman dealing with the fallout from being betrayed by her high school sweetheart. A good 70% of this film's running time is spent on Jo trying to work through her feelings and Ben attempting to win her back.

And then there's sorta an obsessive unhinged one quarter clown.

No, it's not good, especially as the horror movie its cover and marketing sells it to be. That aside, if you're looking for a light thriller about, well, dealing with unfaithfulness in relationships, this is a movie and things happen in it.

High Points
The film is shot well. Lead actress Kierney Nelson works hard. It's a movie. Things happen in it.

Low Points
...just not many things of interest

Lessons Learned
Never get kidnapped in short shorts if you're going to be running through the Okefenokee swamp

Being cheated on hurts, but being hunted by a psychotic clown ice cream man is a whole lot worse

If a conversation continues so long that it turns into a montage, it just may give a kidnapper enough time to swipe a child right out from under you

Rent/Bury/Buy
Unless you've recently ended a relationship because you caught your significant other with someone else and you really feel you need to consider what that means, this is not the movie for you.

Party Favor Mix Bag

As linking stories in a horror anthology go, "clicking on a website to watch short films" has got to be one of the lazier excuses to tie a few segments together. But hey, when one of those segments involves a kid from High School Musical trading in his trademark Justin Guarini perm for a homicidal clown afro, things can't be all bad.

Quick Plot, Web Video #1: In "The Crossing," a pair of crass white power infused rednecks truck it down to the border with a somewhat reluctant gal in tow. The plan? Empty the two Mexican-Americans in their trunk and do bad things, stopping along the way to make (what I assume to be) unrequested free advertising for Beef Links Jerkey, Cheetos, Marlboro cigarettes, Red Bull, and Smuckers Goobers, of which we learn an important trick for getting some extra flavor from moonshine.

Also, there are zombies.

Quick Plot, Web Video #2: Anthologies are generally tricky beasts to summarize, since their short running length almost forces you to say the usually obligatory twist just to crank out a full sentence. Normally, I'd refrain from doing such a thing, but since "Taejung's Lament" is such a dull and pointless yarn, I will SPOIL without too much regret: a sad widower wanders the Korean section of LA, saves a lady of the night from abuse, discovers she's a vampire, and Van Helsing shows up.

I'd like to say I'm kidding. 

I'd like to say nachos grow on trees and subway prices are going down.

I'd like to say a lot of things.

Quick Plot, Web Video #3:Told out of sequence for reasons clear to...someone maybe..., "Re-Membered" follows a hitman attempting to dispose of a few loose ends (I'm here all week! Try the Anne Veal!). It has a few laughs and an engaging performance from lead Christopher Darga, but for its brief running time, "Re-Membered" is surprisingly confusing.

Quick Plot, Web Video #4: Easily Scary or Die's MVP, "Clowned" tells the tale of Emmett, a casual drug dealer with a loyal devotion to his kid brother and the ill luck of being attacked by a rabid party performer. Before you can unsee that topless photo of Vanessa Hudgens, Emmett is turning a cakey shade of white, developing a serious case of Sideshow Bob shoe, and fighting a craving for the sweet taste of children's flesh. It's Metamorphosis with bigger noses, and surprisingly, incredibly enjoyable from its ominous opening to its final comic punch.

Quick Plot, Web Video #5: We're not kidding when we say quick. In 90% less time than it takes to be waiting in line at Marshall's, we learn the story of a young woman whose husband beat her to death, whereupon she remembered the skills of her witch doctor grandfather and came back from the grave for vengeance and to, well obviously, watch a bunch of videos on a website called ScaryOrDie.com. Frame!

The brainchild of Michael Emmanuel, Scary Or Die falls prey to the typical symptoms that plague anthology films: uneven tones and the token mixed bag of quality. Thankfully, its midsection is genuinely enjoyable, making the slog through the second story (and discomfort of the greasy first) worth it. While there are subtle tie-ins that try to duplicate the skillful interweavings in Trick 'r Treat, Scary Or Die never quite rises to being clever as a whole (especially when one actor shows up in a completely different role in a later segment).

Still, for a new horror anthology to hit Instant Watch and not make me hate the world (cough cough VHS), Scary Or Die is a fun collection well fit for a lazy afternoon.

High Points

There's a reason "Clowned" gets the box cover, and it's just because most people are just, you know, afraid of clowns. While the narration style makes it a little uneven, the blend of comedy ("I can't believe you got bit by a clown") and horror (an eerie dream sequence won't have you taking your little brother for picnics any time soon) is surprisingly well done. This could easily have been expanded into a full-length feature, and it's almost a shame that it's buried here.

As a fully supportive member of the Verbing Nouns Club, I embrace the titling of segment 4 as "Clowned"

Low Points

Was I supposed to laugh out loud at "Taejung's Lament"'s final shot? Also, was I supposed to hate the story?

Lessons Learned

Cheap razors are not the ideal tool for shaving off supernatural clown makeup

Being puked on by your dealer entitles you to one free transaction

When not munching on racists, zombies enjoy killing an hour or so by surfing alternative youtube sites

Rent/Bury/Buy

As a 90 minute Instant Watch, Scary Or Die is quite akin to a bag of Chex Mix. If you can separate and skip the lame circular pretzels (Taejung's Lament) and not pay too much attention to the square ones (The Crossing), there's some mild pleasure to be found in the actual Chex (Re-Membered) and genuine joy in those big 'n spicy bagel chip things (aka Clowned; I guess Lover's Walk is the air inside the bag in this metaphor). Those who like to complain about modern horror will probably find plenty to complain about, but if you're looking for something a little different from the usual slasher fare, this is more than worth a gander.

Oh, Canada

Martyn Burke’s The Clown Murders is one of those titles that gets tossed around horror movie discussions for two reasons:

-It features a killer dressed like a clown

-It costars a young Canadian named John Candy

Both of these reasons would be valid motivation for seeking out a film. And yet...

Quick Plot: After an extended game of polo, a group of wealthy men with a complicated history (or not? I DON’T KNOW) come up with a dastardly plan for Halloween night. Philip, a work-obsessed lawyer with a bad back, Rosie, a silver spoon-fed jerk with a girl’s name, and Ollie, a John Candy with a sandwich glued to his hands, conspire to dress like circus clowns and help world traveler Charlie kidnap his ex-girlfriend Allison just long enough so she can’t help her entrepreneurial new husband sign some time-sensitive papers at midnight to sell her farm to greedy land developers.

Or maybe that didn’t happen. I mean, what business deal takes place at midnight? And not a minute after? As if there’s a slim window before the harvest moon experiences a lunar eclipse when any signature is rendered obsolete? It doesn’t make sense, you know? And truth be told, characters mumble in this film with less clarity than Liv Tyler in a library, so for all I know, the actual plot involved a chess tournament or creating the perfect recipe for tiramisu.

Mmmm...tiramisu

Assuming that the movie is indeed about the detected plot, it still makes zero logical sense. After the men HILARIOUSLY kidnap Allison and beat up her husband, it doesn’t take more than one newscast to reveal the authorities are, shockingly enough, taking this quite seriously. Rather than go to the police to say “Hey, we played a realllllllly stupid joke and are sorry,” (even though their ‘victim’ is the one who suggests it) the men decide to suspiciously retreat to Allison’s secluded farmhouse and build tension amongst themselves for the rest of the night, occasionally pausing to satisfy monstrous little trick-or-treaters, have super confusing flashbacks in Barbara Walters’ fog filter, or make a fat joke at John Candy’s expense.

Oh, and also, at about 90 minutes into the running time, to elude the level 1 Boy Scout traps of a crazed clown killer whose identity is adorably foreshadowed earlier by a bombastic score and the fact that said suspect is constantly shown cutting the heads off of chickens.

There’s also an Irish leprechaun playing the part of the farmer’s very Irish caretaker.

And did I mention John Candy likes to eat?

Seriously, the last point cannot be ignored. I do not exaggerate when I say that every single line said by or directed at Ollie involves food, be it croissants, doughnuts, peanuts, or a giant ham sub. The only exception? When Ollie sees a light in the distance. That’s not food related at all! Except when Rosie points out that Ollie is probably just spotting a refrigerator door that is opened, and you know what’s inside refrigerators? FOOD THAT FAT OLLIE CAN EAT!

Yup, this is a strange film. And a fairly terrible one, at least based on what dialogue I could make out. Even looking past the film’s lack of technical quality, we’re still stuck with a meandering storyline that spins its rusty wheels until it randomly decides to do something about its horror movie classification. It doesn’t do it well, but at least something actually happens.

Eventually.

High Points

You know, men dressed like clowns is always KIND of creepy, even when the men are stupid and the clowns set traps that Franklin Delano Roosevelt could probably elude

Low Points

Oh goodness. The fact that this is a terrible movie. That’s about it

Lessons Learned

Cars are not picnic tables (though they’ll work in a pinch)

Nothing ruins a party quite like an unexpected  kidnapping

In Canada, cops trust the men they arrest to just seat themselves in the backseat of police cars

John Candy REALLY likes to eat

The Winning Line

“I can’t figure out what’s going on,” says a befuddled police chief upon The Clown Murders’ finale. Was ever a more meta line of dialog spoken? I think not

Rent/Bury/Buy

Gluttons for punishment will find plenty to enjoy in The Clown Murders, be it horrifically unlikable characters in extreme closeup, barely audible dialogue, a plot that a toddler could probably rewrite more sensibly, or a gloriously WTF ending that solves nothing. This is a terrible film, one that seems to wander around dumb character decisions until it gets more bored than its audience and decides, ‘hey, I’ll just be a horror movie! It’s not too late!’ 

It’s not too late, it’s just still bad.

In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki House of Fears

Time and time it’s been proven that if you dangle a movie poster involving a psychotic clown on my Netflix Instant Watch menu, I will watch it. 

House of Fears continues to support that theory.

Quick Plot: Somewhere in Africa, a man and woman find a funky monkey statue artifact amid a cave of corpses. 

It gets through customs.

Back in the states, newly united stepsisters Haily and Samantha attend a typical high school party where the trendily named Carter and Zane convince them and a make-out-happy couple to change things up by sneaking into the local funhou--er, I mean, haunted house. Once there, the doors lock them inside and guess what? The house proves to be--sit down folks--REALLY haunted.

Blame it all on a The Brady Bunch Goes to Hawaii style African tiki. Before you can say surfing accident, our pretty young heroes are being chased by bald vampires, ugly clowns, nasty scarecrows and sand. 

And that’s about all there is to say of the storyline inside House of Fears, a slick but decent little horror movie that makes good use of its naturally memorable beasties. Sure, it’s really just a simple way to throw out a few moments of  evil clown giggles and electrocution, but sometimes, that’s all a film really calls for and House of Fears delivers it without too many complications.

High Points

Hey, any film that units clowns AND scarecrows to kill pretty young people with stupid names like Zane can’t be that bad, right?

Low Points

The constant harping to call the lead actress ‘the dowdy one’ would have been even mildly more effective if actress Corri English didnt’ bare such a striking resemblance to a still-pretty Crossroads era Britney Spears

Lessons Learned

When hanging out in an actual haunted haunted house, try to avoid revealing any major life secrets that might make your inevitable death a tad more painful, such as “I’m absolutely terrified of dying by suffocation.” That will come back to you, no matter how shiny your hair may be

“I say we just go back to your house and make out” might SOUND sexy in your head, but saying it out loud will most certainly lead instead to a group date

Dates don’t generally appreciated being swapped halfway through the date

Rent/Bury/Buy

House of Fears does nothing overly special, but it does most of itself quite well for a straight-to-DVD horror film. It’s about on par with another clown-stalking-pretty-people film, Amusement, a movie that’s more than passable entertainment even if it doesn’t offer anything new to its audience. As an instant watch when your mind is working at half its level, it’s not a bad way to not think too hard.