Director: Damien Leone
Year: 2016
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
After a night out on the town, a group of friends come across a demented, maniacal figure dressed in a clown costume and begins to torment them as he seeks to impose his own psychologically deranged brand of torture on them and anyone else that stands in his way as he chases them in the city.
Review:
This one wasn't all that bad and had a lot to offer. A lot of what makes this one work so well is based around the central clown, one of the more impressive figures in the genre. The concept of the silent, emotionless style of clown make-up as well as the design of the creature itself is quite terrifying by itself, but to add it together to the mime-like antics and sinister looks he continually gives off while stalking really helps to make for quite a creepy persona. That is added to the other scenes here where he simply spots them out on the streets or toys with them in the various buildings around the warehouse which are exceptionally creepy and chilling.
That there is plenty of fun, brutal kills that pop up as a result of his demented attitude provides the main part of the fun here, featuring the stalking to get these scenes set up from the initial encounter with the clown at the restaurant that goes back to show him slaughtering the staff, the first encounters at the abandoned building where it all takes place with the stalking in the basement or the various floors of the building taking out the random interlopers that appear along the way and leading into the two major centerpieces that show up.
The scene of the character hanging upside down and the eventual outcome is unquestionably the highlight of the film, and along with the final battle in the underground with it, there's plenty to like about this which is all about the inadvertent luring of the other sister and then detailing their wholesale struggle to get away knowing full-well what's happening around them. From meeting up with the skinned yet still alive victim, getting beaten down continuously by the deranged clown, and then seeing the final resolution that really holds up nicely as well, there's some fun to be had with the big finish to this one, and really helps to hold this one up over its few minor flaws.
The main factor here is the fact that there's not much in the story at all here, going from person to person as they randomly happen upon the killer through sheer circumstance that the film really doesn't have any real point at all throughout here. The swerve in the different characters surviving doesn't even give this a plot where this one center simply on showcasing one big gore-gag after a while which is where the film really stumbles. That just ends up making the film feel pointless and repetitive, rendering a lot of the killer's appearances into a bland series of scenes that's simply there to kill someone graphically and leaves this one on the whole rather redundant. This might not be as big a flaw as it really is but is the biggest factor to hold this back.
Overview: ***.5/5
Solid and decent if a slightly flawed effort that has some impact on the film as a whole, there's still enough to like here that it manages to hold itself up quite nicely if not where it could've been. This is definitely more for the gorefest crowd or is just appreciative of mindless slashers in general, while those that want more substance from their films based on the flaws present should heed caution.
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