Director: Susan Engel
Year: 2017
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Killer Clown
Plot:
After being captured for a horrific crime, a carnival clown recounts how he led a group of students attending a local attraction maze, where he and his friends worked at the carnival, to a remote shack and killed them, which causes the police officers questioning him to piece together his story to find them.
Review:
This was a decent if generally unremarkable genre effort. Among the brighter elements here is the generally fun atmosphere of the carnival where this takes place. Featuring all the fun rides and low-budget recreations of a small-town celebration, this early work in the film is quite nicely handled to portray that kind of gathering where the friends are soon attending and having fun. Even outside of the main group of friends we see, there’s a lot of decent side-pieces to show what’s going on around the attractions of the carnival, but experiencing strife over what’s going on as a couple of the experiences turn deadly as a result.
That allows for the film’s attempts at slashing, with the clown’s rampage to be quite fun. As things start innocently but still creepily with the stalking from afar that noticeably creeps them out, the gradual change into more vicious and cruel encounters throughout the attraction, as there’s a slightly more obvious bent to the scenarios that aren’t based on cheap thrills, benefits this one greatly. It all comes to a head with the fantastic finale, where the captured group is let down and finally hunted down, which plays off the early setup to bring about a frenetic slasher sequence full of great gore and a frenzied pace. These here are what’s there to like with this one.
The film does have some big issues that hold it down. The biggest issue here is the utterly laughable main clown, with his scrawny build, scraggly appearance, whiny speech, and just plain nonthreatening nature, which makes for a truly weak villain. He comes off as someone who, on numerous occasions, feels far too much like a rush attempt would overpower him, especially with the group locked away in the remote barn for the majority of the film. It all becomes even more pronounced during the other problematic factor with the interrogation scenes, which disrupt the flow of the film, jumble the plotline considerably, and take the fear out of the stalking scenes as a result, bringing this one down.
Overview: **.5/5
A watchable if heavily flawed genre effort, this one is definitely better than expected, even though the big flaws here do have a big impact on this one overall. Those who enjoy or appreciate this kind of indie effort will have the most to like here, while those turned off by these negatives should heed caution.
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