Clown Review
Directed by Jon Watts
Written by Jon Watts
“It’s not a costume. It’s skin”
Before I viewed Clown I was under the impression (Because of reviews) that the movie was very gory, chilling and even comedic. I’m sad to say that Clown isn’t very gory, creepy, chilling or even that funny. I can’t believe I was actually concerned about watching this movie in case it was too unnecessary and just had children being ripped apart by a clown because “Why the fuck not”, but this movie was so unsatisfying that it made me actually want to see a child being destroyed by a mutated clown monster…I SHOULD NOT WANT THAT! Let me elaborate.
As the story goes, a loving father finds an old clown costume to dress up in and entertain for his son’s birthday party because he’s a top dad. It becomes impossible to remove the suit and he learns that it’s not just a costume as he becomes more and more mentally unstable and slowly develops into an Ancient. Clown. Monster…you read that right, a fucking ancient clown monster. You’d think it would be impossible to take this movie seriously but Jon Watt totally did. Critics have said that Clown is a black comedy but I honestly think they made this movie 100% serious and it comes off funny because the situations are so stupid and just look comical even though it’s a serious movie. I have an issue with this movie being so serious, because I can’t understand why it wouldn’t be a comedy. I understand you wanting to make a wacky movie about a clown monster serious because people wouldn’t expect it to be. But if that’s the case then why would you go and make your movie so predictable? That defeats the point of turning the theme on its head. Clown does not follow through on its own ideas and it leaves the whole film flat on its face. There’s not enough comedy to help you along and the gore isn’t satisfying enough to keep you in suspense for the next kill, so the story has no aid and nothing to keep you strapped in for the ride. So why would you expect viewers to keep watching? The story just isn’t strong enough to survive on its own.
Andy Powers (The main character: Kent) doesn’t give a bad performance, it’s not amazing but he certainly has a couple stand out moments. The same goes for Peter Stormare as Karlsson, the man who knows more about the monster inside Kent. Laura Allan is also pretty good as Meg, the wife of Kent. The only acting issues I have with Clown are the kids and I get it, they are kids, but there’s this one scene where this child turns in front of the camera and in a says something like “I think there’s someone in the house” in this real action hero way but it was so random and totally unrealistic and it was really off putting. So altogether the acting is fair but there’s nothing that special in there and I would like to know what the fuck that kid thought he was doing.
Clowns direction isn’t so bad I just don’t think we were shown enough. Not that it didn’t show anything, but they should have just gone for it. This is one of those horror movies that cuts to a wall being sprayed with blood when it looks like someone’s about to die and that’s normally fine, the whole “It’s up to you what happened” thing can be very effective in a movie. But Clown did this with just about every kill and the couple it did show at the end were not satisfying enough to make up for seeing nothing for nearly two hours. If you’re going to commit to freely killing children on screen like you don’t give a shit, then you should do that. I didn’t see one child die, I know children did die, I just didn’t see it. Like I said, I shouldn’t want to see children have their organs ripped out but this movie teased the idea so much that I want to see that now. I feel like I’m owed that. I feel like I’m owed dying children.
I liked the idea of showing the clown transformation slowly but even that was unsatisfying by the end. I really liked the way Kent looked at the end, it was a cool suit but there should have been standout scenes that made the transformation worth it. An American Werewolf in London had THAT scene, you know the one. But in this movie, Kent shows up looking totally different and we missed the cool shit. You need to meet me halfway here, Clown. All the effects we did see were totally fine but there needs to be more to it and don’t tell me the budget is an issue, if Evil Dead taught us anything it’s that you only need a little money to be really gruesome. There were also some missed opportunities here, opportunities to make scenes really claustrophobic and ominous. There’s a cool scene where we see a kid going through a plastic tube in a big indoor playground and it was so close to being really claustrophobic, but it just didn’t quite get there. The jump scares are flat too, I barely noticed they happened. It just didn’t suck me in enough.
So in conclusion, Clown actually shies away from being shocking, even though it sets itself up to be and acts like it is. It could have been quite scary, it isn’t really gory compared to most horror movies these days and the execution is pretty lacking. The build-up leads to nothing satisfying and there’s no reason to keep watching except for simply finding out where the story goes and even that isn’t very interesting. It has a wacky and original premise that isn’t presented wackily and doesn’t reinforce its originality. It’s still a pretty different story but the presentation needs a lot of work. Clown can be compared to a deflated balloon animal, you’d imagine it to be funny and creative but then someone goes and sticks and pin in its fucking face and it blows up. You might have forgiven the guy if a spectacle of guts poured out of the balloon representation of an adorable puppy but sadly, even that is taken away from you.
Rating: **
Better than > Finders Keepers Worse than > Stitches
Main pros
-Creative premise
-Creature design
Main cons
-Flat
-Unengaging
-No payoff
-Not scary
-Holds back
I think my main issue is the missing potential. It could have been a great black comedy or it could have been a crazy exploitation film, but it didn’t capitalize on anything it had and I’m sad to say that it really isn’t worth it. And when a movie about a child eating unicorn clown monster isn’t worth it, it’s truly a sad day.
