Clown (2014) Directed by Jon Watts
Wow it has been a long time since I’ve done anything in this blog. I guess it shows either how busy I have been or how lazy I have been. The latter probably being truer than the former but the October marathon tends to take a lot out of me. I love horror movies, don’t get me wrong but the dedication and overall time it takes to do all the reviews really takes a toll on you. This past weekend however I had a chance to sit down, relax and watch a horror movie on Netflix called Clown.
This movie originally was brought to my attention from Jack and Nick from the Jack and Nick Horror Show (a great podcast if you’re interested). I did some research on the film after hearing of it and I sought it out. Well, it finally was added to Netflix not too long ago so now I have no excuse, I need to watch it. As with the last marathon I did, I’m going to shy away from giving too many details of the movie so I don’t spoil it for anyone.
The basic story for Clown is that a man, Kent, hires a clown for his son’s birthday part, however the clown doesn’t show up leaving Kent with a group of disappointed kids. Being the good father that he is, he decides to dress as a clown himself and entertain the children. He finds an old clown costume in and old trunk in his basement, puts it on and clowns around. Later he finds that he’s unable to take the costume off and it is somehow slowly becoming a part of him. As the film goes on Kent begins to transform into a demon that feeds on children. As Kent slowly changes from man to demon, his wife scrambles to save him and find a way to get her husband back.
A very interesting body horror take on the typical fear of clowns trope, Clown is actually a very entertaining movie. The acting was surprisingly solid and the atmosphere is quite creepy at times. I love the scene in the tubes at Chuck E. Cheese. You start to feel bad for Kent as the film goes on because of all he goes through, including attempting to kill himself, which doesn’t work. All the while Kent transforms, his hunger for children increases to the point that he cannot control it. I’m usually not a big fan of clown horror movies, but this one brought something different to the table and I enjoyed the new approach.
Granted I watched Clown on Netflix, so I didn’t really go out of my way to view it, but if I paid $5 off amazon to rent it, I would be happy still. It kept my attention and I really appreciated the balls it showed to actually kill small children, which is rare in horror. Usually in horror you get the cliché teenage or adult deaths and the fact that Clown didn’t take that route is admirable, at least from a twisted horror fan’s perspective. The blood and gore factor was pretty solid in this movie and I loved the fact that the clown’s blood was rainbow, that really made me laugh. There are some dark comedic moments, but whether or not those are purposeful is beyond me. Either way I had a good time watching this and I would suggest it to anyone looking for a decent horror movie in the crap landscape that is Netflix. I would rate this a solid B, it was fun, not great by any means but the acting was nice, the camera work and atmosphere was above average and the story was a fresh idea.
