Fear Of Clowns (2004)

OCTOBER 6, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

As it finally came to an end, the only thing I could think of is that Fear of Clowns is supposed to help people who are legitimately afraid of clowns realize how boring clowns are, thus eradicating their fear. That must be it. Because director Kevin Kangas cannot possibly believe he has made a genuinely scary or even interesting film, so my theory is pretty much the only thing that can validate this atrocious movie’s existence.

Clocking in about 30 minutes more than necessary is the least of the movie’s crimes. The acting is uniformly wooden, with many of the actors doing little to hide the fact that they just memorized their lines just prior to Kangas yelling “Action”. The direction is completely uninspired as well, not to mention just plain amateurish, with eyelines that almost never match; awkward scene transitions (try an establishing shot now and then, it’ll save time on rendering out fades), etc. No one is particularly likeable, no one is interesting, and even the kill scenes are dreadfully boring (the killer, who walks slow as it is, is often seen in slow motion to boot). Oh, and here’s the movie’s idea of being “clever”:

Hah. Fuck you.

The only thing that was interesting in the entire movie was the bizarre usage of blurs over the movie posters during the film’s climax. We see a Shanghai Knights poster quite clearly several times, then it’s suddenly blurred out in one shot (even more noticeable when you see that none of the posters next to it are blurred). Also, an Underworld poster is blurred, but not posters for other Sony films. What the hell’s going on here?

In my notes, I have written “Blur – front – rze (?)”. I don’t have the slightest goddamn clue what the hell this could possibly mean, but I don’t even care anymore. There’s a commentary and some other features, but I don’t care about that either. The only thing even remotely scary about this movie was my discovery that there is already a sequel. Jesus asschristing hell. HMAD reader Lillian, why did you recommend this to me? What did I ever do to you?!?!? LOL.

What say you?