Clown (2014) Review

Clown (2014)
Review

“It’s not a costume.
It’s skin and hair…
of a demon!”

Clown is about a father who needs a clown for his son’s birthday party after the one he booked cancels. Lucky, in the house he is doing up to sell where the owner has died he happens to find a clown suit in a large trunk.

We know where this is going.

He puts it on and successfully entertains a room full of evil little demons or children as you might think of them, but the problem is that when the time comes he can’t take off the costume, how does he go to the toilet is a question I asked throughout, and the costume starts to bond with him.

In fact it starts to merge with him causing him to have an insatiable appetite you, and everyone around him, are acutely aware of thanks to the constant gurgling noises.

I don’t like modern films, not just modern horror films. Part of that is how bland and amateurish they can look and sound now that everything is digital which was part of the reason I almost turned this off after 5 minutes.

It doesn’t look too cheap and the sound is more than passible if not of the highest quality for a surround sound system but again passible.

I didn’t have the patience to watch this, my other issue with modern films are the characters, they are so boring, forgettable, bland, predictable as are their reactions to situations they are in so until Peter Stormare appeared I really was struggling to continue.
It isn’t that the main two leads are bad, most of the time it is the writing of characters which is the biggest issue as well as a director that isn’t quite as capable as they should be so I had made my mind up how the boyfriend-turned-demon would be and especially how the annoying-girlfriend-turned-Jane Rambo/final girl would be based on most of the other films I have subjected myself to.

I was surprised, she actually tries to stand by her man instead of immediately giving up on him and their relationship, taking their child and buggering off as is expected.

Both her and the boyfriend-turned-demon have a startling turn around becoming easier to watch as the film progresses and the film does progress slowly.

They could’ve trimmed 20 minutes of it so we have more of the main story instead of pointless drama around cliched characters I’m struggling to stomach.

What I’m saying here is more of a rant about my views on modern entertainment.

Her dad is the one that really was under my skin, he can’t say anything nice about the boyfriend-turned-demon and constantly tries to sabotage his relationship plus he constantly ignores anything asked of him, turning him into the the person making stupid decisions in a horror film that makes things worse that deserves to die.

Her friends were only in one scene, well one of them appeared again and despite them not doing anything really off there is a smugness about them I didn’t appreciate. I don’t recall them being particularly egregious but again, other films I’ve watch.

The film does move along slowly combined with these people I’m stuck watching who take a long time for their performance to become interesting so I can get some enjoyment from this (the girlfriend-who-I-was-wrong-to-say-was-annoying-turned-into-a-semi-decent-final-girl only became lively in the last 20 minutes) but there are some very nicely recorded scenes.
The amusement’s slides had good atmosphere and build up plus the final confrontation whilst ignoring the rules the film had set earlier just for the final girl (as expected) was good.

It is just the rest of it meanders and it takes too long to get into with not enough emphasis on the demon taking over and killing but plenty on things and people that aren’t the demon taking over and killing.

It does however get points for doing what horror films are too scared to do and that is lots of little demons getting what they deserve meeting gory ends.
That has to have caused outrage with some mother’s or Christian group so thumbs up there.

Not the worst by modern standards but you do have very obvious gaps of logic to the story, have to sit through it for it kick in and it does have Peter Stormare so I am happy I watched it.