Clown [Review by SpecialK]

Although it initially debuted in Italy in 2014, this summer’s U.S. release of Clown has led this scary movie lover to take a brief detour from our site’s policy of “only the latest and greatest” to dust off an oldie but a gore-y.

The premise of Eli Roth’s Clown is simple enough. Hired jester-tainment for a kid’s birthday party is a no-show, so dad Kent puts on a clown suit he finds in an old basement, and can’t quite seem to take it off after the festivities end.

But any giggles over his perpetually-poofy hair quickly fade as the dad discovers that the suit is actually a conduit for a more sinister being. Through close-ups of ratty old history books, we learn about the legendary “Cloyne,” a white-skinned, red-nosed demon who lived in the mountains and feasted on kiddies. You can guess what happens next as demon-Kent-Cloyne is unleashed on the town.

Of course Clown is not horror cinema’s first rendezvous with the frightening, face-painted fool. Pennywise from Stephen King’s It might be the child-killing character that pops first into your mind—and out of a storm drain, naturally—but of course we also can’t forget that gnarly little puppet in Poltergeist that still has some people checking under the bed to this day (sorry, sis).

The premise of a nasty jester usually works well in a scary film for the same reason possessed kids do—the creepiest themes completely flip the natural order of things. People trusted to make kids laugh should not be chasing them down. But Clown seems to toy with even darker themes. With scenes of Kent hiding in the woods at the edge of a boy scout camp, struggling to fight off his powerful cravings, and leering at children playing in a ball pit, the film seems to wade into social commentary about child predators. Heavy stuff for comedic horror.

But what exactly it aims to say is lost on me. I also struggled with dangling plot lines and kept forgetting whether the main characters were trying to kill or save Kent.  And finally, before I levy perhaps the most significant criticism one could sling at a horror film, let me first say this: I don’t like torturey horror, and while I’ll watch a good vampire or zombie movie any day, they don’t freak me out. But give me a paranormal plotline and a twisted possessed girl crawling on the floor unnaturally and I’ll be checking and double-checking over my shoulder for days.

So that said, because this film sticks a bit closer to Roth’s Hostel than his The Last Exorcism, it just doesn’t scare me. It has its tense moments of anticipation, but Clown doesn’t deliver on the screams. All that combined puts Clown pretty low on my list of horror recs.

But for all you Hostel fans out there, Roth doesn’t hold back on his trademark teeth-spitting, wrist-slitting gore in Clown. I doubt any theater has ever emptied its patrons after a Roth film without at least one of them saying, “that was messed up,” and Clown is no exception. Between compound fractures, quick cuts from bloody messes to finger-licking food, organs tossed against pristine, upper-middle-class living room walls, and the sounds of a grumbling tummy that will make your own stomach turn, Roth really does live up to his reputation here.

Peppered—or perhaps polka-dotted—throughout the film is also Roth’s signature dark humor. Although it falls well short of the comedic magic of his debut film Cabin Fever, Clown produces its fair share of cheesy chuckles. These silver linings weren’t enough to save the film for me, but perhaps they might be for you.

SpecialK Verdict: If you like Roth you’ll like Clown. See Clown. See clown run. See clown run after kids. Please do not let your kids see Clown (unless you’re ready to shell out a pretty penny for therapy for the next decade).

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