I’ve decided to subject myself to 31 days of horror films for the month of October. It will be a mix of rewatching stuff I haven’t seen in a while and brand new things. Day 29:

CLOWN (2014) – dir. Jon Watts

Two things stand out to me about the pre-production of CLOWN that need to be addressed. This movie only got made because director Jon Watts and producer Christopher D. Ford made a fake trailer for the film stating it was being produced by Eli Roth (it was not). Eli Roth loved how ballsy it was and really produced and helped the film get made after. Secondly, Jon Watts was also the director of this year’s widely successful SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING. Quite the change.

I will be honest, I was scared going into this film. The original trailer did it’s job and made me think this film would be disgusting and creepy. I do not like clowns. I do not like the idea that a good father (Andy Powers) would put on a clown costume for his son’s birthday after his scheduled clown cancelled only to find out his suit is cursed and turning him into a clown demon.

I will give the film this: it has a handle on its pacing almost immediately. The guy puts on his cursed clown suit in the first 5 minutes and realizes he can’t take it off in the next 10. The suit begins grafting to his skin and then becomes a pretty gross level of body horror watching his body change. The effects all seem very practical so it got me pretty happy there. Then for the icing on the cake PETER STORMARE shows up as the European guy who knows all about the ancient curse.

The movie does a great job of switching gears after that and it keeps up the pace for 100 minute run time. I do think it’s fun little movie that is flawed but knows that it needs to keep a brisk pace in order to not let you think about anything. I was entertained and grossed out most of the film so it succeeds in that but I can’t say it blew me away or anything. Watch it if you feel like it but no harm for skipping it.