Fear of Clowns

Caught the premiere of this flick last week and really liked it, though it ain't the movie it appears to be if you watch the teaser. I was set up to see a gorefest with clowns running amok but there's more story and really only the one big clown who turns out to be more than scary enough.

It's about a woman suffering from fear of clowns--she's found an interesting outlet for her phobia by painting terrifying clown images. When a clown who looks a lot like one of the ones from her paintings shows up and begins killing off her friends, well, that's where the movie really starts. There's other stuff I can't really mention without giving away important details.

Obviously shot on a very low budget, it's got some good performances and some bad. The lead woman is very good and the clown also(and boy is it weird meeting him right after the premiere...he looked so different) but some of the secondary actors are clearly amateurs.

It's got some gore, some nudity, and some story so if you like B movie horror you'll probably have a good time with this one.

I saw this movie at the video store the other day and couldn't resist. The first five minutes of the movie do a great job of confusing the hell out of the viewer, which is an awesome start, but the editing nightmare is just beginning. The whole movie appears to be shot with a cheap camera with a "fisheye" lens effect. Also, the characters in the movie are so bafflingly stupid that one wishes for a shotgun with which to shoot the DVD. For example, there's a scene where the two protagonists are locked inside a room with the killer clown trying to break in. There is a fire extinguisher RIGHT BY the damn door, but what does the idiot boyfriend do? Picks up A MOP HANDLE! Yeah.... like a mop handle is going to be effective against a muscle-bound mental patient in clown make-up. Couple this with agonizingly bad acting, some of the worst camera work I've ever seen, completely fake reactions of the characters, and shoddy editing, and you have the masterpiece known as "Fear of Clowns."

Hey,

I've seen a lot of posts where you defend the hell out of this flick, but I've got to tell you, you can't blame shoddy writing and extremely poor directing on a lack of budget. I was on board to see a movie that looked like crap but had all the basic elements OK, because that's what a low-low budget film normally has. But this "film" is a piece of crap.

Here's the complaints:

ON WRITING: You claim to have a definitive love of horror films, specifically Halloween and Alien, yet you completely ignore the structure of these scripts. Each great horror film has its foundation in a strong psychological subtext (I.E. repression and return of the repressed, male/female archetypes and the overthrow of such, infiltration of boundaries, etc.). Your film has people talking in circles with crap lines like "Have you ever been spanked by a clown?". If childhood trauma were at the heart of the film, why not draw us more into it? Instead, you do what every other hack in this business does: you write B.S. dialogue that makes no sense because you don't have the first clue as to who your characters are.

In addition, the reason that this film is not scary is because you explain EVERYTHING. What's scarier: a psycho-killer who walks around in a mask killing for no reason and with no remorse or a psycho-killer who sits around saying, " Get BETTER, Get BETTER."? This is why Carpenter, Craven and Scott are geniuses, and well, you have this as your crowning achievement.

ON DIRECTING: Have you ever heard of the 180 degree line? You jump all over the place with mismatched reverse shots, and ever-changing screen direction, leaving us as an audience unable to settle. And since you've asked repeatedly why the editing is bad, I have one question: Do either you or your editor know what a beat is? There are no dramatic moments in this film because you are constantly cutting away from them. What could have been a nice introductory scene between your two protagonists becomes a confusing mess because you cut the living daylights out of it.

This "film" has no sense of mood or character whatsoever. I think the character that actually went deepest was Shivers, and that should say something about where your focus was. In your extremely self-important and self-indulgent "making of" segment, I found your attitude toward your actors appalling. First of all, DO NOT DIRECT A RESULT! This is the first rule of working with actors, taught in the most basic of classes. When you stood there and said to Mark something like, "I want to see a mixture of agitated and hungry" or something to that effect, my heart broke for all of the people who had to work under such conditions. And at one point you were yelling at people, and saying to the actors, "I just want to finish this f--- ing scene and go home." What does that say to them about your level of support, when they're the ones bleeding on film for you. Shame on you, my friend, shame on you. And on a sidenote: if the makers of the camera that you shot with won't let you release their name or logo in your "making of", doesn't that say something about the film?

Rent the movie "Overnight". You might learn a thing or two about the path you are traveling. That is, if you ever do get a shot, which I highly doubt. You should go into another field, or at least take some classes on writing, directing and working with actors.

The acting in this film was diabolical: more wooden than a school play. It was so bad it had no comedy value either.

The detective character was the worst of all, and all these people should seriously consider a career change. This film had a feel about it that said that the director had just gathered a group of his mates together to act out a poorly written play for a laugh.

I confess that I cannot say whether this film had a good ending as I had to switch it off well before I got to the halfway stage even - it was THAT bad! I have never failed to watch a film all the way through, no matter how bad, before.

The clown was about as scary as a hippo. And what was with the weird speeded up part where he was chopping wood?

The camera techniques were all over the place and in a word this film was amateurish.

this was one of those movies that you go out and take a chance in the video store. You see a b-movie that you've never heard of with a cool box and cool title. Then you get home, hoping you've found yourself a gem, but when you pop it in your DVD player you realize you have to reach for the Ben & Jerry's to stave off the depression. From the novice acting, to the bad writing to the cheesy special effects... everything was just plain bad. Even right down to something I never even notice... the editing. There are some downright noticeably bad cuts that boggle the mind. I listened to a little of the audio commentary and the director kept talking about how much attention they paid to the audio, but I never once heard him voice his production concerns about any visual aspects i.e. poor lighting, amateur camera angles. Stay away from this one.