Real estate agent Kent (Andy Powers) is in the middle of
trying to sell a rundown mansion when he gets the call that his kid’s birthday
clown has canceled at the last minute.
Kent just so happens to find a clown suit in a trunk in the basement and
puts it on to make sure his son’s birthday goes off without a hitch. Trouble brews the next morning when he’s
unable to get the suit off. Even the
fake red nose refuses to come off.
Slowly, Kent begins to transform into an ancient evil clown that has an
appetite for children.
Produced by Eli Roth, Clown features one of the strangest
transformations in horror film history.
The way poor Kent slowly turns into a homicidal clown is simultaneously
funny, horrifying, and yes, tragic. I
was reminded more than once of David Cronenberg’s The Fly while watching it. Both movies contain men who undergo icky
transformations while concentrating on the very real and sad way that the
transformation tears their relationships apart.
Clown is scarier and a lot more effective than that Pennywise
fella. There are a number of creepy
sequences, laugh-out-loud moments, and some surprising moments of gore
too. The bit with the dog clown was pure
genius and the Chuck E. Cheese massacre is one for the books. It also features one of the more inventive
suicide attempts I’ve seen in a movie in some time.
Director Jon Watts (who later hit the big time directing
Spider-Man: Homecoming) plays things
very seriously, but is smart enough to allow the moments of humor to occur
naturally throughout the film. Yes, it’s
funny to see Kent trying to hide the fact that he’s now a clown at work, but
the way his situation grows increasingly desperate is suspenseful and at times,
oddly touching.
Peter Stormare is fun to watch as the old guy whose family
was once cursed by the evil suit. It’s Andy
Powers though who makes the movie. His
memorable performance really sells his character’s unlikely plight. Powers is a likeable guy who exudes a charm
not unlike Chris Pratt. He never once
loses our sympathy, even when he begins to get more and more monstrous. It’s that capacity for sympathy that puts Clown
right up there with the best movie monsters.
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