First Impression (Movie Review): Clown

I want to like this movie, I seriously do. The idea is interesting and the story is also intriguing, but it was so badly put together it genuinely makes me feel sad about it... Of course, I will talk about the story and its contents, so SPOILER ALERT to anyone who hasn't seen this movie that might want to see it (not that I recommend you to do it anyway).

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Good News for this movie: I am NOT a regular Horror, Terror, or Suspense movie viewer, so I won't be able to compare it to other great Horror/Terror/Suspense movies. Which in turn, would also make me an easy target for scares, right? Well, here are the bad news for the movie: I wasn't scared... at all... In fact, I wasn't moved in any way possible. I didn't get scared at the movie, the jump scares didn't even startle me, I couldn't get into the drama (or "empathize with the character(s)" would be a better choice of words), wasn't disgusted by the gore, this movie seriously couldn't get me to feel ANYTHING.

The moment the movie began was when I yelled "RUINED!" because of the way the story was set up. The Story is about a father (Kent McCoy played by Andy Powers) who works as a Real State agent. His son Jack (played by Christian Defano) loves clowns, so for his birthday he hires a clown to perform at his party, however his wife Meg (Played by Laura Allen) receives a call during the party from the company telling her that the clown they hired will not be able to come to the party. Meg calls Kent to tell him what happened so he is looking for an alternative. COINCIDENTALLY, in the house he was trying to sell at that very moment there was a clown costume. He puts it on, and goes to his son's party as Dumbo the Clown. My first problem with the movie is this part, this whole set up is done in about 15-20 minutes. No, I didn't have a chronometer, but I am sure that was the run time for this set up, and it felt even FASTER. So basically we RUSHED into the plot without knowing who our characters are. We know that Kent is a father and would do anything for his kid (because he literally says it in a later scene, which we don't know if he means it, though at least we know he believes it) but that's it. Meg is a supportive wife... and that's pretty much it. Meg's father is trying to help her and she puts him aside, anything else to this character? OF COURSE NOT!!! Movie, tell me, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!? Watching this set up was like watching the movie trailer. It was done so fast that I actually think that you can find the whole introduction/set up (first scenes) of  the movie IN the trailer and a couple of later scenes. For those first scenes, I felt I was watching THE trailer with a couple of shots to make it slightly longer. In fact,watch the movie trailer + the ending! Done! Roll Credits!

Anyway... After the party, Kent notices he can't take off the clown suit. The nose won't come off, the hair looks and feels like real hair, and the suit won't come off, not even by cutting it open which ends on him accidentally cutting his wrists. This scene made some of the people in the audience go "Ishhh.... ouch..." but, again, it didn't do anything for me for several reasons:

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(Anime: Blood-C)

-First off, I watch anime and have watched Gore anime. Not my favorite genre and tend to stay away from it, but after scenes where a high school girl is grabbed by a giant monster, smashed to the ground several times (imagine holding a whip and mashing  to the ground, now change the whip for a school girl hitting face first) , then grabbed one leg per arm and torn apart slowly watching all blood and organs come out of her body and have the monster each her afterwards with no censorship what so ever and pretty much in my face... Well, I'm sorry, but the "gore" scenes have to work a little harder than a cut on the wrist.
-Second: I don't know who the character is, therefore I don't care what happens to him. A cut on the wrist done with an electric saw or knife or whatever could be deadly, so even if I didn't get grossed out by the blood, I could at least worry for the character, but NO. Not only are we not even 3/4, not only he's the main character, but we don't know WHO HE IS. So, not only we know he WON'T DIE, but even if he did, I wouldn't care.
Third and last: THIS SCENE WAS TOO STUPID TO GET INVESTED IN. You know those "Fail" compilation videos or those memes that you see with "The moment we forget how to think" tagline? Well, this scene could've easily be any of those 2. Kent grabs a bloody electric saw or knife or whatever from the construction workers and tries to cut the suit open right on top his wrist. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? Dude, don't tell me it was an accident, you were looking for a bloody wrist.

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Moving on... He immediately  comes to the conclusion that there must be something demonic with the suit, so he goes and investigate. I liked this part because after not being able to take it of not cut it, it only makes sense that this clown suit is definitely something else. But I have some questions: Why did he assumed demons right away? Why did he do this research alone while his wife could've helped him? Why did you fall into the "demon" cliche, movie? After some research, he contacts a man who apparently knows how to take off the suit. He explains that clowns were originally demons that lived in caves in the Nordic countries and that his appearance of the big red nose was because of the cold of the regions. This demon kidnapped and ate 5 children every year one for each month of winter (why does it have to be this way?) and that somehow this child-eating demon got translated into a lovable child entertainer (really...?). After this exposition, the creepy old man knocks Kent out and ties him up. Kent wakes up and the creepy old man tries to cut his head off because that's the only way to take the suit off and stop the demon who is slowly possessing Kent's body. The guy conveniently waits before landing the ax on his head after apologizing 5 TIMES and Kent manages to escape, leaving only a wound on his shoulder. He ties the old man and plans to take him to the police for attacking him. After some reunion with his wife, his father in law and other people you don't care about (not that you care for any of the main characters anyway) he takes the old man to the police, but crashes because basically, the demon made him crash while adjusting his body.

Here's the part where I would've love this movie if it were done better. After the crash and the old man telling him the the only solution is for him either killing himself or feeding the demon, Kent for the rest of the movie is struggling to hold the demon back. It's a psychological and emotional struggle to hold on to his humanity, and even though he did attack that boy scout, he seems to really be trying to attack no one. Even a kid who literally is there with a sign that says "EAT ME" he tries to not let the demon have its way. But then again, I don't know who this guy is. So if the producers don't care, neither should I. Kent eventually decides that suicide is the only option for him so he builds a decapitating-dual-Electric-saw-Chair-back-drop-seat-ish mechanism which fails hilariously. This is one of the scenes that is so unrealistically convenient to keep the plot going. One of the saws kills the kid I mentioned before by accident and Kent regrets and mourns his death... and eats him. So, wife finds him, tries to help him, Kent escapes, kills the kid bulling his son, blah, blah, blah. He has eaten 4 kids (although it would've been nice if it where 4Kids Entertainment instead) and threatened Meg to kill Jack if she didn't bring another kid. She agrees and takes a girl who was a Jack's birthday party to the spot, but this scene was pointless because the demon clown never came to the agreed spot, Meg tried to save the girl and regretted her decision, but the guy outside was not the demon clown but the police. ANYWAY, she rushes home because grandpa being a dense son of a gun he took Jack back home when Meg clearly told him NOT to do so. When Meg arrives home, her father FOR NO REASON decides to help Meg to cover up the murders. Then demon comes in and kills grandpa. Damn, I wish I knew who he was so that I could feel genuinely sorry for Meg's loss. So, after impossible fight/chase scene, Meg finally manages to decapitate the demon clown and the face of her husband is coming back to normal. And all Kent's belongings are kept sealed to use as evidence. The End.

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I think I already showed and expressed how I feel about this movie. It's Bad and stupid. And it's a shame because I liked the concept of the clown and I liked the back story of the children-eating demon. Even though the demon thing has been done before and it is practically a Scary movie cliche, it was different and I have to say maybe even creative. But this movie is too dependent on Jump Scares and Gore but lacks of any other content. There is no real fear, no drama, no emotion, nothing for me to get into this movie. All I could think of when I was watching this movie was "Oh wow... Is it still going?" and this is coming from a guy whose first scary movie was Scary Movie 3, which gave me nightmares. In my defense, I was still a kid (probably about 7 or 8 years old) but still, SCARY MOVIE 3 IS SCARIER THAN THIS!? Are you kidding? When I watched the trailer, I was intrigued. When I watched the movie, I was disappointed, but most of all I was sad. I was sad that this movie had so much potential to be a good movie but failed because of a simple flaw: the writers didn't know how to tell the story. That's all there is. The Effects where good, the blood looked real, and the story was really good, but the film as a whole just failed.