A group of residents in peaceful Port Emmett prepare for an impending hurricane.
In episodic manner, we follow the unrelated folk as they go about their business - a councilwoman (Kimberley L Cole, PSYCHO SANTA) who holes herself up in her home with only the TV for company; disabled teen Craig (Eric Spudic, SAVAGE HARVEST 2: OCTOBER BLOOD) who busies himself with jigsaws while a neighbour barricades his windows for him; a cinema nightwatchman (Jeff Dylan Graham, CADAVER BAY) who uses the solitude of his job as an opportunity to snort copious amounts of cocaine; Lillian(Brinke Stevens, THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE), returning to the port for the first time since her childhood.
Lillian tells her husband the tragic tale of how, fifty years earlier, a similar hurricane caused a tugboat to crash into a railroad bridge at the port. A train carring a travelling circus was derailed and, as the bridge collapsed, the train plummeted into the sea. Despite the locals' best efforts, the clown car was never retrieved. It transpires that the bodies were never found, and the townsfolk were not prepared to undertake the costly task of searching for them.
Furthermore, Lillian reveals that the tugboat captain caused the accident as he was drunk. And ... he was her father!
Her story ends with her repeating the myth that occasionally it is said that the clowns can be heard in the mist, baying for revenge ...
Cue Debbie Rochon (WHO WANTS TO BE AN EROTIC BILLIONAIRE; PLAY-MATE OF THE APES), sat alone in her house, and the first to hear eerie carnival music as the storm grows ever closer.
Stock news footage of windy weather is intercut with more meandering scenes of our locals watching TV, searching for their torches, and so on. Riveting stuff ...
Things start to improve when the zombie clowns finally start to emerge from their sandy graves, in some stylishly eerie shots.
As the clowns amble towards the port intent on revenge, a couple of young lovers drive into town looking for somewhere to hide out until the storm blows over. They are in deep shit after shooting a priest through the head for sadistic kicks, but things are about to get even worse for them ...
And that's DEAD CLOWNS. In a story reminiscent of John Carpenter's THE FOG, a buch of wronged travellers return from their watery graves one night to reap revenge on a sleepy coastal town.
Although working with a simple premise, writer/director Steve Sessions (MALEFIC; CADAVER BAY) fails to maintain momentum, due to a series of ridiculously stretched-out scenes that kill any sense of tension. Even the set-pieces are drawn out to the point of exhaustion. And Sessions' dull score doesn't help either. This is just boringl!
Part of the problem is that DEAD CLOWNS focuses on too many characters, and doesn't give any of them any interesting backgrounds or quirks. We know nothing about them, and therefore have no emotional involvement with them. So who cares if they live or die?!
Technically, the movie is well-framed and the acting is above average. The gore FX are the film's best selling point though - with some decent gut-munching to speak of, plus a couple of hammer murders and an eye-gouging that rivals the infamous "splinter-through-the-eye" event in Fulci's ZOMBI 2 ... I kid you not.
But it's not enough to drag this otherwise nondescript film above the torrent of similarly-themed low budget horror flicks saturating the market these days. Case in point - DEAD CLOWNS lacks the ambition of the recent ZOMBIE NIGHT, and the intelligence of another contemporary indie effort, FEEDING THE MASSES.
I should've known what to expect when a Kiss-style rock song ("Falling Apart" by Rock City Morgue) played over the opening shots of bays and docks, and I saw Debbie Rochon's name appear first in the titles ...!
The film is presented uncut in it's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and has not been enhanced for 16x9 TVs. The picture quality is quite disappointing - washed-out colours and overly dark. Having said that, it's worth considering the low-budget SOV production and noting that this is likely as good as the film is likely to get on DVD.
The 2.0 English audio is loud and clear - an improvement on the lacklustre visual presentation.
Animated intervative menus include a scene selection menu offering 8 chapters, and a modicum of extra features.
First, there's a gallery of "Conceptual Art". This is effectively 8 paintings. This is closely followed by a stills gallery of 18 shots, which offer a mix of still images from the film, and some behind-the-scenes FX work.
Finally, there's a promo reel of other titles available on DVD from Cryptkeeper. These include gory trailers for the likes of BLOODLETTING, SAVAGE HARVEST, CADAVER BAY and many more.
Always one to support indie horror, and rue to speak ill of Cryptkeeper, as I do champion their efforts ... although I must say that on this occasion they've delivered a dull film on an equally disappointing disc.
(Al Sex Gore Editorial note: Apologies from myself to both Stu and Cryptkeeper - the review disc forwarded to Stu was the intial pressing which has since been upgraded with a sharper cleaner version 2 release - sorry all!)
Review by Stu Willis
Released by Crypt Keeper |
Region 0 NTSC |
Rated 18 |
Extras : see main review |