Written by Jeff Miller
Directed by Tom Nagel
Starring: Brian Nagel, Lauren Elise, Andrew Staton, Katie Keene, and Jeff Denton.
Synopsis: A group of friends get stranded in a seemingly abandoned town and find themselves stalked by a gang of violent psychopaths dressed as clowns.
It seems pretty timely to have a movie about a town full of sadistic maniac clowns hit in the midst of a rash of weird clown sightings across the country. Not that one has to do with the other but if you are unnerved by the internet headlines, maybe Clowntown is the movie you should give a watch.
The story revolves around a group of friends on the way to a music festival who find themselves trapped in a town full of less than friendly clowns. Things rapidly go south and they find themselves in a fight for their lives as the clowns hunt them down through the abandoned town.
Look, truth be told, the movie isn’t great. I am a guy who loves the idea of a clown based horror movie. I’m writing one if I am being honest, so this movie is right up my alley. It’s not terrible, it’s fun for the most part, but it’s not as good as it should be, or could have been. It feels more akin to a Rob Zombie movie, where this is just a group of crazies who just happen to be wearing clown make up apropos of nothing at all.
As our heroes are running around rooftops and empty buildings we get little information about why this is happening or how this town came to be overrun by these maniacs or even what the end game might be (aside from possible sequels). I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who might want to see it so I’ll keep the secrets of the movie just that.
Like I said, the movie isn’t terrible. It’s gruesome, with some good kills and a good scare or two. The acting is decent, if not a little stiff, and at least one of the clowns is genuinely creepy. I admittedly have a high standard due to my own love of this kind of genre. Clowntown is dark and nasty and while not the relentless horror I was hoping for, it would serve a nice midnight movie for the season.
Clowntown is available on DVD now!
Garon Cockrell is the Founder and Editor of Pop Culture Beast and host of The Pop Culture Beast Show. He founded the site over seven years ago to have a place on the internet to write about the things he loved. Since then, Garon has become a best-selling author (Demonic and Other Tales), an award winning screenwriter (Best Screenplay 2013 Motor City Nightmares Film Festival), and a cast member on the top rated podcast, Never Not Funny.