The Clownhouse
The Clownhouse, a straight-to-video release, is an awful motion picture. I have a code that I go by when I rent straight-to-video movies. Actually, I use it to judge all the movies I watch. For horror/suspense movies, this is the code that shows you if you are watching a bad movie: 1) If you talk back to the actors and tell them that they can't act. 2) If you talk back to the actors and tell them that they are stupid. 3) If you cheer when a good guy is killed. 4) If you laugh at the end of a serious movie. 5) Any movie with a gypsy is usually stupid.
Use these codes, and you'll probably see that this movie is perfectly bad. There are some decent videos out there, but they are rare and hard to find. Anyway, back to this movie. The Clownhouse is a terribly predictable thriller. The premise could have been good, but the director and writer just couldn't seen to get this one right. The premise is: Three brothers go to a circus. One of the kids is afraid of clowns. That same night, three clowns are murdered and their make-up and clothes are taken. They find the boys' house and want to kill them.
The thing is, I wanted the killers to kill them! The kids are such bad actors that they can't even die correctly. There was one part where I cheered for the good guys and it was at the very end of the movie. Another thing: I don't know about other families, but I have never seen brothers swear at each other that much. I wonder where the writer got the idea that brothers actually talked that way to each other. I would never say things like that to my little brother. But then again, the whole movie is stupid.
There is a redeeming value, but not redeeming enough. The movie is actually suspenseful and sort of scary, but without a story or characters that we care about, the movie descends into a cliched, just plain stupid horror story. The characters, such as the three clowns, Chiezo, Bippo, and Dippo (Tree, Byron Weible, and David C. Reinboker, though I'm not sure of their names because I couldn't read the credits), are stupid, but scary. The clowns have this evil look, but it's just the make-up. As for the kids, Casey (Nathan Forrest Winters) is a horrible character. Geoffrey (Brian McHugh) is actually the best actor in the movie. I'm not saying he's good, just that he's the best one in this. Randy (Sam Rockwell) is the typical, horny teenager... well, not so typical.
The Clownhouse is rated R. The violence is gruesome and the language is harsh. But that's not really the worst part. The acting is horrible, the story is non-existent, and the suspense is usually not there. But when it is there, it can be a little scary. However, any character that is stupid enough to walk into a room that is completely dark with murdering clowns in the house deserves to die.