Clown in a Cornfield, on Shudder

This is slasher horror, but it obviously brings to mind some of Stephen King’s greatest hits. Think of it as Children of the Corn, with Pennywise’s makeup and wardrobe. Obnoxious, entitled teens had better beware in Eli Craig’s Clown in a Cornfield, based on Adam Cesare’s novel, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

After her mother’s tragic death, Quinn Maybrook’s father, Dr. Glenn, relocated to quiet Kettle Springs, MO, despite her reservations. She quickly falls in with the cool kids, but ironically Cole Hill and his pals are pariahs amongst Kettle Springs adults. Awkwardly, they were trespassing in the local factory, filming one of their smartphone horror movies on the very night the town’s main source of employment burned to the ground. Technically, they were cleared by the investigation, but everyone rendered unemployed still blames them.

One of their favorite subjects is Frendo the Clown, who was like the Mr. Peanut of Baypen Corn Syrup, which wasformerly manufactured at the now destroyed factory. Periodically, slasher killers have hacked up Kettle Springs teenagers while dressed as Frendo, as viewers witnessed during the 1991 prologue. Clearly, someone has revived the tradition, specifically with the intent of targeting Hill’s cronies. Inconveniently, for the Maybrooks, that now includes Quinn.

Craig and co-screenwriter Carter Blanchard deftly split the difference between knowing irony and faithful reverence for the old school slasher genre. Craig and company spare us the constant stream of hipster commentary. Yet, a sly sense of humor peaks through, from time to time, as when the Gen Z kids panic when confronting the mysteries of rotary phones and stick shift cars.

Katie Douglas and Carson MacCormac bring a lot of energy to the film and develop decent rapport as Maybrook and Hill. However, Aaron Abrams really elevates the film as Dr. Maybrook, who is unusually resourceful and relatable for a horror movie parent.

Faceless After Dark: Some Nasty Meta-ness for Terrifier Fans

What do you do if you survive a killer clown? Try to survive the sequel. Hopefully, that worked for Jenna Kanell, the star of Terrifier 1 and 2. However, her fictional alter-ego is not doing so well in this film. Bowie Davidson has a limited amount of [toxic] fandom from a cult clown-slasher, but she cannot figure out a second act until inspiration comes stalking her in Raymond Wood’s Faceless After Dark, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Lately, the only work Davidson gets are convention appearances, where she signs autographs for cretinous fans. (Kanell co-wrote the screenplay, so you should consider skipping her line at the next ComicCon.) Fortunately, she need not worry about making ends meet, thanks to her lover, Jessica, a vastly more popular thesp. In fact, Jessica just booked a superhero movie in Europe, leaving Davidson alone in their Hollywood Hills home. Like clockwork, an incel stalker fan wearing a clown mask invades their home, but Davidson is in better shape and she is more comfortable wielding her old horror props.

Her “friend” Ryan, who just let his financial backers drop Davidson from his long gestating film, advised her to work on her own thing and write what she knows—so she does exactly that. Essentially, Faceless After Dark follows the template of Stacy Title’s The Last Supper, but without any of the wit or insight. Whereas the under-heralded 1995 film brilliantly depicted a group of left-wingers sliding down a slippery slope, with each of their murdered right-wingers becoming less defensible and more horrifying, Faceless is just Twitter-dopamine torture porn for the extreme left.

NYC Horror ’17: The Night Watchmen

Baltimore is so accustomed to violent crime and crummy city services, it takes quite a lot to shock the beleaguered city. However, vampire clowns should do the trick. Apparently, the only thing standing between the city and a wild pack of red-haired, face-painted blood-suckers is an incompetent crew of security guards. Despite everyone’s low expectations, the thin rented-blue line might just hold up to the undead onslaught in Mitchell Altieri’s wildly funny and shamelessly gory vampire comedy, The Night Watchmen (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 New York City Horror Film Festival.

This will be a heck of a first night for the new guy. Everyone calls him Rajeev, because he is stuck with his predecessor’s old uniform and name-tag. His new colleagues think they will have plenty of time to haze him, because most nights they just sit around eating donuts, watching adult videos, and spying on the employees of their primary tenant (a weekly newspaper), especially the cute one. Unfortunately, this will be no ordinary night. It starts when they mistakenly receive a coffin that was supposed to be delivered to the city morgue. Inside lies the remains of Blimpo the Clown, who died under mysterious circumstances while touring Romania—and you know who else came from the Transylvanian region. Needless to say, Blimpo will not stay laying down for long.

Good old Blimpo chews through most of the building, killing or turning most of the paper’s employees. Plus, he also has more clown vampire reinforcements on the way. “Rajeev” and the crew, led by Ken, the supposed former Marine, find themselves in an undead siege. On the positive side, his big crush is still alive, no thanks to their dubious protection.

Night Watchmen is one of the funniest horror comedies since Ava’s Possessions and Witching & Bitching, but it is still fabulously gory. We are talking about some arterial blood sprays that resemble the Bellagio Casino’s water show. To give you a sense of the film’s tone, our intrepid watchmen soon learn vampires pass some really nasty gas after getting staked through the heart.

Yes, Altieri and the battery of co-screenwriters (Jamie Nash, with co-stars Ken Arnold and Dan DeLuca) go there, frequently. Yet, probably the foulest gags involve James Remar playing Randall, the spectacularly sleazy newspaper boss. Good taste prevents us from describing his antics, but it is safe to say you have never seen the veteran character actor so slimy and skeevy.

You have to respect how defiantly tasteless Night Watchmen gets. Yet, the crazy thing is, it still works relatively well as a straight-up vampire horror movie. Cast-members Arnold, DeLuca, Kevin Jiggets, and Kara Luiz deserve all kinds of credit for their flexibility—and a willingness to work drenched in fake blood. It is hard to believe this is the same Altieri that helmed the rather dull hickspolitation flick Holy Ghost People, but here he is, delivering us farting vampires. We want more like this one please. Very highly recommended, The Night Watchmen screens this Friday (10/27) at the Cinepolis Chelsea, as part of this year’s NYC Horror Film Festival.

It: Stephen King’s Evil Clown Gets a Big-Screen Remake

In Medieval times, jesters served as a reminder of people’s mortality. In the Twentieth Century, at least one “Killer Clown” serial killer went beyond reminding. Last year, “evil clown” sightings became a full-fledged mini-panic. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to be afraid of clowns. These days, it is practically required. Stephen King helped solidify the evil clown archetype with his 1,200-page 1986 bestseller, but there is more nostalgia than scares to be experienced in Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of It (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

Pennywise is a particularly evil clown, whom we meet right off the bat. One rainy day, he lures stuttering Bill Denbrough’s younger brother Georgie into his clutches. Although he was sick in bed at the time, the older Denbrough brother is tormented with guilt over his disappearance. Unfortunately, children disappear all the time in Derry, Maine—so much so, the adults hardly give it any concern. Nevertheless, Denbrough is determined to find him, with the help of his friends in the so-called Losers’ Club.

Denbrough and his pals Richie Tozier, Stan Uris, and Eddie Kaspack are the long-time members. Overweight transfer student Ben Hanscom, home-schooled African American Mike Hanlon, and unfairly slut-shamed Beverly Marsh are the new recruits. They all have one thing in common. They have been bullied in some way by sociopathic Hank Bowers. However, Hanscom and Hanlon’s insights into Derry’s sinister history will lead them to suspect something darkly uncanny is afoot, operating on a twenty-seven-year cycle. That would be Pennywise—and he knows that they know.

There is an awful lot of Bill Skarsgård mugging and cackling as Pennywise. A little less probably would have been a little more. Frankly, some of the effects involving him and the related supernatural terrors look pretty cheesy. That might be partly by design, because Muschietti is clearly going for a nostalgic vibe, but there are moments that draw the wrong kind of awkward laughter,

Still, the film’s appeal to nostalgia is quite potent, unsubtly channeling Stand By Me, The Goonies, and The Lost Boys. The screenplay is apparently cobbled together from drafts by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman, but it still nails the way kids (primarily boys) talk and act when they are unsupervised together. Every scene that does not directly involve a predatory paranormal clown rings true as a bell.

Jeremy Ray Taylor is the stand-out as Hanscom, whose secret love for Marsh and the New Kids on the Block adds the perfect air of comedic pathos. Likewise, Sophia Lillis is terrific as the outwardly tough but emotionally scarred Marsh. Wisely, they spare her the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves-style orgy scene King ever so problematically included in the novel. Although he does not get a lot of distinctive business to do, there is no mistaking the intensity Chosen Jacobs brings to the screen as Hanlon. However, the other Losers’ Club members sort of blend together.

Right now, you might be wondering, wasn’t John Ritter in the It miniseries? Yes, he was, playing grown-up, slimmed-down Ben Hanscom, but Muschietti’s film doesn’t get that far. Remember, it’s a 1,200-page book. Although It all but promises a part-two, Muschietti manages to wrap things up in a surprisingly satisfying manner, especially by horror genre standards. Yet, the real strengths of the film are its grounded moments, not the wild interludes of cosmic terror. To his credit, Muschietti displays a working understanding of why 1980s films like The Lost Boys and the original Fright Night were so entertaining and applied that knowledge relatively effectively. If you remember when those films were new, you are more likely to enjoy this It. Earning a mixed recommendation for sentimental fans, It opens today, pretty much everywhere with a white wall, including the AMC Empire in New York.

Killer Party: Worst Baby Shower Ever

When the zombie apocalypse comes, it will be important to have good representation. Fresh water and non-perishable food will also be helpful in the short run, but if you survive, you will want someone who can negotiate a good back-end deal. Fortunately, an aspiring screenwriter and his mega-pregnant actress wife just happen to be at their agent’s house for a baby shower when the weird homicidal pathogen rears its ugly viral head. LA will get even more nuts in Alex Drummond’s Killer Party (a.k.a. The Shower, trailer here), which releases today on VOD.

Like most of Joanne’s clients who haven’t already given up, Nick and Mary live hand-to-mouth waiting tables. To make the get-together even more uncomfortable, Joanne’s one famous meal ticket star has rather awkwardly taken up with the profoundly discouraged nice-guy Tommy’s ex, KIm. However, all bets are off when the zombie uprising dawns. Frankly, everyone is caught rather flat-footed, except Joanne’s long-suffering assistant Beth, who almost welcomes the opportunity to vent her frustrations.

As a zombie outbreak comedy, Killer Party is decidedly hit-or-miss, but it deserves credit for putting its own unique spin on the sub-genre. Instead of brain dead shuffling hordes, Drummond’s infected become ravingly homicidal loud-mouth jackasses, which is definitely different. Logically enough, none of the zombies (or whatever) or more obnoxious than the bargain basement clown Joanne hired to entertain the kids. He is one abrasive psychopath.

Unfortunately, the overstuffed cast of characters is often stuck on the sidelines looking stupid while the clown talks smack and Beth takes the fight to any zombie within a golf club’s reach of her. There are just too many bystanders and not enough trash-talkers. Do we care whether Tommy and Kim get back together? Nope, sorry. On the other hand, watching Beth club a feral child zombie to death—now that’s entertainment. Yes, Stephanie Tobey is awesome as the freshly liberated assistant—so much so, we can hardly remember anyone else.

Killer Party is amusing, but it feels like it could have been hilarious if Drummond had gone through five or ten more drafts. Still, watching it seems like a pretty fitting way to observe National Clown Week (technically just passed, but whatev), unless you were planning on re-reading Art of the Deal or It Takes a Village. Recommended as a gory bit of fluff, Killer Party is now available on VOD, from Epic Pictures.

Ballad of the Sad Trumpet: The Last Circus

Two things remain constant in life: clowns are creepy and General Francisco Franco is still dead. If you have anything nice to say about the latter, keep it to yourself if you happen to be in Spain, lest you fall afoul of the current government’s Memoria Histórica Law. Completely legal and wildly strange, Álex de la Iglesia’s ideologically charged The Last Circus (a.k.a. A Sad Trumpet Ballad, trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

Javier always wanted to be a “happy clown” like his father, but life has made him a “sad clown” instead. During the civil war, the Loyalists forcibly impressed his father into their ranks in the midst of a children’s matinee, in full make-up, for what they knew would be a hopeless last stand. Captured, his father’s fate is decided by the sinister Col. Salcedo, whom Javier will encounter again decades later.

Essentially, Javier is a divided personality. Part of him seethes for vengeance, while the other half yearns to hear the cheers of the circus. Unfortunately, destiny made him a sad clown, the butt of other clowns’ jokes, rather than the merry jester. When he signs onto Sergio’s rag-tag company, he will only get sadder. It is not just the routines that are sadistic. The happy clown also terrorizes his company outside the ring, particularly his lover Natalia, the trapeze artist. Javier is also quite taken with her, which means trouble.

As the already traumatized Sergio becomes increasingly agitated, the historical mixes with the fictional, producing one dark but potent cocktail. Forget subtlety. That has no place in a film that climaxes at Spain’s controversial Valley of the Fallen monument, like a sinister, slightly sacrilegious North by Northwest. Viewers should understand full well there is some very disturbing imagery in Circus, but it serves a specific purpose and, more often than not, it is quite inventively conceived and rendered.

As the whipping boy of Sergio, Franco’s militarists, and Iglesias, Carlos Areces is a pretty compelling sad clown. While his crack-up is outrageously over-the-top, he keeps viewers invested in the madness, suggesting there really was a “there” in there at one point. Conversely, there is not a lot of nuance to Antonio de la Torre’s Sergio, but gee whiz, he is scary.

Granted, it defies easy categorization, but Circus is definitely a well-crafted film. Down the stretch, cinematographer Kiko de la Riko and production designer Eduardo Hidalgo’s team make The Dark Knight look like The Smurfs. Yet, perhaps the film’s shrewdest strategy is the use of Spanish balladeer Raphael’s “Balada de la Trompeta” as a recurring motif, perfectly setting the eerily mournful mood. It is a tune musicians ought to consider covering, because it really insinuates itself into your head.

Do not bring the kids to this Circus. It is a decidedly macabre and subversive affair with an idiosyncratic style all its own. However, adventurous viewers will be impressed by Iglesias’s command of all the lunacy exploding on-screen. It is so crazy, even the sledgehammer politics are lost in the shuffle, but that is a good thing. Recommended for those who like a strong dose of weird in their cinema (who will dig it like a gold rush), Circus opens tomorrow (8/19) in New York at the Cinema Village.