I am currently co-writing a comedy horror feature film about a killer clown. In the name of research, I will spend the next few weeks watching movies and reading books about clowns - killer and otherwise - as well as exploring other ideas that are thematically relevant. It is a subject I never imagined myself delving into, and it has already proved quite interesting.
This blog will feature movie and book reviews, as well as links to anything else I find interesting.
Welcome, my slanging duffers, to the first 'lazzi'. Lazzi is a term derived from the commedia dell'arte, a precursor to pantomime and the modern day circus, which achieved huge popularity during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. It means 'tricks' or 'turns.' These are comic routines performed by clowns, some of them jokes, others acts of skill.
I am going to borrow the term for this little sideshow, where I will present short films and video clips that feature clowns. I will spare you anything too appalling, so depending on the overall quality of what I watch, this could be a short-lived aside. But sure what does it matter; if you're reading this, it's not like you have anything better to do anyway!
First up is Clown(best to keep start simple, and keep it to the point!), which you can watch here:
Clown is a 2008 short film directed by Tate Steinsiek. I assume he wrote it too, but IMDB doesn't actually list a writer's credit. This, as you can imagine, is quite telling.
Clown isn't bad, but it's far from good. There isn't much of a story, but there are a couple of okay performances. It stars Peter Greene, (best known as Zed from Pulp Fiction) and Norman Reedus (from AMC's The Walking Dead), but given how little they have to do here, it could have been anyone really.
Clown is quite nicely shot. The lighting and composition are good, and there is a palpable sense of menace. The clown make-up is dark and effective, and the production values, though of varying quality, generally pass muster. However this is the one thing I would expect this director to get right, given that most of his credits are as a special effects artist.
What really lets Clown down though, is the editing. It's appalling! This is a really badly put together film, so what good work is on display in other departments is not used to it's best effect. This further undermines the quality of what is already a mediocre piece.
Clown is very much a student film, in that the filmmakers had a basic idea of what they wanted to achieve, but didn't have what it took to execute a decent story, or to create meaningful characters. As a visual and mood exercise, I'd give it a passing grade. Clown is a show reel piece and little more. It passes six minutes relatively painlessly, but ultimately, pointlessly.
As I wasn't able to embed the Clown video directly, here's a picture of a clown for you to look at:
I'm pretty sure this is the same image David Icke uses in his talks where he insists that Bush is a giant lizard from outer space. Presumably he uses graphics like this to add credence to his arguments. Riiiiiighttttt...
Next up, I'm going to exorcise my demons with the help of some Christian clowns. You probably think I'm kidding…
Those avidly following Stitches Laughing (hi Mom) will recall I ended the last post saying that I would next write about a Zombie movie, and you no doubt thought it was going to be Night of The Living Dead or 28 Days Later or Shaun of The Dead, but then when you saw that it was House of 1000 Corpses you probably said, 'That's not a zombie movie!' but then you noticed that I spelt Zombie with a capital 'Z,' so it was actually a name, and then you remembered that House of 1000 Corpses is directed by Rob Zombie, and then you went 'Oh, I see what he did there; this Vicariator guy is a fucking genius!' and while, yes, I do appreciate the compliment, I could do without the swearing, mother.
Rob Zombie (or coochie-kins to his friends) made his name during the 1990s in alternative groove horror metal band White Zombie. White Zombie kicked some serious ass. They have a great sound. Slick, electronica-drenched guitar grooves are dirtied up by Zombie's 'Kurt Cobain with a tracheotomy' vocals. Every song is like a mini scary movie, and many of them actually use samples from old horrors. Here is my personal favourite (I was going to embed the video - which Zombie directed - but the audio is crappy). White Zombie sound better the louder you play them. Crank it up!
Rob Zombie is a talented guy. Not only is he an accomplished musician, he has written and drawn comic books (his artwork even inspired the tripping sequence in Beavis & Butthead Do America), he helped design a horror maze at Universal Movie Studios, and in 2004 he made his feature film directing debut. Zombie cut his teeth (no doubt into fangs) as a director of music videos for White Zombie and other metal acts. His first foray into feature films was when he wrote an, ultimately un-produced, sequel/reboot to the Crow franchise. After that fell through, Zombie turned his attention to an original idea, the movie in question, House of 1000 Corpses. The reason I chose to watch this film is quite simple; there's a big scary clown on the cover:
House of 1000 Corpses is set in 1977 and follows a group of annoying twenty-somethings who are travelling through backwater America compiling a travelogue on offbeat roadside attractions. They pull into a gas station run by Captain Spaulding (the clown character on the cover, played by Sid Haig) who brings them through his horror sideshow called the Museum of Monsters & Mad-Men. Here, he introduces them to the local legend of Dr. Satan. The annoying twenty-somethings want to know more, so Captain Spaulding gives them directions to where they can find the tree from which Dr. Satan was hung. The annoying twenty-somethings head off into the stormy night. When their car breaks down, they are given shelter from the storm by a group of philanthropic hillbillies, the Firefly family. Sorry, not philanthropic; psychotic (I always get those mixed up, which has resulted in many unnecessary deaths). Anyway, it is at this point that the fun begins, and Zombie gets to play with his gory toys.
House of 1000 Corpses is a very well crafted movie. It's nicely shot and edited, the performances are pretty good, it has some clever dialogue, and delivers very effective gore and some really creepy imagery. Zombie is a horror aficionado; he named himself after one of the genre's most iconic creatures after all! He is well versed in its tropes, but his interest lies in the darker, more cynical horror of the 70s, than the later trend for slasher popcorn movies. For this reason, I was expecting House of 1000 Corpses to be shot in a very gritty style, so it came as some surprise to see how vibrant and colourful it actually is.
The colour palate is rich and vivid, though the movie juxtaposes these crisp images with gritty Super 8 footage from time to time. In lesser hands these flash cuts would have been distracting, but they really do enhance the viewing experience here. While visually House of 1000 Corpses is closer in style to Zombie's animation than to the 70s exploitation flicks he is so in love with, tonally, it is true to its influences. House of 1000 Corpses isessentially a grindhouse revival movie that predates the movement popularised by, well, Grindhouse (in which Zombie actually directed one of the fake trailers, Werewolf Women of The SS)
The focus here is entirely on the villains, predominantly Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), Otis (Bill Moseley), and Mother Firefly (Karen Black). This is the film's greatest strength, and ultimately, its greatest weakness. They are twisted, mean, and evil, and there is a certain macabre pleasure to be had in anticipating what horrible act they will commit next. However, there comes a point where I just didn't want to be in the presence of these horrible people any more. Zombie grew up in carnivals, and from an early age he was surrounded by freaks and sideshow performers. That stuff became everyday to him, and he takes great pleasure in exaggerating it on the screen. He really loves his crazy hillbillies! The over the top performances, coupled with the bright colour scheme makes House of 1000 Corpses feel almost like a cartoon at times, albeit one closer in tone to Itchy & Scratchy than Bambi. House of 1000 Corpses
I might have been more engaged if the victims had been something other than meat for the hillbillies to hack up, but I guess that was never the intention. The victims are here to be victims. No matter what the movie, it helps if you care about the protagonists. Bill (Rainn Wilson) is probably the best developed character, but rather than stay with him, we instead follow Denise (Erin Daniels). All I can tell you about her character is that she is someones girlfriend (I don't even remember which of the guys she was going out with). She is basically there to scream as we follow her through one nightmarish scenario after another. This is fun for a while, but only on an aesthetic level. I quickly reached a point where I was numb to all the fucked up menace and imagery. There are certainly some cool scenes (when Denise comes face to face with her father is wonderfully morbid), but more often than not, the horror just didn't connect.
Many of the villains are named after Groucho Marx characters. Captain Spaulding is a character in Animal Crackers. Rufus, and the Firefly clan itself, are named for Rufus T. Firefly in Duck Soup, and other family members take their names from Otis B. Driftwood in A Night at the Opera and Hugo Z. Hackenbush in A Day at the Races. In light of my current research, I found this very interesting. The Marx Brothers were essentially a clowning act. They developed their act in vaudeville theatre, which was itself a derivation of the circus and minstrel shows of the nineteenth century. In particular with the Captain Spaulding character, naming a clown after a vaudville act, which in turn have their roots in the circus, in some ways brings the whole tradition full circle.
As a clown, Captain Spaulding is a decent creation, but the truth is, he's just a vulgar hick who happens to dress up like a clown as part of his show. He certainly has personality, but you could remove all of his make-up and the character would remain the exact same.
House of 1000 Corpses is a decent - or more accurately, an indecent - viewing experience. It doesn't demand much from its audience, and it just about delivers on what it promises. Unfortunately, I strongly feel that Zombie and his band of freaks had much more fun making the movie than anyone will have watching it.
Zombie returned to this world and these characters in 2005 with The Devil's Rejects. This time he jettisoned the comic book tone of House of 1000 Corpses in favour of a much grittier style. While I really do like the look of House of 1000 Corpses, this new approached suited the material far better. Stephen King ranked The Devil's Rejects as his 9th best movie of 2005, and wrote of it, 'No redeeming social merit, perfect '70s C-picture cheesy glow; this must be what Quentin Tarantino meant when he did those silly Kill Bill pictures.' The same could be said of Grindhouse. While Tarantino and Rodriguez are film geeks playing at making a naughty movie, I feel that Rob Zombie is the real deal.
One last thing (which was actually the first thing) that struck me about House of 1000 Corpses, is the opening title sequence. It consists of a montage of various American backwaters inter-cut with horror imagery and archive footage, all to the tune of a gritty country rock tune. Sound familiar? It should if you're a fan of a certain hit vampire series.True Blood has received a great deal of praise - and rightly so - for its excellent and iconic title sequence, but I think more than a little inspiration was taken from the House of 1000 Corpsesopening credits.
Next up, I'm going to take a more lazzi-faire approach.
I stated in the opening blurb to this blog that while I would be looking at a lot of material that deals with clowns, killer and otherwise, I would also be delving into other ideas that are thematically relevant. The idea here isn't just to share a bunch of reviews; it's to give anyone who is interested an overall flavour for the project I am writing (currently titled Stitches, but that may change). This is a killer clown movie, so obviously, a lot of what I share here will be to do with that. But the killer clown is our antagonist. What of our protagonists?
A good movie is about one of two things; people and/or boobs. Ours, unfortunately, focuses more on people. It doesn't matter how many cool deaths you have, if the people in danger aren't worth caring for, then your movie isn't worth caring for. Outside of our titular psychopath, the main characters in Stitches are teenagers (which instinctively makes you want them to die). They are a bunch of friends in school, and like any such group, for every moment of laughter and banter, there is one of tension and rivalry. As such, it is important to study examples where this has been done particularly well, and one my main points of reference is a 1999 American TV series called Freaks and Geeks.
Freaks and Geeks ran for one season back at the turn of the century. It consists of eighteen episodes and focuses on the lives of various students at William McKinley High School during their 1980-81 term. While the show centres on the characters of Linday Weir (Linda Cardellini) and her brother Sam (John Francis Daly), these are just our in-points: Linday and her friends being the 'freaks,' Sam and his, the 'geeks.' Once we meet these groups, the show essential becomes an ensemble piece.
The series was created by Paul Feig and was executive produced by Judd Apatow before he hit the big time with The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and a whole bunch of mediocre crap. The show attracted a major amount of young talent. If you were to film this today, with this cast, you would need a hefty budget. James Franco and Seth Rogan are the two biggest names to emerge from the series, but the show also launched the careers of Jason Segal, Linda Cardellini, and many of the other leads (and several supporting characters) have gone on to achieve moderate success (moderate in the light of my own staggering achievements). It's kind of strange when you first start watching it, because you see all of these familiar faces looking so damn young (except for James Franco, who sold his soul to the same deity as Johnny Depp, as he looks practically the same).
One of the great things about Freaks and Geeks is its authenticity. This isn't an über-glamorous Beverley Hills high school where every class is populated by super-wealthy supermodels (like where I went to school). Nor is it an all too knowing take on adolescence, where everyone talks like neurotics with degrees in sociology. This series tries, and succeeds, at presenting a realistic world as seen from the point of view of high school teens. It perfectly captures the innocence of that period in our lives when we are torn between the blithe freedom of the children we were, and the impending responsibility of the adult we are becoming.
Rather than cast people in their mid-twenties, the producers tried to cast as close to age as possible, and this is one of the series biggest successes. These guys look like kids and talk like kids. This verisimilitude brings a level of realism that no amount of de-aging make-up can achieve. The naivete of the young performers shines through in their characters, and completely sucks you into their worlds.
This isn't a depressingly ersatz take on high school life where everyone is gorgeous with perfect hair. Even though there are some very attractive future stars in this show, all of that is played down. These are just ordinary people, but don't confuse ordinary with boring. There are no one note characters here. You truly get to know these people as the story unfolds. They are all complicated creatures, plagued as they are with teenage doubts and insecurities. None of them have figured out who they are yet, and those that think they have, well, they have some surprises in store.
In terms of an overriding series narrative, there isn't one. This isn't a programme you watch for complex plot machinations, you watch it so that you can laugh and cry with the characters. You find yourself loving and hating people at different times. Sometimes they feel like your best friend, then they say or do something that you don't approve of, and you find yourself at odds with them. I constantly felt like these people were my friends; that I was one of the gang, taking different sides as my mood dictated. You are at the centre of all of these friendships. The group dynamics, both internally, and in how they groups themselves interact with one another, are brilliantly realised. This is all down to both great characters, and the quality of the performances.
What really resonates about Freaks and Geeks is that it doesn't matter that it's an American high school in the eighties. Its not about a specific place and period, but a time in our lives. Even though many of the frames of reference are different, they are only superficially so. They play softball, I played gaelic. They have audio visual club, I helped set up the school web page and was teller in the school bank (I was one of the cool kids). What translates best here is what matters. It's the universal struggle to figure out who we are. I doesn't matter if that's in school or looking at our place in the universe; it's always the big question. All of that, it's great fun!
When I watched the penultimate episode of Freaks and Geeks, I felt quite mellon chollie and the infitine sadness. I deliberately put off watching the final show, as I knew it would be the last time I got to hang out with these people. The only other series I ever felt that for was The Mysterious Cities of Gold! In a world where we have Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Peep Show, Arrested Development, and countless other great TV series, I would put Freaks and Geeks in my top ten. It's such a shame it was cancelled, but at least we got this much. I really loved this show!
Judd Apatow went on to make a series called Undeclared, which I haven't seen yet, but seems to be a college version of Freaks and Geeks. While it is not a direct sequel - it doesn't feature the same characters - it does feature much of the same cast. I'm looking forward to acquainting myself with it!
I hope that with Stitches, we can achieve something on a par what they did with Freaks and Geeks. If our characters can live and breath as they do here, I will happily kill them off one by one, knowing that they have earned the life we are so gleefully taking away from them!
To close, and just to keep things thematically relevant, here's a great image of some killer clowns:
Next up, it's about time I watched a Zombie movie.
Along with Blind, Clown was the my first encounter with the dulcet tones of Korn. Even though their eponymous début was released in 1994, it was 1997 before I really gave Korn a chance. Up until then, I had heard random morsels (culinary references will abound; I'll count, so you don't have to - this is number 1), but their sound just did not appeal to my palate (2). What further put me off was that most of the people who harped on about Korn as though they were the greatest thing since sliced bread (3), were not really metal fans. They were trend junkies who jumped on any passing fad; cultural nackers if you will. They were the same people who never listened to Nirvana when Kurt Cobain was alive, though they wore the t-shirt with pride after his death. What really took the biscuit though (4), was that these also appeared to be the same people who wore Pearl Jam (5) t-shirts. As I never saw the big deal with that particular band, I didn't see why I should feel any different about Korn. Much of my life choices are actually based on t-shirts worn by dooshbags.
1997 was a different world. MTV still played music videos, Bill Clinton's cigar was still damp, and no one had yet realised that Korn only came in one flavour (6). Admittedly, at that time, Korn's was a new and interesting flavour (6.5), but I was a traditional rocker, and didn't much care for the hip-hop influence they bought to the table (7). Even when I did start to develop a taste (8) for their particular style of sonic a-salt (9), my interest in Korn never went beyond their easy singles (10 - I'm really pushing it with that one). I found their albums tiresome. There just isn't enough variation in their sound to keep me interested beyond a couple of tracks. I like my Korn in rashers (11), not in joints (12). This is my big problem with nu-metal in general. My favourite bands in this genre are the ones that swiftly left it behind, specifically System of A Down and Deftones.
But credit where credit is due, Korn did cook up (13) something fresh and original and, for better or worse, they did leave a lasting taste (14) in the mouth of the music industry. Though they are far from the best metal band in the world, they did create a new sound, and that is worth some kudos.
If a Korn song was a pizza (15), the heavy bass grooves would be, well, the base (16), their trademark pull-off/hammer-on riffs, the tomato sauce (17), Jonathan Davis's vocals, the cheese (18), and their guitar screech punctuations, the pepperoni (19). As pizzas go (20), the song Clown is a brilliantly "spicy-a meatball" (21)! The warbling tomato sauce (22) lends the verses a surreal menace, which perfectly complements the whispered cheese (23). The song is about people trying to be something they are not in order to fit in, and was more specifically inspired by a belligerent fan who threatened Jonathan Davis during a gig. As has been well-documented, Davis had a traumatic childhood, and while Clown doesn't directly confront those issues (these have been covered more than enough elsewhere, like on their album: Issues) this trauma is starkly personified in the image of a clown, and it breathes through every beat of the song. The video further enhances this idea of childhood distress, by having Davis the victim of high school bullying.
Said video was directed by McG, who went on to give the world the awful Charlie's Angels movies, and the disappointing Terminator: Salvation. This video was my first proper taste of Korn (20). I saw it on a borrowed VHS of SuperRock, which I watched on repeat for about six months. It was actually quite an amazing episode. It had videos for The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson, Shove It (My Own Summer) by Deftones, Say Just Words by Paradise Lose, Stinkfist by Tool (21), and Replica by Fear Factory. 1997-David (who only had the basic channels at home) was as happy as a pig (22) in shit (23) with that menu (24)!
For dessert (25), here is a serving (26) of Korn from when they guest stared in South Park. I hope this is enough to satisfy your appetites (27).
No wonder it's so hard to decipher Korn lyrics; they're in Spanish.
Next up, I'm going to migrate into the world of television, and the story of a load of insecure spotty creature who are trying to find their place in the cosmos.
EDIT: I am returning to this entry to make a slight edit. I have made copious notes on the various circus books I have read over the past few months. When I first posted this, I was eager to get a book review out, so before I had a chance to type up my notes, I went ahead and published the review. Unfortunately, this resulted in a slight error on my part. I mentioned how at times I felt the circus tent sounded like a ship at sea. I thought this was my own impression, but it had slipped by me that this is in fact Foster's image. I have edited the text below to reflect this. In the immortal words of Madeleine McCann's parents; Oops.
Bizarre. It was April 16th and I had just finished my first book on clowning. I closed the cover, turned on my laptop, and clicked into the Google homepage, only to be greeted by the following video:
It was embedded above the search bar on the Google main page. It seems April 16th is the birth date of Charlie Chaplin, and that 2011 is his 122nd birthday. Why is this bizarre? Well, perhaps that is too strong a word, but at the very least it was a highly unlikely coincidence. Read on...
Apparently the beginning is a really good place to start, so I'll do that now, with the second paragraph. When I got my hands on the first batch of clown and circus books I had ordered, I was faced with the difficult choice of where to begin. Did I start with one of the pristine new editions, or did I go for the dusty old hardback? Well, I am a romantic, so there really was no choice.
As Clowning Through is out of print, I had to secure a second-hand copy. Though the yellow felt binding barely holds it together, and loads of the pages are printed crooked, it is quite a beautiful little volume. There is something romantic about reading an old book: the smell and feel of the yellowed paper, the delicate touch required to turn the pages. You feel like you are reaching into the past and grabbing it straight out of someones hands. Imagine the look on that person's face, when the book they were enjoying is plucked from their grasp as if by nothing. The thought of that was all I needed to make me begin my studies here!
So, four paragraphs in, what of the text?Clowning Through is a slender volume at 162 pages, and it makes for a very quick and easy read. It is written in an unadorned and straightforward manner, and one could easily complete it in a day. While you might be quick to laugh at the idea of a book about clowning, this is no comedy. Clowning Through isn't about clowns, but rather the people beneath the make-up. It's about the struggle to follow fragile dreams amid the harsh realities of life.
Clowning Through isn't a single narrative, but rather is composed of a series of mini-biographies, each detailing the life of a different clown that the authors have worked with over the years. Each biography is told in just a few short pages, and is packed with the details of their varied and unique lives. No sooner have you learned about Joe Craston, and his disastrous attempt to direct a circus in Argentina, than you are introduced to Coco, the Russian son of a cobbler who ran away to join the circus, later served in the Russian Army in the fight against the Bolsheviks only to be captured, escape, join a band of Mongolian gypsies, and eventually manage to return home by disguising himself as a woman and sneaking over the boarder. Coco has barely left the stage when McGeachie the Scottish dwarf steps forth, and you learn his tale of woe, about how he was so badly bullied as a child that it left him with irreversible spine injuries, which ended his clowning career before it could properly take flight. Each story is short, well composed, and riveting, and though we only skip through these lives, they are never treated as trivial. Not all of the accounts are as striking as the ones I have mentioned, but none of them bore.
As these personal trials unfold, the authors paint the backdrop of the larger world of the circus. Though all of these performers come from radically different backgrounds, the text conveys a real sense of community. Despite their disparate lives, they were all united by the circus. Frank Foster himself lived in this world, and while it is alien to me, the down to Earth homeliness of his prose made it feel warm and appealing. It is not an easy existence he describes, but these people willingly 'clowned through' their struggles because this was the only life that made them happy. I personally have great admiration for anyone who follows and achieves their dreams. I found plenty to admire here.
There is a certain romanticism here as well: the outlandish world of the circus, the life of the performer, living on the road, or more accurately, living in the ring. For these people the road was just the mundane reality in between shows. Foster opens up with a small piece of verse:
Sturdy "King-Poles" unpatched canvas,
Like a ship with expert crew
Where "Tenting" people live like humans,
And "Tober Homeys°" get their due.
This image is further realised in the story of Beasy. One night, while in the audience at a show in France, a great gale sprung up. Everybody lost their heads as the wind whipped and tore the tent.Beasy stepped in, took charge, and got everything under control as he roared, "Lower the necks!" How could one not imagine a ship struggling against a storm?
Each story in Clowning Through is preceded by a sketch by Clifford Hall, who spent time with all of the clowns involved before finally capturing their essence on the page. This is a really nice touch. I liked to flip back to this picture once I had read the story, and see how much of their tale I could detect in their faces.
If I was to level any criticism against Clowning Through It wasn't written by novelists, but by circus men who wanted to capture something of the world they knew before it faded away. While the writing is rather basic, it is frank, to the point, and most important, heartfelt. It does not require reams of text to achieve its goal. Much like the artwork, these stories are sketches. Part of the magic is in letting your imagination colour them in.
In conclusion (or should that be clown-clusion - holy shit; I'm hilarious; where's the nearest circus?!), Clowning Through provided me with several hours of worthwhile entertainment that I wouldn't take back. I learned some things I wouldn't have otherwise, and I met a host of characters whose stories are worth hearing. Many books deliver much less.
The last thing to discuss here is all of that malarkey I opened with, with regards to Charlie Chaplin. Halfway through Clowning Through there is mention of a style of acrobatics known as Risley. Named for John Risley, it involves juggling things with your feet, you know, like balls, clubs, children. Yes, children. I'm not kidding. They were known as Risley Kids. This particular aspect of the routine has, unsurprisingly, fallen out of practice, due to the fact that it essentially involved kicking the shit out of a child in order to make people laugh (it's political correctness gone mad, I know). It even inspired a rhyme:
Risley kids and slanging duffer*,
Lord only knows how much they suffer!
The authors imply, though do not explicitly state, that one notable Risley Kid was none other than Charlie Chaplin. The veracity of this claim is unclear. Chaplin was certainly born into a family of entertainers, but it is unclear as to whether or not he was involved in the circus. However, (and again, coincidentally) earlier this year, a letter emerged which claimed that Chaplin was born in a gypsy caravan, which would lead credence to the authors assertions. Regardless of his origins, Chaplin was essentially a clown, and this is true of many other classic performers and characters from early cinema such as Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges. The Marx Brothers began as a vaudeville act, a genre of theatre whose roots are firmly in the circus. There is a strong argument to be made that this clowning tradition is carried on in modern times by characters such as Mr. Bean, Ace Ventura, and Enda Kenny.
So that's what constitutes 'bizarre' in my world. To close, here's a picture of a fantastic looking evil clown:
Next up, some korny music.
* A slanging duffer is a reference to the general Auguste or utility clown, and the rough usage he habitually received. ° A tober homey is slang for the toll collector.
So far, I've stuck to safe and familiar territory with the movies I've watched. It's time to take the bit in my teeth and plough into the unknown. What horrors (or comedies!) await...
I had never heard of Clownhouse. It is one of the many movies I discovered when I started to poke around online for the best killer clown movies ever made (a fool's game, if ever there was one). As you can imagine, it is a fairly limited field, and much of the cream of the crop is rather curdled. However, Victor Salva's 1989 effort, Clownhouse, had received some okay reviews, so I figured it was a good place to start. A quick check on IMDB revealed that Victor Salva also directed Powder and the Jeepers Creepers series, and while I haven't seen either, I know that both are flawed, but decent movies.
My initial reaction to Clownhouse was slight confusion. The DVD cover is printed entirely in German. That, along with the directors name, led me to believe that this was going to be a foreign language film; some B-movie Euro-trash that Victor Salva directed before making a name for himself in Hollywood. However the opening titles revealed that the cast and crew all had very English/American sounding names, none more so than the third credit to come on-screen; Sam Rockwell! I hit pause, and had another quick root around online. This time I discovered that Clownhouse was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival! What the hell was this movie?
I hit play, and watched on, intrigued. I don't know who was on that Sundance jury - Clownhouse isn't a bad movie, but it sure ain't award worthy.
The story follows a young boy, Casey (Nathan Forrest Winters, in his first and last feature film performance), who has an intense fear of clowns (coulrophobia, for all you pedants out there). With his mother away for the weekend, he is left in the care of his two older brothers, Geoffrey (Brian McHugh) and Randy (Sam Rockwell, in his feature film debut). They want to go to the circus, and thinking that Casey's fear is just a bit childish, they drag him along. Casey, of course, has the shit scared out of him, but he gets through it unscathed. However, what they don't know is that after the show, three escaped inmates from the local mental institution kill the clowns, dress up in their costumes, and because their mental, follow the boys home to kill them (obviously).
What follows is, despite its R-Rating, essentially a horror movie for kids. If you are looking for gore, turn your blood-lusting eyes elsewhere. There is barely a drop of blood split here. Clownhouse should not be any more than PG-13. Gremlins is far scarier.
While there is little on-screen gore, there is also little on-screen death. Clownhouse is considered to be a slasher movie, but very few of the swipes draw blood. The body count is low, though there is one particular fatality that is fantastically daft, and worth the price of admission alone! But the intention here isn't to make you cringe, it is to provide some fun frights, and this it does quite effectively. There are some neat visual gags, one in particular which involves a reflection, where it takes you couple of seconds to realise what you've just seen. On more than one occasion, I couldn't contain a guffaw of appreciation!
What works best about this movie is the interaction between the brothers. The dynamic is brilliantly captured, and even the patchy performances don't hamper its authenticity. You really believe that these guys grew up together. Each character is well defined, both in their personality, and their role in the brotherly hierarchy. They are well written, and had this material been performed by better talent, Clownhouse would have been a far superior movie. As it stands, the only one to deliver a solid performance is, unsurprisingly, Sam Rockwell. It's the little nuances that distinguish him. Bad actors just stand there and deliver their dialogue as best they can remember it (which is what the other two leads do). You can see them running the lines through their head as they wait to deliver their next one. Good actors keep the performance up, even when the camera isn't on them. They let the character shine through in everything they do. Anyone can walk down a hallway, but a good actor walks down the hallway in character. You can always tell the difference, and it is this that separates Sam Rockwell and his co-stars.
But in a movie called Clownhouse, the main thing we wish to know is; how are the clowns? The clowns are good, but not great. They are mute throughout, so there is no real sense of character. They are just guys in clown costumes who terrorise the boys, and that is that. What makes them work isn't the acting, but the way the clowns are presented. The most effective moments come about by how the camera is framed to captures their actions, rather than through any actual performance. Basically, they look good, and on the day, the director told them where to stand, and this worked nicely. Beyond that, there is nothing memorable about them. Pennywise can float away contently knowing that he is still the boss clown.
Overall, Clownhouse is a perfectly good watch. As a horror movie, it is benign, but what jumps it does deliver are fun. It's the sort of thing that, had you discovered it on TV one night when you were fourteen, you would have had a ball with it. As it stands, I could only reccommend it if you have a particular interest in the that limited genre that is killer clown movies.
For those who are paying attention, at the end of my previous blog, I said that I would next write about a movie director who abused his lead actor. You're probably thinking that, once again, I have teased you with the prospect on one movie, only to sucker punch you with another. While you were busy entertaining that thought, here comes the real blow from way out of left field. The review I promised is no movie, I'm afraid.
As I mentioned earlier, this was Nathan Forrest Winters first and last feature film. The reason for his brief career is more disturbing than any horror movie. In 1988 Victor Salva was charged with having (and filming) oral sex with Nathan Forrest Winters. Salva was 29 at the time; Winters was 12. Salva pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 3 years in prison, of which he serve 15 months.
Upon his release, he found it understandably difficult to get work, but he had a very powerful benefactor; none other than Francis Ford Coppola. It was Coppola who had given Salva his big break. He was instrumental (though uncredited) in Salva getting the funding for Clownhouse. As Salva stove to break back into the film industry after his release from prison, Coppola stood by him. Looking back on his defence of Salva, Coppola said, 'I was criticized for it, but my attitude is, he has a talent, and that talent in itself is good.'
Salva eventually returned to directing in 1995, and has been working steadily ever since. This LA times article, conducted in 2006, gives a full account of these events:
It does seem that Salva has acknowledged his crime, and has worked hard to atone for his sins. It's easy to judge, but if the victim's mother is able to forgive the man, and not resent his continuing to work in the industry, then who are we to condemn him? While I don't for a second believe that any level of talent should mean horrific acts be overlooked, if someone dedicates themselves to making reparations for their crimes, that person deserves a second chance. We all make mistakes, and while Salva's was particularly vile, I would prefer to live in a world where a person can change, than one where only the alternative holds true. But that's an idealistic view. Given the crime here, it is hard not to be appalled. If this was my child, I don't think I could ever forgive him. I'm not like Hollywood, which appears to have a very ambivalent attitude towards sex offenders (and plenty of other socially unacceptable behaviour), as long as the perpetrator is talented.
I did not know any of this when I watched the movie, though it does go some way towards explaining why an American made movie I purchased on Amazon is not readily available in the English language. I'm not claiming that people who don't speak English are more lenient towards this subject than the rest of us (though they totally are), but I think this film might have been somewhat blacklisted in the States, and shipped off into foreign markets where it might stand a chance of escaping it's stigma.
Next up, I'm going to take a break from the movies. I'm tired of staring at screens, so I'm going to stare at a page instead, and clown through my first book review.
The second movie to go under the microscope is yet another blast from my past.
It was late on Friday April 1st when I last made the long drive home to Mayo. I entered my room to find a mountain of packages from Amazon, which contained the first batch of movies and books I will be sharing my thoughts on over the next few weeks. I was in the mood to watch something, it was late, and my youngest brother, Eamon, and his friend Alan were there. What could I chose that was short and was guaranteed to entertain? There was only one choice in what I had, Peter Jackson's 1992 splatsterpiece, Braindead.
I first experienced this movie back in 1999. When I saw it back then, I had a agenda; I wanted to know who the hell this Peter Jackson guy was. The Lord of The Ring films had just been announced, and like most judgemental assholes, I was standing with my arms crossed as I shook my head in disapproval. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Still, I was willing to investigate a little before I completely wrote him off. I worked in a record store at the time, and we had two of his movies in stock; Bad Taste and Braindead. I proceeded to get my research on.
I came away from them sure of one thing; this guy wasn't fit to read The Lord of The Rings, let alone bring it to the big screen. Sure, both Bad Taste and Braindead were fun, but that was not the sensibility required to bring a story with the depth and breadth of Tolkien's Middle Earth to the big screen.
When I said I did a little research, I wasn't lying - that was as far as I went. This was in the days before the Internet had truly taken off. I did not know or understand how to use it. There was no Wikipedia, and I had never heard of a thing called IMDB. A little more research would have revealed that Peter Jackson had also been nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay to Heavenly Creatures, and that he was also the man behind The Frighteners, which I had thoroughly enjoyed. Looking back, I hold my hand up and freely admit that on that one occasion, I was almost kind of slightly wrong about something. At least now that we have identified the exception, we can accept the rule...
Revisiting Braindead in 2011 was a very different experience. I wasn't watching this with critical eyes; I just wanted to be entertained, and entertainment is what this film delivers in barrels, waves, and floods - of blood! Braindead is fantastic and demented in equal measures. It is one of the most amped up movies you are ever likely to see. It starts at a level of maniacal energy that most movies barely manage to climax with, and turns the intensity up from there.
From the opening frame, this film is bonkers. All of the characters are played in a hyper-real, exaggerated fashion, and the kinetic camera moves only enhance the mania. This was a brilliant and vital approach. Jackson and his crew wisely realised that they couldn't start off in the 'real world' if they wanted to bring this story to the places it goes. It starts off pitched at about seven, and then goes all the way up to eleven, before it blows out the speakers, while still somehow managing to blare forth with ever increasing intensity. Like a Weird Al Yankovic album.
Immeasurable amounts of joy and effort went into realising the most over the top ways in which a human can be pulped. There is no room for subtlety here. Characters don't gets slashed, they are shredded. This movie is the definition of splatstick.People are are taken out in an ever escalating series of truly inspired fatalities. I'm not going to describe any, because a major part of the fun of this film is the shocked laugh you can't contain as you say to yourself, 'They didn't just [insert over the top death here], did they...?'
But none of this would have any impact if we weren't involved with the characters, and there is just as much fun to be had here. The leads, Lionel (Timothy Balme) and Paquita (Diana Peñalver) are the most ordinary, as they need to be if we are to identify with them, but their relative normality is more than made up for by Mum (Elizabeth Moody), Uncle Les (Ian Watkin), 'Void' (Jed Brophy), the baby, and of course, the man with the best line in the movie, Father John McGruder (Stuart Devenie), who comes off like Father Ted channelling Ash from the Evil Dead, with a side order of Bruce Lee kicking you in the face!
Believe it or not, there is more going on here than cascades of viscera. With Jackson's earlier work, he had certainly proved himself a craftsman of mayhem, but he had tended to overlook story in the pursuit of shock. With this, he really started to grow as a storyteller, without for a second compromising on the outrageous. When you wipe away the blood, there is a simple but solid story at play here. It keeps you engaged beyond the gore, and what really makes this film resonate beyond other blood drenched fare, is the subtext. There is a Freudian undercurrent that, come the final encounter, makes you cringe on many levels. I'm not going to claim that it's particularly deep - it's certainly not trying to be - but when you walk away from this, you have been as much mentally as viscerally violated!
Braindead has lost nothing with age (I don't want to hear any comments like, 'And much like Braindead you have unconvincing miniatures.' You're so bloody immature.).
My father came in from the pub during the penultimate sequence, just as Lionel brings his lawn mowing skills into play. A keen mower of lawns himself, I'm sure he was looking for some pointers. It doesn't matter what age you are, you always get a little uncomfortable when your parents catch you watching something you know they won't approve of. However, even he couldn’t help but laugh, before he grimaced and turned away from the screen. Braindead is so ridiculous you can't really take offence at it. It probably contains more gore than all of the other horror movies ever made combined, but it never feels gratuitous because the intention is to entertain. This isn't mean-spirited torture porn; it's a live action cartoon.
Braindead was the last of Peter Jackson gory splatter work. After this, he leaped forward as a narrative filmmaker, making the brilliant Heavenly Creatures and the fun, if uneven, The Frighteners, before he blew us all away with his Middle Earth trilogy. Unfortunately, his movies have declined in quality since then. King Kong had moments of brilliance, but was an overlong and self indulgent mess, and I haven't even seen The Lovely Bones, as everyone I know has advised me not to. Fingers crossed he is back on form for The Hobbit, and whatever else he chooses to do. However, nothing can change that the fact that with Braindead, not only did he deliver a wonderful swansong to his roots as a horror filmmaker, he also gave the world one of the pinnacles of the genre.
You may wonder what this movie has to do with clowns. Here's what:
I bet he has a cutting wit... Thanks for the image, Johnny!
On a geeky side note, the opening scene is like a future flash of where Peter Jackson's career would go. The physical location is the same used for The Path of The Dead in The Return of The King, but even more telling, the place where they find the Sumatran Rat-Monkey is Skull Island, which is home to none other than King Kong!
Next up is a charming tale about a filmmaker who sexually abuses the youngest lead in his movie. Cue the canned laughter!
