Rotten Tomatoes Rating: NA (Critics) / 96% (Audience)
Directed By: Jon Watts
Written By: Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford
Starring: Peter Stormare, Eli Roth, Laura Allen
Studio: Dimension Films
Synopsis: A loving father finds a clown suit for his son’s birthday party, only to realize the suit is part of an evil curse that turns its wearer into a killer. – (Source)

The Good:
This movie deserves props for being hardline enough to actually commit to having an evil demon clown eat a bunch of children. Most films today tend to shy away from doing harm to small children and animals but not CLOWN. And for that I respect the folks behind CLOWN. The film also has some pretty cool looking scenes not the least of which is this one:

Don’t worry it’s not a ruin the movie type of spoilery spoiler.
And it has Peter Stormare in it being all Peter Stormare-ish which is always a mark in the win column in my book.

The Bad:
You would think a movie about a child eating demonic clown would be all sorts of shits and giggles but somehow this movie was really boring far too often than it should have been. It was like the mix of shoddy writing, rudimentary directing and bland performances from the actors all combined to make what should have been schlocky fun into something completely the opposite. More time spent on the protagonist as a demon and less as a mopey suburban real estate agent fighting against the demon would have been a smart move.

The Ugly:
One of my biggest pet peeves is when movies tend to just ignore their own previously established rules/mythology. In this film there is some mishegoss about if the demon clown were to eat 5 kids it would break the curse yet for some reason the bad clown seems to be really eager to get that fifth kid in his belly even though it means he’d be banished or sent back to demon jail or whatever the hell confusing story the writers came up with.

Final Verdict: A plodding, glacially paced film that sucks all of the fun out of what is a really cool premise and if injected with a bit more dark humor could have really been memorable. Instead this full length movie never seems to capture even a hint of the creepy cool vibe that the original concept trailer gave me. But on the plus side it does feature an evil demon clown eating a bunch of little kids. So that’s something for CLOWN to hang its hat on.

Grade: C-