The Green Inferno (2015)

Green Inferno is Eli Roth's recent film, a throwback to the old cannibal/gore-splatter flicks of the 70s and also a “social commentary” on how kids act today, which is totally something he should never be entrusted with. It's like letting a kid handle a firearm. Just nothing but bad things can happen.

Director: Eli Roth

Starring: Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This is also a sort of homage to old 70s exploitation/gore flicks like Cannibal Holocaust, which I haven't seen. But that movie was famous for the fact that the filmmakers killed live animals on screen. This is sort of comparable. What Roth does here is kill dignity and good taste in filmmaking on screen, so it's sort of the same.

We start off this movie with a bunch of kids at college protesting in, I guess, the one spot on campus they're allowed to do that – right outside the dorm room of main character Justine. She and her roommate talk about how Justine wants to go join this activist group, how she is attracted to the main guy leading the group, Alejandro, and, a few scenes later, how she wants to go raise awareness of female genital mutilation after learning about it in class.

Her roommate, played by pop star Sky Ferreira, being the only smart kid in the movie, rightfully says the activist group is a bunch of phonies looking for attention, the activist guy is a weirdo and it'd be almost impossible to get anything done by just flying to places by herself with this group and trying basically on-the-fly, sensational type shit. But Justine, being an idealistic social-justice-obsessed college kid, ends up joining the group and going on a mission to stop this rainforest jungle area from being bulldozed.

Ferreira: "It's not too late to get out of the movie like me. You won't see me again for most of it!"

This is Roth's attempt at social commentary – college kids are dumb and don't really care about the issues they pretend to care about! They're just like babies going through phases. Which is pretty condescending and awful, really. I bet Roth hasn't talked to a college kid except for trying to sleazily hit on the 21 year old bartender after a movie premiere and she turns him down. I imagine he then gets very self righteous with her and makes HER feel like the bad guy. I mean he's basically right on the edge of being a red-pill MRA fuckwad in this movie anyway with how douchey and arrogant his message is in this.

Honestly, it just goes on like this for a while... this Alejandro guy talks up Justine about going to save that rainforest and all that, saying that the only way to get people to change their behavior is to put cameras on them, humiliating them. Uh, not sure it's that simple, but okay, I get that Roth can't really process more complex ideas.

Amazingly, they actually somehow get a plane out there. There are a bunch of boring, time-wasting scenes of them eating lunch and then using the bathroom in the woods. I don't know why these scenes were included as they really accomplish nothing at all except padding out the runtime! So hooray for that I guess. But if he's under the impression that any of these characters are likable or interesting, well – they're not.

"Hey, I really think this interaction we're having is substantial and totally not just window dressing for the fact that I'll be dead soon."

I guess their plan is to tie themselves to these trees wearing creepy rape masks and refusing to move until the company with the bulldozers totally, for real stops their mission. I'm sure they won't just go back to doing it after these kids leave! Public humiliation trumps EVERYTHING, remember?

Anyway, then for some reason one of the guys puts a gun to Justine's head, because I suppose he really thought he would get away with it... then after everyone else puts their cameras on him, goading him to shoot Justine (what great people!), he stops and lets them all go free.

"Well, this has gone according to plans so far. I feel like I'm definitely helping!"

They then celebrate with drinks and toasts because again, they totally can't just pick up operations again as soon as the kids left. Activism is fun and easy! Why aren't MORE people doing this?!

I guess God really hated what they just did, though, as their plane immediately crashes as they try to leave, and several characters you don't remember the names of die instantly. RIP to whatever the fuck their names were. But unfortunately, most of the main characters survive.

As it happens every time you go into the jungle, they then immediately get kidnapped by a tribe of red-painted Amazonian savages who eat people! Super realistic! I'm just glad Roth has learned from his previous mistakes in movies like Hostel where he offended entire countries by portraying them as cabals for serial killers and evil people. This time, he's turning his bigotry sights on indigenous peoples who will never see the movie. So that's a way to sidestep outrage and be as despicable as he wants! And oh boy does he ever want to be a despicable piece of shit in this movie.

I suppose stereotyping is just faster. Roth is a busy guy.

One of the main selling points of this movie was, apparently, that it made people throw up in the theater while watching it. I guess there are a few gross scenes, but it's hardly anything THAT fucking extreme overall... maybe Roth just poisoned everyone's drinks and food at those showings he said they threw up at.

I mean, this one scene where they hack apart this guy is kind of gross and bloody in an old vintage 70s-gore way. And it sucks for me because I had money that this guy, the fat black guy who is nice to the main character and is actually sympathetic, would survive this horror movie. And now I'm out $20, so THANKS A LOT, ROTH, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.

But then there's no other scene like this in the movie. What happens in the rest of it? Endless scenes of them sitting in a cage bitching at each other? There's one scene where the savages give them some meat to eat and one girl says she's a vegetarian. Oh the hilarity! When will these apt, cutting social satirical scenes from Eli Roth ever lose their timeliness? Aren't college students pieces of shit?

Oh, and also, they find out that the whole 'Amazon save the rainforest' plot they came down for was just a PR stunt so they could film a video, and they didn't actually help the forest at all. Because in Eli Roth land, there's no actual idealism – anything that seems selfless and genuine is really just the opposite, a soulless marketing ploy. Just more of that awesome, pointed social commentary that rings true (if you're a dumb edgy teenager.)

In between all of this, there are several scenes of Justine being groomed, apparently, for genital mutilation – because isn't it ironic that what she was learning about in the beginning is what she's going through for real now?!? Life is just funny like that.

I guess Justine and this one other guy try to escape, which leads to a long ass scene of them running through the woods and what not. But then they get captured again, which made the whole thing pointless I guess. Justine is almost mutilated by these savages, but one random little boy saves her... why? Because the writers wrote themselves into a hole and had no idea how to save their story! Who cares if he has no reason to do it and we never get a real explanation? DEUS EX MACHINA TIME!

But hey, at least Justine gets to cosplay as a sexy version of the Pilsbury Dough Boy...

Which I'm sure is an actual fetish I am not going to look up at all...

Then she leaves Alejandro there to die, as he was a shitty person and deserved it I guess... in a better movie, there may have been some conflict over this, or character development. But in terrible horror movies, it's just hollow meaningless revenge because the audience didn't like the guy either. Even when she gets home, she just lies and says everyone died. I guess she has a dream about him coming back and she's a cannibal now and bites him?

And here we come to the movie's true message - if you're an activist but don't really believe in your cause, you'll end up in a cage in the jungle left to die. So relatable, so timely.

But that doesn't really make sense anyway.

Michelle also pointed out how weird it is that Justine defends the tribe at the end, claiming the cannibals were actually nice to her and protected her. Odd choice, being that it doesn't make a difference – they all get killed in the end, so who is she protecting here? It's like Roth is trying to have this statement about how she wants to stick to the cause even though it's a lie, just so she can feel better about herself or something. Which is just more lameness really.

The movie then has a short end-credits scene where Alejandro's sister calls Justine and says satellite images found Alejandro living out in the jungle himself now, I guess... which is weird that the cameras picked that up and nobody has saved him yet, but who am I to say? It's cute that the movie thinks we give a shit about any of these terrible characters.

There's like one half decent scene of gore in this, and it's early on and there isn't anything else like it again. The characters in this are unlikable and the social commentary attempts are so bad that it's almost satirical – like I really don't know how anyone thought this was clever, the tip of the iceberg being the asinine dialogue that turns every character into a mouthpiece for Roth's message - it's super transparent and shitty writing. The message is a lot of sneering douche-bro condescension at some kind of strawman idea of what college kids and activists are like. Everything is very negative – as if being this cynical is a substitute for actual intelligent discourse. I don't think it is.

Got to love Roth's defense of the movie against those offended by his portrayal of indigenous cultures... you can read the whole thing here, but these are the parts I found funny:

“My film, however, is about bandwagon activism, or "slacktivism," which is people jumping in on social media and retweeting causes they actually know nothing about (something these activists seem ready to do with my film). The whole idea of the kids saving the rainforest only to be eaten by the tribe they saved is a metaphor for how people are shamelessly consumed by their vanity and need for validation on social media. These kids in the movie care, but they care more about getting recognized for caring.

The people who seem to publicly care how these people are portrayed are people who want to be portrayed as caring people.

If everyone stopped their ideas because they were worried about offending people or sparking discussion then there would be no stories to tell. In short, take your cause seriously, but take my film for what it is — a movie.”

I'll translate for you: “My film is a serious thing with a real message and anyone who doesn't like it is part of the problem! But really, it's just a silly movie, why are you taking it so seriously?!”

What a load... this is just a dumb, poorly written film. It's crass and ordinary and doesn't have anything intelligent to say, nor anything of value entertainment-wise. Just awful. Avoid this.

Images copyright of their original owners, we own none of them.

The Green Inferno, online petitions and freedom of speech

Oh boy. Here we go again. It's time for another round of "freedom of speech" suppression when talking about a provocative film - this time, Eli Roth's upcoming The Green Inferno. There's a petition now to ban the film altogether for its portrayal of indigenous native tribes in the forest, and I'll get to that in a second. Here's a trailer:



The film is about a bunch of kids who want to save the rainforests getting eaten by cannibals, or some shit like that. Roth himself has said it's supposed to be a critique of the Internet's social justice warriors and slacktivist movements - i.e. people who take up these causes but don't do anything except post online about it - and a throwback to old 70s-style gore flicks like Cannibal Holocaust. And, I guess he really just wanted another excuse to show how much gore he can fit into a movie. He doesn't really have much else, but hey, be nice to him, he doesn't realize how much he sucks.

The petition... well, it's basically just more of what you expect. It talks about how the film is offensive because indigenous native tribal peoples are often portrayed as the villains on screen. Which, yeah, is pretty obvious. I don't think anyone is going to dispute that.

Where it goes wrong is the same way anything like this goes wrong, namely by trying to ban it. That's become our first instinct now, all the time - don't like something, try to get it banned completely. We know it's offensive. That much isn't news to us. But trying to ban it won't work, especially not with a stupid online petition. Nothing has ever really been accomplished with an online petition. You're just throwing more words into the void that will evaporate like an early morning mist. Nothing will come of this - you won't change a thing, not if you're just trying to get the movie banned.

Why not write some new stories yourself and get those published, or just talk about how shitty the movie is without wasting your effort on a Change.org petition? Both of those things would be more positive and better overall then beating the dead horse of an online petition, which is basically an early grave for any potential thing getting done. It's frustrating because your efforts are in the right place - trying to fight for movies that better represent your culture. But you're wasting your time with the petition thing!

But really, what always pisses me off is the kinds of people who keep trotting out the "freedom of speech" bullshit every time something like this happens. They're taking our freedom of speech! Censorship! Come on, nobody cares about censoring you. Maybe you should get over yourself, deflate that ego balloon you're so intent on stroking.

Why is it that every time this happens, it's inevitably because of something that was worthless in the first place? People sure love to talk about freedom of speech these days, but only when defending the most lowbrow, sexist, racist trash. But I guess you need your freedom of speech to be as much of a hateful douchebag as possible, right? Or is it not my freedom of speech to say that you suck as a person for perpetuating these ideas? The train just keeps going, does it not?

The funniest thing about this is that all these "freedom of speech" rallying cries have no idea what they're talking about. Freedom of speech in the United States means you can say whatever you want and the government can't send you to jail for it. It doesn't mean we can't call you assholes for what you say, or that nobody can criticize you. Just because you have freedom of speech, doesn't mean everything you say is worth listening to or deserving of praise.

And fuck off with this whole "I may not like what you say, but I will defend your right to say it" thing. That's pussy, half-measure shit. Have some conviction, and just say what you think. Freedom of speech is best left to the actual lawyers and courtrooms, and we don't have to clutter up our own arguments with misappropriations of what we think the law is.

The Green Inferno is probably gonna suck ass anyway. The trailer looks shitty and the movie is probably just an excuse for gore. But at least you'll get to see us review it here at Cinema Freaks!

ADDENDUM

A few things...

I really think it's worth saying that the efforts of these people to ban the movie is no different from the efforts of super hardcore Christians to ban books in schools. You're just taking what you don't want to see and trying to make sure no one else has to look at it. While I'm more sympathetic by far to your cause, it's still not a good idea. Going too hardline in any direction is bad. Instead, just try talking about why it sucks and why it's offensive without this whole petition angle. That's all you need.

The efforts of those who hate censorship are misguided too. If you think "censorship" is bad now because some individuals don't like racist or sexist messages in media...well, you'd better be glad you're not living in the time when the Comics Code Authority was a thing, when comic books were so censored that Batman turned into what the Adam West show ended up being - the Joker was so censored, he didn't show up in comics for years! If you pissants today who bitch about censors lived in THAT time...well you'd probably kill yourselves. But hey, fuck historical context, right?

I also love the blogs I've seen saying that they defend Roth's "right" as an artist to make movies about whatever he wants. Claiming Roth is an artist is a pretty laughable statement. He's more like that guy who used to draw pictures of giant pulsating penises in art class to shock people. Plus he's said his insulting depictions of foreign people in movies, which have made entire countries angry, are meant to depict "Americans' ignorance of the world around them."

Which makes sense to me! I'm going to go make a movie set in the 60s that has black people as possessed serial killing aliens from the future who are intent on destroying straight white American culture. But it's not racist, because it depicts the white Americans' fear of the unknown. Fuck Eli Roth, fuck his movies, fuck anyone who defends his movies. He's trash, plain and simple.

Really, it's just clear - if your "freedom of speech" is all about being able to watch an Eli Roth movie that depicts other cultures as serial killers and savages, well, maybe you have other fucking problems.

So I guess I'm kind of saying that everyone is wrong. OK. I'll go with it!

Clown (2014)

Why are people afraid of clowns? There are so many movies about scary ones, and that's because so many people are scared shitless of them. I guess a lot of it just comes from how strange and outlandish they look. People are scared of them because they look weird and goofy and alien to what we're used to, and maybe because they have those creepy-ass smiles on their face all the time. Eugh! The modern man has no need for smiles!

I guess it also comes from a certain book written by a somewhat well known author.

Though, really, I'd think the real life man who dressed up as a clown and also had the unfortunate hobby of murdering people had something to do with it.

But nah, maybe not...

Either way, it seems like the fear of clowns is hear to stay. Which must be the worst feeling in the world for people who grew up unaware of this fear and just wanted to be clowns to make people laugh. That has gotta suck. Imagine spending all your time training to become something else, like, say, a painter, only to find out that painters were regarded as subhuman sexual deviants in the community you lived in, lepers who should in no way be trusted.

But not all movies about clowns portray them as creepy serial killers! Some of them portray them as immaterial, immortal monsters who, if you put on a clown suit, possess you and make you kill people.

Director: Jon Watts

Starring: Eli Roth, Peter Stormare, Andy Powers, Laura Allen

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

Well, OK. That's fine.

Clearly as the movie is called Clown, it had to start off with a bunch of loud noises over pictures of clowns, then the word CLOWN in bright bulbous letters. You know, just to make sure we didn't confuse this for the other kind of clown. We had to know it was about the kind that everyone and their brother is afraid of at birthday parties.

Then we get an opening scene with a birthday party for little kids. Like I said in the Godsend review – nobody wants to see a birthday party for kids in a movie. Especially not one where the only source of drama is that they're waiting for a fucking clown to show up. I think most kids would just be waiting to open up their new Xbox One at this point – the clown really has no relevance. I don't even think the adults remember why they wanted a clown. The clown is going to be there for no one. What a sad nihilistic existence.

Pictured: the face no child makes for a clown.

But the clown doesn't show up, so the mom, Meg, has to call her weenie of a husband, Kent. Kent is a real estate agent who seems to think it's ethical to browse around in the basements of old houses and take shitty looking costumes he finds in the attic. People like this guy are the reason Party City is going out of business. You scum!

"Man, I really need a fucking drink right now."

So he shows up looking like a hungover Ronald McDonald and, apparently, entertains the kids somehow – probably because the birthday boy had already peeked into the closet beforehand and seen that Xbox in there, so he knew he could stand the stupid clown. Later on, he almost has sex with his wife with the clown suit on, but she pusses out at the last second. I'm glad the movie shows both lights of being a clown – the disappointing last-ditch effort nature of taking the job, and the fact that their lives inevitably end up sexless and asleep on couches.

It isn't even a good looking clown suit. It's ugly as fuck. That suit looks like your grandma's knitting quilt made into a costume. I hate to say it, but Gacy did it better in terms of being a clown.

The next day, he discovers that he can't take the clown suit off. Ugh! Yet another annoyance of being a clown in the modern world. He even tries to slice it off with a power drill, but that has no effect except that it makes him bleed like a leaking faucet. He has to go to the hospital, where he insists very adamantly that he isn't a clown – well, buddy, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and appears in a movie titled Clown...I think you're gonna have a hard time convincing anyone.

So I guess his next move is putting on orange face make-up that I imagine he stole from an Oompa Loompa factory nearby and trying to disguise himself as normal.

Zero stars, movie. Zero stars.

He tracks down the guy who originally owned the house he found the suit in, who is of course some scraggly homeless-looking guy who warns him vehemently not to put on the suit – not knowing yet, of course, that Kent already has. Kent shows up and the guy gives him this whole spiel about how clowns are evil and came from these monsters who used to live in caves. Then, somehow, over time, that evolved into makeup people wore to entertain kids at parties.

...movie, I just...don't have any fucking clue what your problem is. I mean, it's good that you're trying to satirize this overdone trope, but it feels like you aren't exactly aware that you're not actually making a joke. That's like saying you don't believe in God because you hate make believe fairytales, but then saying you have absolute faith in Odin and believe he will return next year and smite all of your personal enemies.

One thing I don't get is, how is that clown suit still in existence? Part of the backstory, I guess, is that the crazy guy apparently got it off someone else years ago. Why didn't he burn it or hide it away somewhere better than an old house's attic? I guess he really just wanted to cut off someone's head the next time anyone put the suit on.

Because, apparently, that's how you kill clowns. By cutting off their heads.

Are you taking notes at home, kids? Next time a clown comes to your party, trumping up your driveway in those big annoying red shoes, you know what to do.

Kent escapes though, and bursts into his house screaming about what just happened, only for the camera to pan over and see the rest of their family sitting around. Because, I guess in stupid movies, they didn't exist until the camera panned over there, and Kent is the type of person who can't look a few feet to the left before screaming insanely about clowns.

The faces of everyone who saw the advance screening of the movie, which were promptly disregarded completely.

Then we find out that he tied up that crazy guy and plans on taking him to the police. But the crazy guy escapes, so Kent has to incapacitate him with his newfound clown super strength. He also attacks some other dude a few minutes later.

Yes, another common and well known side of being a clown, super strength. I can't even tell you how many clowns I've seen who go to make a balloon animal and then accidentally break the balloon, causing a horrific loud sound that rips the fabric of time, opens a void into another dimension, and scares all the children at the party. It's just not good.

Kent has to go into hiding in the woods, where he calls some kid from a boy scouts thing over and tries to eat his hand. It doesn't work. But I do think this is one of the more effective scenes in the film – there are quite a lot of cool shots and scenery in this film, but they're so often hampered by boring and tepid cliché.

Later, he hides out in a motel room that I guess he was supposed to be selling at his real estate job. Feeling that everything is hopeless, he takes a gun and tries to kill himself in the bathtub. Like all clowns, his blood has been replaced by rainbow slime:

Wow. You tried to make suicide funny and...didn't succeed at all. Not that I'm offended though, it just isn't funny.

But ultimately he survives that, because I guess the bullets just have no effect on evil clown monsters. He tries the next best thing to being shot – constructing a ludicrous set-up of industrial sawblades and sitting in a chair to fall back into them. You know, the normal go-to when shooting yourself in the head doesn't work – killing yourself via sawblades!

"Man, I can't believe I went through this much trouble to kill myself. I should kill myself for this!"

You know, this whole clown suicide sub plot is interesting and all – not to mention realistic for clowns – but really, for a horror movie it just doesn't work. It's confused as hell; even moreso than that girl in your high school drama class who dyed her hair blue and started talking about how she was a lesbian. The tone is just off. Some parts of the movie were funny earlier, but these darker scenes just really, really don't work in contrast.

But anyway, Kent is still trying to kill himself with that sawblade thing. Unfortunately for him, a kid comes in and distracts him, so he misses the blades when he falls, and knocks a piece of the blade at the kid, which impales and kills him.

Wow. That could only have happened in a completely implausible, stupid ass movie like this. Thanks for not being in any way clever, Clown! You hack-ass piece of shit.

But yeah, I guess that was just a set-up so Kent could then taste the blood of a child, which is an important rite in any clown's career, really.

Next we see his wife coming to find him, telling him she's pregnant and that's why he shouldn't give up on life. Because of course she is – pregnancy is just a catch-all, easy solution in these kinds of shitty movies. What other plot point could a woman ever participate in? Her womb is the only interesting thing about her.

I think the movie missed an opportunity though, by not having the wife be pregnant with a clown baby. Because as you all know, clowns are a separate species of wretched degenerate subhumans.

"There's nothing else to do for a woman besides be pregnant, right?"

The pregnancy thing persuades Kent to come back home, though he forces Meg to lock him in the basement tied to a pole. Meanwhile, Kent's son at school is bullied by a couple of kids who care way too much that his dad looked like a clown. This is the kind of shitty writing these movies always have – making the bullies just way too implausible. Really, they want to smear paint on his face because his dad looked like a clown? THAT was the best bullying they could think of? Fuck, just give him a wedgie, you twerps.

The son goes home and lets out Kent, who then goes and disembowels and eats the little bully kid. Which, yeah, seems a little excessive now that I write it out that way.

This movie sure loves killing kids. And that's the greatest thing about it.

What follows this is something I've always wanted to see in a horror movie. Well, not really, but now that the movie brings it up, it seems like a good idea: a slasher scene set in a mall playplace.

This is why they started to phase out playplaces at McDonalds - too often, demented Ronald impersonators would try to kill anyone who entered them.

This is actually pretty damn good, building tension and atmosphere even despite the goofy setting – actually, I'd argue the setting helps the scene through the contrast. Surprisingly, this part ends up being easily the best thing about the entire movie.

Meg teams up with that crazy guy from earlier, who wants to help her get rid of the clown by cutting his head off. There's this whole fucking dumb, boring scene of the two of them going over all this clown mythology bullshit. Why do these movies constantly do this? We don't need scenes of them researching things and we don't need a made-up “history” of evil clowns in a movie about a clown suit that takes over your body. Just give us a fucking story about an evil demon clown killing people if you want – we don't need to take this so seriously!

That's Eli Roth as the clown monster's final form, by the way. He's mad because this piece of crap movie is still better than his own movies. But seriously - THIS picture is all we need out of the movie. Just a clown being evil. Nothing else.

After that, though, we get another extremely silly scene where the clown demands Meg bring him a child to eat or else he'll just come home and eat his own son. Meg finds a girl she knows from the neighborhood and gets her in the car and drives her out to the woods to give her to the stupid clown monster. My favorite part about this scene is that the girl gets out of the car not realizing she's in the woods and not at her house. How do you not SEE that without getting out of the car? “I live in the woods, but not THESE woods...”

"Praying she's stupid enough to fall for this awfully planned out idea...YES!"

Then we go back to the house where the clown has gone to kill everyone. This climax is seriously just full of every cliché in the universe for these sorts of slasher horror movies. There are shitloads of scenes where it goes quiet, the kid being chased looks out to see if the coast is clear, but then something surprises him...

There's a scene where Meg's father, having seen blood from the clown on the floor, thinks Meg has killed someone and wants to help her cover it up. He of course moves right in front of the door, strategically placed for the clown to burst through the window and kill him.

Then we even get the always-vomit-worthy scene where, after committing God knows how many heinous acts and killing a bunch of people, the clown turns back into Kent for a second and goes “help me!” It's practically a grocery list of bad, bad cliché that all of these kinds of movies have. Wake me up when the credits are done rolling.

Finally, they kill him, and the clown suit is put into evidence at the FBI headquarters.

Truly an image striking fear into the hearts of men.

Wow, I can't wait for a sequel where an FBI agent puts on that suit and becomes an evil clown monster too!

Damn, a lot of kids died in this fucking movie. I mean Jesus. Talk about an overreaction. Most clowns kill a couple of kids during their careers, but THIS many, wow, just too much. Wasn't the movie educational about how clowns really are, guys???

This movie wasn't too awful or anything – the acting was fine, there were a handful of pretty decent scenes, and the movie looked very suitably creepy and also carnivalesque and fun. But despite only being like 90 minutes long, it had so much dead space and padding, and just felt so much longer. Just give us a dumb, corny movie about an evil clown killing kids. We didn't need any of this nonsense about the mythology of clowns or anything like that.

The writing was strictly pedestrian and lazy, padded out with every old cliché in the book, none of them done well enough to justify their use. It's hard to be enthusiastic about this when it mostly doesn't care enough to give us anything beyond the standard. Plus, the tone was just confused as hell – is it a campy horror comedy, or a serious drama about a pregnant woman trying to save her husband? Make up your minds. Some direction really would have helped here.

I guess what really bothered me was – what was this movie trying to say? “Hey, kids, clowns are evil! Be scared of them!”? Yeah, awesome message there. Eli Roth apparently compared this to The Fly, and I dunno – the 1980s The Fly was a better movie than this, with some social commentary on STDs and a good story about a man's tampering with science. In fact, that's the first time something has been better because of STDs.

This has nothing except, I guess, the fear of clowns? There isn't much else to glean from it.

I think people have always been afraid of clowns. It wasn't some newfound fear that never existed before IT came out. Some people don't like the makeup or the smiles or the fake-jubilance. I think scary movies and stories about clowns are made because people like juxtaposing something so cheery and happy with the darkness of a horror story.

But really, if you've got nothing to fucking say aside from 'be afraid of clowns' – is it worth making a movie? It'd be one thing if there were a lot of good movies about evil clowns, but there really aren't. Most of em pretty much fucking suck. I dunno. Maybe it's not a worthwhile story if all you're really doing is making someone's job, that they like doing, look like Satan's caretaker.

I'm pretty sure most real clown suits don't possess you and turn you into a demon, is all I'm saying. Food for thought.

Images copyright of their original owner; I own none of them.