Clownhouse

There is a circus in town and for three boys spending the night at home alone, they will not look at clowns quite the same again when three escaped psychos from the asylum will visit them in the night with murderous intent. Taking the costumes and clownface of circus performers after killing them, these three psychos have a slaynight in store for whoever crosses their path.




Dedicated to exploring coulrophobia, director Victor Salva has the film follow primarily from the perspective of a child terrified by clowns, believing the paint and costume hides no telling what underneath its facade of playfulness and good cheer. Few horror films, for whatever reason, have been successful in exploiting how scary clowns can be. Clownhouse, to me anyway, is probably one of the few films to do so with relative success. I think part (or most) of the success of the film is the casting of the trio's lead evil clown played by Michael Jerome West, as he performs the character as mute, committed to his new found "identity". The other two actors equally play their parts well as psycho inmates losing themselves into the clownface and costume, accepting these as new identities, taken from those they killed. Brian McHugh is the protective brother of Nathan Forrest, while Sam Rockwell takes a liking to pushing their buttons and provoking their anger. That animosity of the jerk older brother and the protective brother is definitely one of the chiefest aspects of the film's dramatic importance. You have Forrest who is scared of clowns, McHugh who tries to console him, and Rockwell who uses this fear as a reason to poke fun at him. Then you include killers posing as clowns, fulfilling the very nightmare that had harvested itself in Forrest's psyche and now seems to have confirmed those very fears active in him.

To tell you the truth, I can understand why the lead actor would protest this film ever seeing a strong distribution considering his terrible experience during it. It is a huge elephant in the room when watching the film, and trying to avoid what took place isn’t an easy task when trying just to look at it objectively. I can’t really argue in the director’s favor like some who wish we could just watch the film on its own merits when early on we see the very star kid of the film topless walking through his house or seeing his bare butt (and in the bathtub) after dumping his pajama pants in the floor next to his bed after a nightmare. His brother walks through the house in his underwear, also. It is just too difficult to just dismiss away from the mind. I’m sorry.

I do think the film does a great job of taking the fear of clowns and exploiting this for all its worth. I imagine a lot of kids were freaked out by this movie in the late 80s/early 90s before Clownhouse was essentially blacklisted from mass circulation. I think Salva captures the dynamics of three brothers’ relationships as their parents are either absent or apart. I think many can identify with the two younger brothers who must contend with their bullying, smart aleck older brother and his antagonistic nature.

Sam Rockwell was getting his start here, and he’s full-tilt pain-in-the-ass to the younger actors portraying his brothers. What I thought was well done was how his true colors would eventually emerge as his youngest brother needs his hand held, in guidance home thanks to a true fear that clowns are pursuing them. Nathan Forrest, I felt, was surprisingly sympathetic and not that bad as a rather weak and needy kid, his coulrophobia tormenting his psyche at the very core. He really does seem to convey that this fear is unyielding, and his attempts to combat it fail due to how intense it is.

The plot itself is no great shakes, but it is a means to an end. We need those behind the clownface to be terrifying and what better way (besides those wearing the clownface to be pervs) that have them escaped lunatics from a nearby asylum? While we do spend some time at a circus in the area, a great deal of the film centers near and around the three boys’ two story home. Salva makes it a point of emphasis to show how the clowns could be anywhere and everywhere in the ways these psychos pop up occasionally, at different points, from certain places. Nathan Forrest is their target, it seems [natch], and we watch as they nearly catch him in chase or appear to him from just a slight distance; their threat to him is real. Salva even has the customary fortune teller informing the lead character (in this movie through the “life lines of the hand” reading) that he’s possibly doomed during a reading as Forrest’s brothers listen next to him. It plants that seed of concern in the minds/memories of the viewer that the young boy’s life could be in grave danger, in serious jeopardy…isn’t that the whole point of suspense? The lead clown killer, prior to his clownface, peers at Forrest, in hiding, Salva using a close up of his attentive eye’s gaze, and it’s that harbinger of doom that sets everything in motion; the fortune teller was sincere in her premonition, and her warnings came from a concern that will soon present itself.

I honestly feel that if it wasn’t for its notorious reputation, Clownhouse might be looked at by many as a minor classic. It is set two weeks before Halloween and as a sight gag, the boys have a dummy set up in their yard hanging from a rope. There are practical jokes by the boys to provoke jump scares against each other. Rockwell remains a nuisance towards his brothers; he’s a jerk who ultimately loves his brothers but is just too much of a showy tough guy. As a late 80s item of horror, it has the mother and father away for certain reasons (whatever the reason, the point was to have them out of the picture as to promote suspense in the idea that these boys are on their own against a serious threat to their lives), further instigating that gulp in your throat because even in a small town, where safety is assumed, the freaks can come out at night, and children could have killers right outside their door or in the house. I could even imagine that Clownhouse, if not for its notoriety, would have played (and continue to) on chiller theaters and midnight movie television presentations (Up All Night, Monstervision, etc)—and even had success on dvd—but the director’s own amoral deficiencies ruined any chance of that. Still, from what I’ve read, this film does maintain a positive reputation absent the usual scrutiny of the behind the scenes of its making, and Clownhouse’s unavailability will continue to contribute to that desire for others to find it if just to reacquaint themselves to it. Its unavailability is deserved, in my opinion, and I can’t fault distributors not wanting to seem as if they’re contributing to the success of a film that had unsavory occurrences while it was made. That’s a tainting that can’t be faulted to the kid star of the movie, but the man who left him scarred for life.

Stylistically, Salva has some really impressive camera movements, particularly scenes where the clowns give chase and the kids run throughout the house...the fluidity of the camera as it follows the chase is exhilarating. Also, Clownhouse becomes a siege film with the kids stuck inside the house as the clowns try to catch and kill them.The fact that the kids get the best of them by using what was available (a plankboard, skillet, lamp, ax) to them adds to the excitement. That Forrest even rescues his older brother, becoming the protector, adds a bit of irony to the proceedings and contributes to his overcoming his fears. Salva made sure that the house of the film would be big and roomy enough to take his camera and characters through, with plenty of stairs to climb and halls to travel. It gives the clowns places to hide and sneak about and our child heroes places to flee from danger. All of this is reason enough to recommend Clownhouse if the viewing audience is able to brush aside the elephant.