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I saw this movie at the video store the other day and couldn't resist. The first five minutes of the movie do a great job of confusing the hell out of the viewer, which is an awesome start, but the editing nightmare is just beginning. The whole movie appears to be shot with a cheap camera with a "fisheye" lens effect. Also, the characters in the movie are so bafflingly stupid that one wishes for a shotgun with which to shoot the DVD. For example, there's a scene where the two protagonists are locked inside a room with the killer clown trying to break in. There is a fire extinguisher RIGHT BY the damn door, but what does the idiot boyfriend do? Picks up A MOP HANDLE! Yeah.... like a mop handle is going to be effective against a muscle-bound mental patient in clown make-up. Couple this with agonizingly bad acting, some of the worst camera work I've ever seen, completely fake reactions of the characters, and shoddy editing, and you have the masterpiece known as "Fear of Clowns."

More properly my fear of a sequel to this pretty damn dire little flick. It's the film only a mother could love, and indeed by the outpourings of the shills here it seems the film has more than a few apologists. Sorry guys, I'm sure you all love Mr Kangas, maybe even have vested interest in his career, but get a grip please. Here's a recommendation; if you liked "Snapped" you will probably like this. At times, yes it verges towards the so bad it's OK for what it is. It is however painfully overlong at that, and to be utterly frank comes off as the work of enthusiastic people reaching way, way beyond their abilities. Oh, and failing, because they don't have any real talent and they are somehow unaware of this stark fact. The guy that plays Shivers did a better job than the rest of the cast, and luckily as he was in make-up, it may not be the end of his career. The other actors were bad, and unfortunately are made to look EVEN WORSE by the awful direction. The scenes in the multiplex at the end were admittedly pretty comical for just this reason. Suspense and urgency had obviously been temporarily removed from the dictionary when those scenes were shot. All that said, I sat through it till the long awaited end. (Did I mention it was painfully drawn out?) I don't believe the director is a horror fan for a moment, but as one myself, and a fan of bad horror at that...I give it a 3.5/10 considering budget etc. There must be much more talented people out there for Lion's Gate to invest in though, so do them a favour Kevin, and go and do something you're good at. Making films is not what you were born for.

Hey,

I've seen a lot of posts where you defend the hell out of this flick, but I've got to tell you, you can't blame shoddy writing and extremely poor directing on a lack of budget. I was on board to see a movie that looked like crap but had all the basic elements OK, because that's what a low-low budget film normally has. But this "film" is a piece of crap.

Here's the complaints:

ON WRITING: You claim to have a definitive love of horror films, specifically Halloween and Alien, yet you completely ignore the structure of these scripts. Each great horror film has its foundation in a strong psychological subtext (I.E. repression and return of the repressed, male/female archetypes and the overthrow of such, infiltration of boundaries, etc.). Your film has people talking in circles with crap lines like "Have you ever been spanked by a clown?". If childhood trauma were at the heart of the film, why not draw us more into it? Instead, you do what every other hack in this business does: you write B.S. dialogue that makes no sense because you don't have the first clue as to who your characters are.

In addition, the reason that this film is not scary is because you explain EVERYTHING. What's scarier: a psycho-killer who walks around in a mask killing for no reason and with no remorse or a psycho-killer who sits around saying, " Get BETTER, Get BETTER."? This is why Carpenter, Craven and Scott are geniuses, and well, you have this as your crowning achievement.

ON DIRECTING: Have you ever heard of the 180 degree line? You jump all over the place with mismatched reverse shots, and ever-changing screen direction, leaving us as an audience unable to settle. And since you've asked repeatedly why the editing is bad, I have one question: Do either you or your editor know what a beat is? There are no dramatic moments in this film because you are constantly cutting away from them. What could have been a nice introductory scene between your two protagonists becomes a confusing mess because you cut the living daylights out of it.

This "film" has no sense of mood or character whatsoever. I think the character that actually went deepest was Shivers, and that should say something about where your focus was. In your extremely self-important and self-indulgent "making of" segment, I found your attitude toward your actors appalling. First of all, DO NOT DIRECT A RESULT! This is the first rule of working with actors, taught in the most basic of classes. When you stood there and said to Mark something like, "I want to see a mixture of agitated and hungry" or something to that effect, my heart broke for all of the people who had to work under such conditions. And at one point you were yelling at people, and saying to the actors, "I just want to finish this f--- ing scene and go home." What does that say to them about your level of support, when they're the ones bleeding on film for you. Shame on you, my friend, shame on you. And on a sidenote: if the makers of the camera that you shot with won't let you release their name or logo in your "making of", doesn't that say something about the film?

Rent the movie "Overnight". You might learn a thing or two about the path you are traveling. That is, if you ever do get a shot, which I highly doubt. You should go into another field, or at least take some classes on writing, directing and working with actors.

I've seen some bad movies in my time, but this, for the love of everything that's holy, is definitely in my top 10 most horrid movies of all time. From the god-awful acting, to the choppy camera work, this movie can't even be classified as a "B Grade horror movie".

The constant chopping of camera angles made me feel as though I was watching an episode of "24", and the acting made me feel as though I was watching some trained dolphins do interpretive dance about their feelings. The upstanding performance by the "Detective" was played more like a 40's gumshoe than someone from (apparently) the 90's. The lead actress has two emotions - uninterested and confused. The clown, well, he was semi-cool. Not overly scary, but cool. He made me want to giggle, and poke him.

I can't emphasise the horrific acting enough. There are not words in my vocabulary to describe how pathetic and transparent it was. The single saving point for the movie is the story, which could have been made into a decent movie had some rational thought been injected into it.

All in all, don't waste your time unless you're a fan of pathetic acting.

If you want a similar experience, paint a wall and try to teach it to act. Even that will be more fulfilling.

The acting in this film was diabolical: more wooden than a school play. It was so bad it had no comedy value either.

The detective character was the worst of all, and all these people should seriously consider a career change. This film had a feel about it that said that the director had just gathered a group of his mates together to act out a poorly written play for a laugh.

I confess that I cannot say whether this film had a good ending as I had to switch it off well before I got to the halfway stage even - it was THAT bad! I have never failed to watch a film all the way through, no matter how bad, before.

The clown was about as scary as a hippo. And what was with the weird speeded up part where he was chopping wood?

The camera techniques were all over the place and in a word this film was amateurish.

this was one of those movies that you go out and take a chance in the video store. You see a b-movie that you've never heard of with a cool box and cool title. Then you get home, hoping you've found yourself a gem, but when you pop it in your DVD player you realize you have to reach for the Ben & Jerry's to stave off the depression. From the novice acting, to the bad writing to the cheesy special effects... everything was just plain bad. Even right down to something I never even notice... the editing. There are some downright noticeably bad cuts that boggle the mind. I listened to a little of the audio commentary and the director kept talking about how much attention they paid to the audio, but I never once heard him voice his production concerns about any visual aspects i.e. poor lighting, amateur camera angles. Stay away from this one.

This is one of those rare movies where absolutely NOTHING was good!! Usually I can always point to one good thing (I.E. An actor who stood out, a particular shot, editing, something)I can't believe the director is actually brain dead enough to try and defend this embarrassment of a film.

The acting is junk, there's no effects (I.E. gore,awesome killings,NOTHING!!) The script/story is junk and I swear the guy who plays Tuck will NEVER get a role in any project not featuring this incompetent director!! He was FAR AND AWAY the worst actor in this movie.

I'm mad as hell at myself for not having turned off this dogs*it movie that seems like it was made by someone who rode the small bus to school...I usually don't try to be cruel but to actually try and defend this pathetic attempt to make a film just makes me sick!! There's NO WAY the director and just about everyone else involved in making this trash don't know how bad this is!! And that by trying to defend this speaks volumes on their mental capacity (Or lack of)

There's not enough minus stars to give this pile of crap your best bet is to avoid it!! It'll bore you to tears within the first 5 minutes.

Caught the premiere of this flick last week and really liked it, though it ain't the movie it appears to be if you watch the teaser. I was set up to see a gorefest with clowns running amok but there's more story and really only the one big clown who turns out to be more than scary enough.

It's about a woman suffering from fear of clowns--she's found an interesting outlet for her phobia by painting terrifying clown images. When a clown who looks a lot like one of the ones from her paintings shows up and begins killing off her friends, well, that's where the movie really starts. There's other stuff I can't really mention without giving away important details.

Obviously shot on a very low budget, it's got some good performances and some bad. The lead woman is very good and the clown also(and boy is it weird meeting him right after the premiere...he looked so different) but some of the secondary actors are clearly amateurs.

It's got some gore, some nudity, and some story so if you like B movie horror you'll probably have a good time with this one.

Honestly, it wasn't half bad. A few scenes here and there were a little shaky and sketchy but the plot was more interesting than the title. The title might make you think it is boring and lousy however if you take the time to watch it as i did, you;d be very surprised. The actors were really not bad except for the goof that played the owner of the gallery. it might have seemed a little less interesting to me due to the fact they filmed where i live but it still kept me in it. i didn't fall asleep while watching it but i also wasn't covering my face with a pillow if you get my point. the special effects were pretty cool considering this was a low budget film and the music played at good times for added suspense. some flaws took place in the angles of the camera and a few shaky spots but overall i was highly impressed with this film and look forward to the sequel.

Clowns are damn creepy, everyone knows that. The mere sight of a clown is enough to make many people uncomfortable, myself included. So, in theory using a clown as your villain should make for some easy scares. Eh, no.

A young girl is terrorized by visions of a murderous clown, one that resembles a figure she has painted before. She passes it off as dementia until people start dying and the clown turns out to be very real.

For a film trying to be a slasher there isn't a whole lot of slashing. It's 30+ minutes of boring dialogue, sloppy acting and dull plot development before any one dies, and even then it's a lame death followed by even more lengthy segment of boredom before anything else remotely interesting happens. To top off the whole package the film clocks in at over 100 hefty minutes; slasher movies are not meant to run that long.

On the plus side, the film does start turning out some decent deaths and enough blood and gore later in the film to keep itself from falling apart and the clown himself is rather unsettling to look at.

Sadly, this is nothing more that another unremarkable entry in the modern DtV horror scene.

5/10

This was an awful movie. Bad dialogue, bad plot, bad acting. The femme fatal had the same look on her face no matter what was happening.

Plot holes big enough to drive a car through. I could go on. It's just bad.

Oh my god! I should have read the reviews here first but I got lazy. Well, I got well and truly punished for it! I wish the clown would have killed me first so I would have not seen this "movie".

DIRECTOR: If you ever release a sequel, please put me in the FIRST death scene and chop me up for real so I don't see the sequel by mistake because I could never forgive myself and would probably commit suicide anyway.

After watching this movie you will become suicidal, believe me. I had to rate it a generous 1 because I could not find the -55 in the selection.

The people who made this squid need to change jobs, maybe shoe shining or set sweepers!

This may be one of the worst films ever made -- and not in a good way.

It completely sucks.

No script.

No story.

Bad acting.

No special effects.

Nothing.

It's a movie where the victims stare at the clown for 5 full minutes before reacting. Uh, ever hear the term, "feets don't fail me now?"

The funniest thing in the movie is that the boring clown -- who has zero personality -- uses a GIANT medieval axe to kill people! Why? But then again, why do I expect that to make sense when nothing else does?

The entire storyline is entirely ridiculous. BUT, if one must make a serious horror movie out of such a dumb premise, well, I tip my hat. My problem with this movie is many. First of all, the script is just plain bad, everyone sounds quasi retarded. Secondly, the acting is very very poor on almost all counts. The detective is pretty good, and there are a few hammy performances, but the leads are just plain wooden and boring, there's no one of interest here, even the killer clown is bland. Having said all of these nasty things, there are some redeeming points to be made, the screenplay isn't awful, some good camera work for digital, and the overall production doesn't feel completely cheap. Still, this felt an awful lot like amateur hour at the carnival.

A suspenseful, sometimes frightening movie with just enough cheeky humour thrown in to take off the edge. Although my "fear of clowns" wasn't enough to keep me from seeing this film, it was brought to the surface many times over. A tidy story with decent special effects for an independent film. It plays out smoothly with the aid of some really solid directing. At times I felt the lighting was a bit "dark", but that also added to the suspense, wondering just what the camera was going to reveal next. The performances of Jacky Reres (Lynn), Mark Lassise (Shivers the clown) and Rick Ganz (Tuck) brought much to this film, but I found Frank Lama's (Detective Peters) to be most enjoyable. His character was, by far, my favorite. For Kangas' second film, I would say that it's outstanding. He really has a great eye and who's to say what he can do with more financial backing? Check it out. You won't be disappointed, but you MIGHT just walk away with a...Fear of Clowns.

Just saw this movie last night at a local screening. Read the reviews here n this it's just great to see every idiot pushing their opinion as fact like they know what their talking about.

The guy who gives the film 3 out of 10 says this in the review: "First of all, the script is just plain bad..." and then a few sentences later says: "Having said all of these nasty things, there are some redeeming points to be made, the screenplay isn't awful".

Okay, anyone who doesn't know that the script and the screenplay are th same thing needs to keep their opinions about movies to themselves.

The movie is more a suspense flick than a horror movie even though it has some cool horror parts to it. Yea the acting is uneven throughout(par for the course on low budget flicks) but the standout is the clown, who is one scary badboy. I'd love to see him square off against Jason or Michael Myers.

I gave it high marks because of its low budget origins. If you're not giving any points for being low budget it's probably a 7.

(written December 2006)

This movie was quite good, better then I expected. Nobody seems able to make a good clown horror film, but this one's not too bad at all. It's got some good scares in here, and the acting's not as bad as I expected out of a B film like this. The characters are genuinely interesting, and I don't find myself looking back on this film with any contempt. It's a solid movie. Nothing really unpleasant or glaringly awful about it. I wouldn't even call this a B-film necessarily, it feels a bit more polished then that, not as messy and unprofessional.

I do have to point out, however, that this film never really grabs you by the throat and goes full-throttle either. It's good, but it had the potential to really pull out some huge shocks, and thrill you like a top-class movie would. It never climaxes, never reaches a high point. It does stay on a good level of quality all the way through, but it never rises above 'good' at all, unfortunately.

The ending was very good, too.

Recommended to horror fans only.

This movie was bad enough to be pretty funny, but terrible acting, empty dialogue, slow pacing & a bad ending ruined most of it. I was surprised by how some of it was shot, which was somewhat impressive for a director with a small budget, but the director definitely needs a script supervisor because some of the choices the characters made were just plain dumb. This film, like many before it, takes itself way too seriously at times and that detracts from the hilarity of everything that occurs.

Watch this film while drinking or on several various intoxicants, but expect to interact with the film and get several wtf's and gut laughs along the way.