Le clown de l'horreur

An old opera house is donated to a high school theater program and teacher Margot Kidder brings a group of students there to help clean up the joint. Sarah Lassez has volunteered because her mother's murder by her co-star (in the titular clown outfit) was the incident that closed the theater years ago. She's been suffering from terrible nightmares since finding out and thinks spending a lot of time in the theater will sort things out in her head. (Yeah ... sure it will)

I'm sure you know what happens. The clown killer, or someone pretending to be him, is in the theater and kids die one by one. It's a pretty standard body count slasher film that makes very little sense (the personal belongings of the murder victim are still sitting in her dressing room over a decade later) and is fairly dull and bloodless. Besides Kidder, Christopher Plummer shows up as the owner of the theater, and Tatyana Ali and James Duval are among the kids. All acquit themselves pretty well ... Plummer is actually pretty great.

I'd probably be completely dismissive of the film if it weren't for the fact that it was shot in the Walker Theatre (now the Burton Cummings Theatre) here in Winnipeg. It was an opera house in the early 20th century and became a movie theater in the 1940's. It's been a music venue since the 1990's, and was when this was shot there. I know this place very well, so it was kind of interesting seeing it on film. Even better, there's some exterior shooting that shows the surrounding neighborhood. It's kind of fun to watch for people who live here.

There's one pretty great thing involving costuming near the end that I can't describe without spoiling the ending. I'll just say, the identity of the killer leads to an amusing clown related sequence.

even though this movie seemed a little farfetched... it was actually pretty scary. The clown didn't look too brilliant, but since how any clown scares me, this movie was freaky. the ending was really bad when the mystery was found out, but overall I rank this movie ***** out of **********!

A fun movie. Although the last 20 minutes left me bored, the rest was very well done. Sarah Lassez does very well in the lead, she reminds me a lot of Julia Roberts. I enjoy movie's with clowns in them and this one might get under your skin. Decent acting and plot but as I stated before, the ending could have used a little more work.

Just a re-hash of 80's slasher movies with a "Phantom of the Opera" twist--and not much of a twist at that. Acting is terrible, script writing is terrible. It's too bad all the goofy characters weren't killed. Rent something else.

Those who have followed Margot Kidder's career know that she got her start in low-budget horror flicks(BLACK CHRISTMAS, SISTERS, AMITYVILLE HORROR)and have undoubtably been pining for her return to the genre. Well, wait no more! Ms. Kidder returns in this flick, a rather undistinguished slasher flick concerning a group of college students conscripted by drama teacher Kidder to clean up a previously long-closed theater, owned by Christopher Plummer. The kids are the usual stock cliches(jock, tramp, gay guy, plain fat girl, loner), and their presence angers a pyscho in a clown costume who lives in the theater. Lots of killings in creative ways, which is about all you can say about this movie, except that Margot Kidder and Chris Plummer are in it.