horrortheater

What is it about clowns, those face-pained funny looking guys with the big shoots, the balloon animals, and the annoying voices, that if you put a large group of people at a party with a clown, everybody's laughing at his antics. Have you ever been to a children's party where they hired the town clown to entertain? If you have, picture you and that clown alone in a dark room. Would he be so funny then? The horror genre is full, maybe to full, of zombie and slasher films, really unwanted sequels, and just plain jumbled messes of good films made by good directors who are forced to make changes prior to release (just ask George Romero). The one entity that is overlooked is the "horror clown" genre. There hasn't been allot of them, but enough that I want to officially add "Horror Clowns" to the list of genres, along side zombies, vampires, and all the rest. These films can go from good (Clown House), to fair (Fear Of Clowns), gruesome (Dead Clowns), and then there's "The Fun Park", the latest killer clown film, direct to video, that has taken it's rightful place in my newly create "Clown" genre, the bottom of the funny barrel.

The "plot", stolen from about every other film that seems to be released lately, six high school friends decide to take a trek to an amusement park that has been empty for over ten years due to the severe beating of one it's employees, a clown, as he was locking up. It seems our laugh maker, named Bobo, is an urban legend, that annoying story all the locals heard growing up that he still lives there today.

As the film opens, the carnage has ended and the lone survivor Megan (Jillian Murray) is found by the police wandering down a road in shock. She tells her story but the police check the park, and there's no sign that her friends are there, or that anybody was ever there; no footprints, tire tracks, seltzer bottles, nothing. The movie moves back and forth from the psychiatrist working with Megan, and the flashback to the prior night, and the performance "Bobo" put on. Without giving spoilers, I'll just say the biggest problem with this movie is too much talking, not enough clown. Too much time is spent on the psychiatrist who sort of believes Megan, and the flashback of the nights festivities. But that isn't even the worst thing. The worst is one the the friends, and each of these film has one; "The Stoner", is one of the most annoying people I have seen in the movie in a long time. This actor couldn't act stoned if he WAS stoned. You pray for Bobo to take him out early but no such luck. I was surprised Bobo didn't throw him back. Now that would have been a funny clown.

"Fear House" synopsis; Relatives and colleagues of reclusive writer Samantha Ballard track her to an isolated home in the California desert where they discover her some nine months later severely traumatized. She greets them with a grim announcement that they will die if they attempt to leave the house. After Samantha's ex-husband and his girlfriend suffer horrible deaths while trying to escape, the others realize that she was serious. They begin to scheme a safe way out even as the malevolent force that rules the house stirs the worst fears of each of them, causing them to wonder: Can they escape the evil house before their fears kill them all? When I viewed "Fear House", I got the same feeling as when I viewed the film "Phantasm" in 1979, that the horror genre may have a new talented director. Of course Don Cosscarelli went on to have a good cult following of his films (Phantasm 5 is in production) and I feel director Michael Morris may have a better future ahead of him. "Fear House" doesn't rely on over-the-top gore and blood special effects, but the psychological fear of what really scares us deep inside. While trapped in the house, each person meets their deepest fears head on and it's up to them on how to handle it as to whether they will survive or not. This film is part Phantasm, part Evil Dead and part Black Christmas (the original). It's not what you see that terrorizes you, but your own sub-conscience is your enemy.