Horror Movie Review: Creepy Clowns (2016)

Creepy Clowns aka The Lunatic’ler is a low budget clown-based horror from director Pete Jacelone and starring Heather Drew, Edward X. Young and Daylan Ludemann.

Creepy Clowns is the kind of film that you look at and presume will be absurdly silly and hopefully very bloody. That’s not quite the case as what we get is a serious story. One that begins with a boy suffering severe mental trauma at the hands of his abusive step-father. Who happens to dress like a clown.

This boy grows up to be the mild-mannered Larry. A man with deep emotional scars resulting in him transforming into a homicidal clown with a tickle fetish. Yes, that’s silly and it gets even sillier as the movie goes on but Creepy Clowns plays it so straight, it’s hard to know when to laugh.

Larry’s nastier side comes out when he is attacked by a group of thugs. He transforms into the Lunatic’ler and kills one of the men. This fella just happens to be the brother of unhappy hooker, Peyton.

Did we mention that one of her clients, her favourite, is Larry? The plot thickens! With her brother missing and Larry’s madness increasing, Peyton is going to have more to deal with than just her angry pimp, Diablo.

Credit can be given to Creepy Clowns for not adhering to expectations of what most will expect this film to be. However, it sure gets confused about just what it wants to be.

Most of the time, it’s a psychological horror dealing with trauma and psychoses. This serious tone would work fine if the killer clown wasn’t wearing a cheap store mask and wasn’t obsessed with tickling people with feathers. Is Larry actually a clown or are we seeing what he believes he is?

Deep stuff.

That is sure to be off-putting to many who press play based on the title alone, but that would be a shame as Creepy Clowns has a lot going for it. The acting from the main cast is surprisingly solid and their characters, detailed and believable. The story moves along at a fair pace and while it’s not a gory movie, it does have a decent body count. The ending is also particular twisted which should appeal to those who like the darker side of things.

It’s a flawed movie but for what it tries to do, praise is deserved.