THE CLOWN MURDERS 1976
The Clown Murders is by far one of the worst movies that I have seen in my entire life. It’s low quality, low budget, and the story makes next to no sense at all. The idea of the film is that a guy named Charlie is still in love with his ex Alison, who has since married another man. On Halloween night, Alison and her husband are supposed to close on a property, at midnight of all times, but Charlie kidnaps Alison at a Halloween party with some other guys, where everyone is dressed as a clown. What was supposed to be a prank quickly turns creepy and Alison’s husband goes to the cops looking for her. The movie makes very, very, little sense, and is hard to follow.
The main problem with the movie is its story. The idea is that Charlie, Alison’s ex, would kidnap her as a prank, so she couldn’t close on a property with her husband at midnight. There are so many things wrong with this idea, it’s hard even knowing where to start.
First of all, kidnapping someone as a prank, is nonsensical, and not a prank! It’s even worse, that Charlie kidnaps his ex of all people, and in the movie, he even says that he knocked her out with chloroform so that she wouldn’t scream! This is so insane and creepy! I don’t know if this was so show how psychotic Charlie was, or if it was supposed to be funny. In many ways, the film is humorous, just not in the ways it intended. I found myself laughing at just how stupid the concept of it was as a whole.
I wondered if this was some sort of Manson-exploitation in a way. The main character was named Charlie, and later in the film, one of the sex crazed characters, Rosie, starts naming off women he found attractive. Many of these names were shared by women in the Manson Family or concerning the Tate-LaBianca case. I’m unsure if this was coincidental or not. Some of the names mentioned were: Linda, Nancy, Sharon, Rosemary, and Brenda. I won’t lie, I found the actress that played Alison to look similar to Sharon Tate in a way. The movie released in 1976, 7 years after the murders.
I also found the idea of closing on a house or property at midnight absurd. Who would do that? I know that this was obviously something for the sake of the plot, but it’s so stupid and unbelievable.
My biggest contention against the film is how it runs for way too long. The film is 1 hour and 35 minutes, when it could, and should, have ended at the 40 minute mark. I watched the movie on Fawsome, and found myself constantly checking the timer to see how close I was to the end. I was surprised when there was still an hour left. I was surprised that nothing really happened when that hour passed.
In many ways, I found the film to be some sort of thinly disguised fetish. Alison is kidnapped by her ex, and he starts acting like he can treat her better than her husband could. It’s implied that she may not be totally in love with him, but in what seems like some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, Alison is semi open to Charlie’s advances. In one scene, she asks him if he wants to tie her up. It was pretty clear what the point of the movie was to me, after that.
The actor who portrays Charlie is Stephen Young, who 3 years earlier was seen in the movie “Soylent Green”. This was a kind surprise, but I was even more shocked to find that John Candy was in this movie! When I first saw John Candy’s name in the opening credits, I couldn’t believe it. I thought that it might have been some other guy that had the same name. But no, this is one of John Candy’s early films!
John Candy’s character, Ollie, is easily my favorite. He’s supposed to be the fat guy who is always the butt of the joke, but in comparison to the rest of the cast, Ollie is the most normal and sane out of everyone! Ollie is seen constantly eating something, and near always being made fun for being fat by the character Rosie. Rosie is a balding sex craved man, who always has to put Ollie down for some reason. He also believes that Ollie is a virgin because he’s fat. In one scene, Rosie is squeezing a donut acting like it’s a vagina, and asking Ollie if he knew what “that was”. Ollie proves himself to be the best character when he looks at Rosie and says, “That’s a donut.”. That was one of my favorite moments in the film, because it was such an easy and clever way to put down Rosie.
I also found it really funny when Ollie pointed out that Rosie got mad when a girl he’d been talking to, pointed out that he was balding. It was small moments like this that would genuinely make me laugh during the film, because it was so silly juxtaposed to the convoluted plot.
The story ended up all over the place, because initially, Charlie and the group of clowns he had to kidnap Alison took her to the house of one of the men, a lawyer named Peter. They stayed there for a little bit, but it quickly became clear that things were getting weird. Peter wants to let Alison go, but Rosie insists on keeping with Charlie’s plan. Peter tries to leave his own property, but gets caught by Rosie who was chasing him with some sort of knife or machete. Rosie actually stabs Peter, but they stop when some old woman comes by with trick or treaters. She doesn’t seem to get the picture to leave until she looks over at Peter and sees that he’s bleeding. After this scene, the group agree to take Alison to her own house, and hole up there. The fact that Rosie stabbed Peter, and that Peter was actually bleeding, doesn’t seem to be mentioned ever again.
Summaries of the movie say that an actual clown was stalking the group, but you barely even see this. At one point, this clown stalker tries to bust into Alison’s room, but disappears after she stabs him in the hand. He’s not scary at all, and at the end of the movie, it’s implied that the “stalker” was actually one of the country workers on the property.
The title “The Clown Murders” is hilarious, but very misleading. No-one even dies until the end of the film, and ironically, it’s the kidnappers themselves. Rosie is choked out by the clown stalker, but he doesn’t die. Instead, Rosie is accidentally shot by John Candy’s character, who starts squealing once he realizes what he’s done. I found it hilarious when John Candy screamed, “I killed him!”. In many ways, John Candy was the only reason I watched and finished this film.
The only person the clown stalker actually kills, is Peter, when he’s shot.
What was extremely strange to me, is how Alison, the woman kidnapped in the movie, decides to have sex with Ollie. There’s nothing that prompts this at all. Alison has virtually no interaction with Ollie before this, with the exception of early in the film. In the beginning of the movie, Ollie and Alison have a few lines, if that; but it’s never implied that she had romantic feelings for him at all. What’s also strange about this, is that she had sex with Ollie, but not Charlie. In the scenes before this, it’s implied that Alison was potentially still in love with Charlie. Once again, various plot lines that don’t make sense.
What also doesn’t make sense, is that when Alison was initially kidnapped, she was with her husband, who looked like he was stabbed in the back by Rosie. I thought that he was supposed to be dead, but later in the movie he was just “knocked out”, and goes to the police. The detective he talks to about finding his wife is practically useless, not even seeming to comprehend that something is even wrong. What I don’t understand is why Alison’s husband never came home? If he just went to his own house, he would have found his wife there.
The movie ends with the cops showing up the next day, seeing Alison at her house outside with two of the other men. Ollie is wrapped up in blanket looking traumatized, and Charlie is sitting by himself, tying a noose. The cops show up, and Charlie just sits in the police car, knowing that he did wrong.
Alison’s husband checks on her, but she says nothing. He tells the police to give her space, and the camera zooms in on her face, like as if she…doesn’t want to be with him? Like as if she knows too much? It doesn’t make much sense here. I couldn’t help but wonder if she planned on telling her husband that she cheated on him with Ollie.
Looking through the newspaper archives, reviews of the movie were not good. One article stated that it was a crummy movie playing to empty theaters. Another called it “harmless and forgettable”. Strangely, one review actually thought that the movie was good, but I am unsure how genuine it is. Other reviews virtually talk about how bad the movie is. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one to think about how terrible the dialogue was.
Truly, I can’t recommend this film, as bad as it is. John Candy provides some laughs, but the movie is too long, with nothing really happening. I wouldn’t even waste my time watching this film.
1 star
2 slimes
My video: https://youtu.be/PKx2t3jiDgg
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