The Clown at Midnight (1998)

There are the movies that simply suck, and then there are the movies which, after sitting through completely, you feel that you should demand some kind of Medal of Honor. After watching The Clown at Midnight, I feel that I don't just need a Medal, but a complete ceremony and a street in some Missouri city named after me.

The Clown at Midnight is the result of the largely-unasked for resurrection of the slasher genre brought on by Kevin Williamson in the late 90s. Unfortunately, like all things dragged back to the light during the Decade of Retro, this time it was supposed to be "hip," "self-aware," and even, God help us, kitschy. Instead what we got was a rehashing of all the same conventions, only this time backed by a bigger budget and somehow rendered cool by the fact that, you know, like, this time we're completely conscious of the cliches of the genre, so it's all ok! Well, sorry, but to be honest, I'd rather be forced to watch Friday the 13th Part VI again than endure ten minutes of Scream 3.

Um...*ahem*, I think I've gotten a bit off track. We're supposed to be bashing The Clown at Midnight aren't we? Before I go on, I should probably admit grudgingly that this film did have a few positive points. An abandoned theatre is actually a good place to set a slasher flick, and the film does make good use of the concept, showing the viewer more or less just how unnerving such a place would be to get trapped in with a psychopath running around, although sometimes the lighting makes it hard to get a good look of the backgrounds There's also Christopher Plummer, and even though he's obviously there just for a paycheck (as we hope was also his motivation for being in Starcrash), his presence is a bright light in a sea of crappy young actors.

And yes, there are crappy young actors aplenty. I'm probably being unfair, since their roles weren't exactly written for depth. There's the usual slasher flick troupe of archtypes, from the rich bitch to the gay guy and even a Thelma-esque nerd, and boy are they a group of shallow, one-dimensional fictional characters, but I suppose they are no better than the one-dimensional real life characters in "The Real World." Unfortunately, while you can't feel any sympathy for the fodder, you can't really cheer on their deaths either, since their assholiness doesn't begin to reach the same entertaining levels hit by the family members in The Granny.

Even worse than the acting, though, is the plot, or what little of one exists. Since I feel that its my moral duty to deprive you, the reader, of any reason to watch this film, I'll go ahead and give away the killer's identity, as if you couldn't guess ten minutes within the film (and as if Christopher Plummer's casting wasn't a big hint), the killer is Plummer's character, Mr. Caruthers, the spooky owner of the theatre (jeepers!). To accept that, though, we also have to accept that Mr. Caruthers kept the suspected killer in a bunch of tunnels under the theatre for almost two decades. Why? 'Cause its in the script, silly.

There really is no reason to spend time or money on this film, unless you're a diehard fan of either killer clown flicks, slasher films, or just Christopher Plummer, but even then, there's so much better you can see instead, unless its been your lifelong fantasy to see Plummer play a killer clown. Then this is the movie for you!

Cast Connections:

Margot Kidder (Mrs. Gibby) is best known as playing Lois Lane in the Superman movies.

Screenwriter Kenneth Hall also wrote the screenplay for Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000.