CREPITUS ** USA 2019 Dir: Haynze Whitmore. 83 mins
Eli (Caitlin Williams) and her younger sister Sam (Chalet Lizette Brannan) are forced to move into their deceased grandfather’s house with their abusive and alcoholic mother (Eve Mauro). As they start to peel back the shadowy layers of their family history, they must also face the cannibalistic clown Crepitus (Bill Moseley) living in the basement.
Bill Moseley fans rejoice! If you’ve ever wanted to see your main guy dressed up as a creepy TERRIFIER-esque black and white killer clown with a taste for children’s flesh… look no further. Downside? It’s not scary and the film is barely coherent. Weird upside? All of his dialogue rhymes. But what colourful dialogue it is. When will writers figure out that overusing the word “cunt” and threatening to rape young girls isn’t edgy anymore. It just makes your film hard to watch for all of the wrong reasons.
CREPITUS dips its clown shoes into the watery concept of, you know, making sense, but never fully takes the plunge. The story is difficult to follow because of the distractingly bad camera work, pacing, and editing, and although Williams and Brannan really give it their all, they have their legs cut out from underneath them because the storytellers behind this one just don’t know how to tell a story.
Review by Julia Lynch