CLOWNFACE * UK 2019 Dir: Alex Bourne. 93 mins
One year after her roommate’s disappearance, teenager Jenna (Hannah Douglas) tries to reconnect with friend Amy (Abigail Wisdom) which soon evolves into them throwing a party at her house to get back into their social status. While they’re trying to prepare for their party, Owen (Richard Buck) has also moved into the area to rent a room and find out more details from the locals as the series of strange killings and disappearances continue throughout the town. As the party starts and more bodies start getting dropped, they realize the killings and disappearances are from a deadly clown named Clownface that has long been rumored to be lurking in the community killing anyone he comes across who has now targeted her and her friends as his next victims.
There’s not much to say about “Clownface” as it’s not that enjoyable. This is far too long for its own good, wasting time with the antics of the roommate and her boyfriend, the reconnection with all the old friends in town which is a useless flashback sequence, and endless amounts of time just going around the city area meeting up with locals that it just takes forever for the slashing to start. Not that that’s any better with a troublesome and non-threatening killer which has a cheap mask and beer belly that makes him out-of-shape for a far-from-imposing figure. On top of that, a lot of the story doesn’t make any sense with the random storyline that makes very little sense. Not knowing who anyone is or how they’re connected to anything around them makes it next to impossible to figure out what’s going on, and the lives of the residents around the village just muddle the storyline which causes this to feel scattershot and completely random. About the only thing that works is the final half where it has some stalking scene around the party with several decent kills although that is nearly undone by the lamest writing possible to keep it going. Thankfully, the cat-and-mouse chases in the underground tunnels gets this one back quite nicely but there’s just too little too late with this one.
Review by Don Anelli
CLOWNFACE is available on Amazon