This is a re-write, sorry, but i’m not feeling keen on watching a random horror clown movie… again, i don’t particularly loathe or love clowns per sé, and i’m not feeling like reviewing Killer Klowns From Outer Space… YET, there is actually a proper sequel finally in production, 30 years after, but what the hell, i honestly didn’t expect for the follow up to come out, like ever.
Then again, this ended up being a more involved rewrite then planned, it’s basically redone from scratch (almost entirely, anyway), so i’m gonna borrow a page from the game industry and call this the “Definitive Remastered Edition” of my Killjoy review.
January has been so unbelieveably busy, even more than planned for, so let’s talk (“again”) about the first Killjoy film, since in my homecountry this is also month of “Carnevale/Carnival”.
A series that has seen a couple of new entries in the last decade, as Full Moon Entertaiment has been consistant in pumping these out with some regularity (after the 8 years separating Killjoy 2 and 3, that is), when they can stop themselves giving sequels to Evil Bong and remember most people actually care more about new Puppet Master entries than Demonic Toys ones.
But i digress, again, sorry.
The first Killjoy film though manages to make the original Puppet Master feel like a Hollywood production, there’s cheap and then there’s so cheap it makes you think Charles Band said yes because it was far cheaper to have a dude in a clown costume and make-up than create a rubber monster prop, and because the thing was clearly shot with some consumer grade equipment.
We’re almost in “shot on shitteo” (to steal a joke from Brad “Cinema Snob” Jones) territory, just barely above the likes of stuff like Black Devil Doll in terms of production values, aside from the technical aspects all the movie just has this look of something shot with stuff found in the trash bins, with less locations than a 90s era point-n-click adventure game, obvious stock cartoon sound effect taken from some free sound library, and a fairly amateurish cast of afroamerican actors.
It’s definitely not anyone’s finest hour, and i remember being surprised by the italian version of the movie, which, on top of it being a shitty transfer from VHS, also came with awful dubbing that sometimes just cuts off the actors mid-sequences and felt as cheaply produced as the movie itself, though no dubbing would save the dialogues being as awful, boring and trite as their are.
But before going further, the plot. Almost forgot.
Killjoy has Michael, afro-american teen nerd stereotype N°5, seen courting one times too many Jaeda, girlfriend to Lorenzo, a mafioso of hispanic ascent, whom has the boy beaten up by his goons. Once recovered, Michael uses black magic to make his wish come true, sacrificing himself to the entity known as Killjoy, but despite the magic circle and the Killjoy doll set up, the ritual doesn’t work, and then Michael is killed by Lorenzo himself.
1 year later, Jaeda has left Lorenzo and she is frequeting a joy that looks a bit like Michael (not really that much, but whatever, let’s roll with that), until a creature known as Killjoy appears and starts killing off Lorenzo and his lackey, then turning to the other people Michael knew, especially Jaeda…
Does this sounds like Wishmaster (which was relased 3 years earlier), just with noticeably lower production values, it being set in “the hood” with an afro-american cast and an evil clown demon instead of the djinn/evil genie?
That’s because – unfair as it might sound or be- it basically that, but done noticeably worse.
Amateur (not first time actors but still, pretty close) acting and awful cliched dialogues, with the same praise that can be sung about the scarce and laughable special effects (pretty poor regardless if digital or practical), with the highest peak being the Killjoy clown make up, not that bad, and while Angel Vargas tries to make the character of Killjoy work (boy he tries)… the character is insipid, boring and trite, one of the most generic evil clowns ever put to film.
The evil Krusty The Klown doll from that Treehouse Of Horror Segment its unironically better, and it came with frogurt. Again, i do not blame the actor, there’s nothing to work with there that hasn’t been stolen from truckloads of movies that actually just everything better, nothing unique or distinctive to even try and separate it from other, better crafted and directed killer clown films.
The other characters don’t fare much better, but i must mention the movie’s true MVP, the mystical magical hobo that literally appears out of thin air to tell the other characters of “Killjoy No Densetsu”, alongside other events he couldn’t possibly have witnessed (since he was present only during the beating of Michael in the prologue), then when he’s done expositioning the lore and told them kids the way to kill off Killjoy (someone’s gotta know, i guess)… he vanishes into the very same thin air he came in, only to occasionally appear and reappear again, so much his mystical hobo brain is full of things he just conveniently knows by virtue of peeking at the script.
I could go into some details, but there’s not real point, especially since by the final act the horrible script completely breaks like the legs of a baby giraffe, going from bad to utter nonsensical chaos of things happening and a galore of narrative asspulls leading to the fully expected sequel bait finale.
Even by the low standards of quality and low production values of a Full Moon Pictures joint, this is incredibly poor, cheap, boring, badly edited with an awful script full of stupid, utterly predictable and irritating dialogues, lacking any real laughs, proper gore, any terror or the pretense of some atmosphere, the music being mediocre at best but still the more competent aspect of the package.
On top of being nearly unwatchable, it’s barely over an hour long and yet it feels like an unending tide of boredom that more than laughs inspires pity and some frustration, it’s that kind of miserable bad movie, the villain creature the movie it’s titled after it’s also a boring, non-descript clown themed swap/rip-off of Wishmaster, as is the whole film, so there’s not even the silver lining of having a villain protagonist with some potential stuck in an underwhelming first film outing.
Not even that.
Still, there’s worse, there is, but this is one when i’m left wishing Charles Band didn’t bother with this one and just stayed home that week instead of ripping off other movies with a tenth of their budget, talent or ideas, but it’s doesn’t matter what i think, since Killjoy was so cheap it would been very hard for it to NOT turn a profit.
It did, and so the titular clown djinn/demon would return 2 years later in Killjoy 2: Deliverance From Evil, one of the many sequels, with the more recent one being Psycho Circus from 2016, and i guess 2019’s Bunker Of Blood 7: Killjoy’s Carnage Caravan, which is apparently the Gamera: Super Monster of the Killjoy franchise, since it’s a collection of clips from all previous movies in the series, repackaged into a 90 minutes affair with barely any new material, if any.
Actually, that is an insult to Gamera Super Monster, as much as it’s pathetic and desperate, they shot new footage and wrote a new plot, and were in financial straits that forced them to chop the budget.
Wise Cafe (International) 