A boy's fear of clowns is pushed to the limit when he and his brothers are stalked and terrorized by some escaped psychopaths in clown get-ups.
This was the feature debut for director Victor Salva (who would go on to much bigger success with the Jeepers Creepers films) and Salva does a pretty decent job of creating a good horror story. The plot is well-paced with some clever scenes of tension and humor. Clownhouse wisely relies on good suspense set ups instead of graphic violence. The camera work is nicely done and the music score lends a chilling vibe to the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, the film is hurt by two major flaws...
First, the young stars performances leave much to be desired. Their acting seems quite amateurish through out the entire film. Even when the trio of brothers tries for some emotional levels the performances are just too unconvincing and really makes the characters seem awkward.
Second, the homo erotic tones in this film are just tacky and tasteless. As most every critic has noted there are a number of scenes with the young brothers in various stages of undress and engaging in behavior that seems more like flirting than normal behavior between brothers. There's also one wildly inappropriate ass-shot of young Nathan Forrest Winters. These undertones are just unnecessary, distracting, and its obvious Salva added them for his own guilty pleasure. Not surprisingly Nathan Forrest Winters would later bring molestation charges against Salva.
It's a shame these glaring flaws occurred because Clownhouse was a horror film with strong potential. It's still a good watch for horror fans - but it could have been a great ride instead. Shame.
** 1/2 out of ****
This was the feature debut for director Victor Salva (who would go on to much bigger success with the Jeepers Creepers films) and Salva does a pretty decent job of creating a good horror story. The plot is well-paced with some clever scenes of tension and humor. Clownhouse wisely relies on good suspense set ups instead of graphic violence. The camera work is nicely done and the music score lends a chilling vibe to the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, the film is hurt by two major flaws...
First, the young stars performances leave much to be desired. Their acting seems quite amateurish through out the entire film. Even when the trio of brothers tries for some emotional levels the performances are just too unconvincing and really makes the characters seem awkward.
Second, the homo erotic tones in this film are just tacky and tasteless. As most every critic has noted there are a number of scenes with the young brothers in various stages of undress and engaging in behavior that seems more like flirting than normal behavior between brothers. There's also one wildly inappropriate ass-shot of young Nathan Forrest Winters. These undertones are just unnecessary, distracting, and its obvious Salva added them for his own guilty pleasure. Not surprisingly Nathan Forrest Winters would later bring molestation charges against Salva.
It's a shame these glaring flaws occurred because Clownhouse was a horror film with strong potential. It's still a good watch for horror fans - but it could have been a great ride instead. Shame.
** 1/2 out of ****