Didn't do too much over the weekend. The Buffalo Bills were in town and brought a giant inflatable football player with them. A shame they didn't let him play as they may have needed the help.
Tooth delay: My dentist is out of town, so I'll have to get my tooth fix over my lunch break next week.
I saw this on the weekend on the SPACE channel; The Clown at Midnight, a horror movie starring ....Christopher Plummer?!
Well, more like featuring....As the pictures above may suggest this isn't so much a horror film as it is one of those tiresome and forgettable late 90s slasher movies trying to bank off of the success of Scream.
The titular clown at midnight is a reference to a Lon Chaney quote mentioned in the movie, wherein he suggests a clown may be fun at the circus, but one appearing at your door at midnight would be a terrifying thing. Certainly true, although I think this movie doesn't really get why that may be.
Pictured: Lon Chaney in London at MidnightA opera clown doesn't really seem an out of place character when he's hanging out in an opera theatre, nor does he contrast with other slasher characters who invariably wear disguises. The only notable difference being that the clown's visible features could really be beneficial to a good actor.... instead of being wasted in the usual silent and understated manner of the slasher killer as it is here.
I wonder if she smelt that?These kids are fixing up the youth centre... I mean theatre where the protagonist's opera performing mother was apparently iced by a clown. Along with the Lon Chaney quote, further evidence of someone's brain power behind this movie is hinted at in the naming of the opera Pagliacci as being the one they were performing during the ill-fated tour. (Pagliacci apparently being a fourth wall breaking play where a jealous actor playing a clown murders his actress wife 'for reals' thus interrupting the play with the play)
Its hinted at early on that the clown murderer may not be the murderer, and may even be still in the theatre, (All of which is true --rumors are never red herrings in these movies) however its not immediately obvious to me when the prankster manages to terrify the protagonist by dressing up like the guy who killed her mother, (Serious WTF was he thinking?) that she will fall for him later on.
The move starts off trying to be ghostly with mysteriously unlocking doors, visions, and blood on the floor of the murder scene that hasn't dried after decades. (Once again ...Never Explained!) Psychic girl finds out from something her mother left behind that the clown was probably her father. There's a short lived attempt to portray the prankster as perhaps unhealthily interested in a clown costume as if to point the finger at him. Don't worry though; things will get stupid and predictable soon enough.
The clown uses secret passage ways in the theatre to sneak around and kill the teenagers for no obvious reason since he's after only the one person, while the teens slowly realize that they're being hunted. Now the victims actually manage to show a glimmer of brains and humanity at this point, and plan to escape to the roof and signal help, but its far too late for them as the movie needs to follow a certain annoying circuitous pathway towards a final reveal and confrontation. The victims are separated for a variety of stupid reasons and diverted from what should have been a good plan of escape so that the clown can murder them through a variety of different means. Oddly, there seems to only be a half-hearted attempt to create variety or a theme, and there's really nothing frightening, shocking, campy, or even consistent about a rampage that includes an electric chair setup, a fake clown hand, a spear... what is this? Just use a knife or stick to theatre stuff.
Someone out there still has some talent, and tries to play around with things like dropping sand bags onto the set from above, or having the clown pretend to be a painting by standing in a frame, (Though nobody was looking so that's only for our benefit) but its mostly wasted.
After all the chaff is killed, only prankster and psychic protagonist remain and they're getting along just as well as the protagonist and her romantic lead should. They find the clown's dusty home inside the secret passages, and determine that the clown-father accused of murdering her mother is probably not guilty of that murder. They are then separated and psychic girl eventually finds herself confronted by the clown and Christopher Plummer ...who's character is so not in this film I don't even know who he was supposed to be. The clown and Chris both try to convince the psychic girl to come to them and then the clown-father gets pissy at Plummer for betraying him and leaving him couped up in the theatre for decades. He rushes Plummer and suffers a terrible fall and dies. Also he had a poor Italian accent.
Plummer reveals that he was the killer the whole time, which clearly shows there was a rewrite at some point. (I suspect the shift away from the supernatural at the beginning of the movie was similarly a rewrite, like in the other theatre-set slasher movie Popcorn)
See --it couldn't have been Plummer. He puts on the clown makeup and doesn't look anything like the killer. The clown apparently took on the football jock victim while unarmed on the roof of the theatre too, (Its funny because he was really unhanded because he offered his hand to the jock while he was holding onto the ledge and...you know how this goes; remember the ledge scene in Batman?) which would have been difficult for a poorly fed dungeon clown let alone a senior citizen. Also, if the clown father wasn't a crazy killer how come he was still wearing the clown makeup all this time...and living in-between the theatre's walls? We're told later that her father was trying to help them the whole time...but no he wasn't.
Plummer now wants the psychic girl to take her mothers place in ...a performance? A relationship? I don't know what the killer is trying to do. Or why he needed to kill anyone. Or why he helped the clown father hide out in the theatre. I get he was jealous of the clown being in a relationship with the protagonist's mom, but that's it. He's also seated all of the corpses of his needless victims in the seats of the theatre so they can see Plummer totally chew the scenery while threatening the girl who he has an very unhealthy fixation on.
Anyway, prankster shows up and he's dressed like the clown and he fights Plummer unsuccessfully but survives. Funny that Plummer worked so diligently to eliminate everyone else in the building and then just forgets one of them. Can he not count? Plummer is dropped down a trapdoor by the protagonist. One which conveniently doubled as a storage space for sharp pipes.
Falls well that ends well!Prankster and psychic girl are safe now and they kiss. In a call back to an earlier insult, the girl jokes that his people skills are improving. They laugh and exit the theatre together. Rolls credits.
Pictured: People skills improving
I just can't get over that. "People skills?" Ha. That is so funny!
Your friends are dead. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
Your father died in front of you.
HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAH
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I'm glad she's decided to take this all in stride.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Between this clown mess and Dracula its clear that its best if ladies make sure to let the guys down quickly and decisively to avoid any dangerous murder sprees or unhealthy attachments.
Pictured: An unrequited love story
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