Needs More Burlap Sack Doll Thingies

A horror movie heavily touting its use of burlap-made voodoo dolls, just SITTING on the shelf at a Kentucky used DVD shop, the same used DVD shop that held a clean and shiny copy of Tiptoes? 

HOW COULD I SAY NO?

Quick Plot: A goth-y looking dude (bearing an uncanny resemblance to Face Off judge Glenn Henntrick) sews himself an adorable little voodoo doll as its human representation takes a very naked bath elsewhere. Jerky Goth Guy then drowns his new toy, as elsewhere, our naked brunette does the same to herself.

SINISTER!

On yet another side of town, a spacey career woman named Emily (typical) begins experiencing strange dreams primarily involving bugs and/or a very rotted corpse slowly being pushed towards her. Her slacker (yet surprisingly resourceful) brother Sam shows up to help, only to eventually discover these scares are the result of a fender bender with aforementioned Goth Guy, who the DMV reports to be a displaced New Orleans witch doctor.

Note to self: displaced New Orleans witch doctors are REALLY sensitive when it comes to car insurance.

That’s really all you need to know about Sinister, which consists of approximately 15 minutes of scattered dialogue and 80 more of instrumental music following characters as they walk, sometimes through ominous situations but more often through situations that are made to seem ominous through instrumental music. Writer/director Steve Sessions triple duties by composing the film’s score, a similar trifecta he accomplished with the more effective (but still 7/8th music) Dead Clowns. Sessions is clearly working with a next-to-nothing budget, and it’s certainly admirable that he’s found a way to focus on his filmmaking strengths and downplay some of his limitations. Unfortunately, It doesn’t quite translate into a compelling watch.

High Points

Sessions’ abilities as a composer are definitely the highlight of the film, even if he’s well-aware of that and therefore fills nearly the entire running time showing it off

Low Points

It says something about a movie when I forget the main character’s name...especially when it’s the same as mine

Lessons Learned

A herpatologist treats herpes, so if you don’t have ‘em, you don’t need one

When really weird things come your way, the best reaction you can have is to just stand there and stare

Psychics and witch doctors have something in common: they’re both kind of jerks

Rent/Bury/Buy

For the $1.99 I spent on Sinister knowing it was a shot-on-video cheapie, I’m not complaining. This is micro-budget indie horror filmmaking, and when you compare it to its peers (i.e., the painful Feeders or hilariously painful Deadly Little Christmas) it certainly looks fine. On the other hand, I have no desire to ever see it again, and if this music =  atmosphere style is Sessions’ only real trick, I don’t imagine myself seeking out more of his canon. Horror fans with an appreciation for low budget auteurs might find it worth a watch. I just wish it had more burlap doll thingies.

Send in the (Dead) Clowns

When asked to name my favorite zombies on film, I usually don’t have to think hard (useful because I’m asked this question every time I go to the post office). To toss out a few:

-the ballerina zombie in Day of the Dead

-Fido

-the Hari Krishna in Dawn of the Dead

-the clown in Zombieland

-the clown in Land of the Dead

-the clown in Day of the Dead

and you’ve noticed the pattern! Like most human beings with any sense of what’s right and wrong, I have a minor case of coulrophobia. Typically, this enhances certain movie watching experiences, making the stangulation in Poltergeist all the more horrifying or the titular Killer Klowns From Outer Space strangely scary, despite also being ridiculous (and awesome).

Hence, when I spot a title like “Dead Clowns”, there’s really no possible reason I’m NOT going to watch it.

Quick Plot: Hurricane Jacob is heading into Port Emmet with a vengeance as the soft-spoken townspeople prepare their homes for torrential rain and high speed winds. Such a storm hasn’t been seen since 50 years earlier, when poor weather conditions and a drunk driver caused a passing circus to plummet into the sea. Most of the casualties were clowns, which of course, is pretty fabulous (I mean tragic, right, tragic).

This story is relayed twice, which is vital in making up about 80% of the dialogue in the entire film. Dead Clowns, a microbudgeted release that found its way into Lions Gate’s apparently large clown wing (as witnessed by the trailers on this DVD, three of which were for similarly themed films), isn’t an awful movie by any means. Sure, it’s clearly saving its pennies in just about every scene, but at the same time, the gore is decent, acting...passable, and dialogue not painful...mostly because there’s so little of it.

See, nothing really happens to anybody worth knowing in Dead Clowns. Seriously. The most interesting person onscreen is scream queen Brinke Stevens, whose richly deep voice sets up almost eerie possibilities. 

Unfortunately, she meets her blurry end far too early, leaving us with a random assortment of shy soon-to-be victims, including a dude in a wheelchair with no discernible personality outside of being in a wheelchair, a busty blond with no discernible personality outside of being busty and blond, a pair of goth kid murderers whose bark is worse than their bite, and in a true cinematic crime, a wasted Debbie Rochon who sports an unflattering Christmas sweater and spends the entire film hiding and saying absolutely nothing. NOTHING! Maybe the lovely Ms. Rochon had strep throat during the week of filming. 

High Points

Putting aside a few of the overused songs, Steven Sessions’ instrumental score is quite good, filled with clever circus homages at just the right time (including a clown-getting-into-the-canon worthy drumroll played as a character fights a knife slowly heading towards her eyeball)

Low Points

95 minutes isn’t a long running time for most films, but considering Dead Clowns has no actual story or protagonist and about 25 minutes are spread out footage of hurricane winds hitting palm trees, there really wasn’t much to keep us driving towards the anticlimactic finale

A lesson to all filmmakers from someone who used to play with a camera as a teenager: slowly zooming in for an extreme closeup during an intense monologue will make it seem as though you’re a teenager that plays with a camera

Lessons Learned

If you’re in a horror movie situation, just throw out your cell phone. Seriously, have you ever seen it actually help anyone?

Being buried at sea for thirty years will do nothing to fade the brightness of your primary colored pants and hair

Just because the lights don’t work doesn’t mean you won’t get fuzzy reception on your television set

It’s so effin awesome to comb brains out of your hair

Rent/Bury/Buy

There are few people who I would recommend Dead Clowns to, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t recommend it. The zombies have a slightly Fulci-esque look that’s executed with skill, something that automatically makes Dead Clowns better than a good deal of the straight-to-DVD undead cinema lurking in your Netflix queue. The film has a ridiculous amount of problems and shouldn’t be shown to those with budgetary standards, but hey, I’ve seen worse, and when you add up the intrigue of Sessions’ score, Stevens' voice, and the basic neatness of zombie clowns, someone like me isn’t too disappointed.