Clownado (2019)

Part of getting back into doing the DTVC again was opening the old DTVC Yahoo email account, which I also hadn't touched in a long time.  Long story short, I had over 1000 emails in there, and a lot of them were from publicity companies getting the word out about their client's films.  One that I thought would be perfect for my Three for Halloween was this one, which Katie at October Coast was nice enough to send a screener over for.  Beyond the obvious, I was also intrigued by the fact that this was a Todd Sheets film, a director and schlock auteur that I was introduced to a while back by Mo from Drunk on VHS and Doug Tilley through their No Budge Nightmares podcast--which is definitely worth checking out if you haven't already.

In Clownado, Todd Sheets takes us on a delightful culinary journey through western Missouri.  We start with a small, family-owned farm that is currently producing some of the best artisan jellies, jams, and preserves in the country--the blackberry chutney is to die for!  Next, we visit a couple of culinary pioneers who are turning the world of charcuterie on its ear with some innovative cured meets and sausages....  Okay, it's actually about a woman married to a clown in a traveling carnival show who has her friend cast a curse on him and his fellow clowns, the curse turns them into supernatural clown killers that travel up and down western Missouri in a tornado, and we have a rag tag group of heroes that are the only thing that can stop them; but included is a lot of gore that looks like fancy artisan food items.  Simply scrumptious!

This is a tale of two movies for me.  The first 27 minutes or so could essentially be dumped and repackaged as a five-minute flashback sequence that Savanna, the evil clown wife, can tell everyone else when the Clownado first attacks.  The opening credits alone were almost 3 minutes!  If I were just streaming this for free on my Roku, I would have stopped it and moved onto something else.  And that would have been a shame, because from the 27-minute mark, when we see the hitchhiking Elvis impersonator, we get fantastic schlock horror at its Todd Sheets-iest.  All kinds of culinary items repurposed as gore; consistent kills, and fun kills at that; and characters that we get a kick out of watching, played by actors that, as much as they're in on the joke, they play it straight enough, which for me is the most important, because I think there's an earnestness in that that allows me to not take the product seriously (which is the intent with a movie called Clownado), but still take the effort seriously.  By the end I had almost forgotten about those first 27 minutes, but they still happened, and I think before I fully endorse this, it's important to mention, because anyone watching without that warning would be like "what was Matt talking about?"... and who knows, they may still think that!

I could have sworn I'd done a Todd Sheets film on the blog before, in particular either Nightmare Asylum or Zombie Rampage, both of which I've seen before.  He stays pretty true to his roots here, the only issue is that excessive runtime due to the opening 27 minutes.  Each of those other two movies I mentioned ran about 70 minutes, and I would say the last 70 minutes of Clownado is the Todd Sheets you came for--the exception being at about the 20-minute mark when the clowns are dismembering a body to bury it, and we get our first glimpse of Mr. Sheets's use of the fine artisan jams and jellies of Missouri.  He should open a gastropub with some of these great dishes he serves up in the death scenes.  "Ooh, let me try the fennel duck sausage with the black currant preserves coming out of that person's stomach!"

As someone who grew up in the VHS age, there is that nostalgia for the old video store days, and the look of the low-budget movies shot on video or cheap filmstock; but I have to say I appreciated this being done on modern, digital equipment.  Again, beyond the runtime, everything that was great about Todd Sheets in the early 90s was great here in 2019, the picture just looked clearer.  When I think of watching schlock horror growing up, it was about crazy kills, funny lines given by funny characters, and inventive ways to recreate gore that my buddies and me would watch and quote and talk about over and over again.  I got that here, and I like that technology has evolved to a point where filmmakers like Sheets on the budgets they're confined to can have access to a nicer quality picture.  It levels the playing field a bit, which I'm all for.

If you stay for the credits (which I always do to make sure I don't miss anything for the review), Sheets gives a thank you for the inspiration he got from some real legends in the low-budget field, names like Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski, and Russ Meyer; and he also gives a shout-out to all the low-budget directors out there trying to make it work without the backing of a big movie house.  I know he didn't intend for this, but it was a reminder to me of just how much these films are a labor of love to all involved in making them.  By the same token, as much as I want to be fair in saying what I thought about the movie, I think it's also important for the film to make me feel how much it was a labor of love--the tendency for me often is to go easier on a movie if I'm sent a screener; but I think what I liked about this was by the end I felt like I didn't have to go easy on it, it won me over, and that's something I really appreciate when it comes to writing up the aftermath.

Finally, as you may know, I'm living in Philadelphia now, but am originally from southern Maine, and the gore used in the first dismemberment scene reminded me of the relish on Flo's hot dogs in York, ME.  If you've never been before, and you're in York, ME for anything, you need to check Flo's out.  Also, if you're in that area, pretty much every gift shop has their relish for sale.  You could set me up with a few Flo's dogs and a bottle of Moxie, and I'll be good to go.

I'm definitely digressing here, so time to wrap this up.  For me, outside of the first 27 minutes or so, this is what you came for, and I think it would be a fun addition to a horror movie night.  As far as where to go to see it, I only found it on On Demand through my cable company, and it was $5 to rent, which is a bit steep for me.  Hopefully it'll catch on with one of the major streaming sites soon.  Thank you again to Katie at October Coast for the screener.  Also, if you're a low-budget/indie filmmaker and want me to look at your film, you can either email me at the Yahoo account, or you can message me on the DTVC Facebook page.  I'm looking to do one screener a month right now, but that may change depending on the number of requests I get.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8485548