The Clown at Midnight tells the story of teen Kate Williams (Sarah Lessaz) who recently discovered she was adopted, her real mother an opera singer named Lorraine Sedgewick (Vicki Marentette) having been brutally stabbed to death supposedly by a jealous lover after a performance of Pagliacci, a tragic play about a lovesick clown. Kate has been having very vivid nightmares & hallucinations but life goes on as they say... Seven college students including Kate have signed up to help clean up the old Walker Theatre which the head of drama Ms. Gibby (Margot Kidder) has had a grant to reopen, it's not long before Kate is getting freaked out because the Walker is the very theatre where her mom was murdered by a psychotic in a clown costume & he's on the prowl again as he locks the theatre up & begins to kill the teens off one-by-one...
This Canadian production was directed by Jean Pellerin & guess what? It's rubbish. The script by Kenneth J. Hall seems to take itself very seriously & has all the usual clichés, the teens keep splitting up for trivial reasons, the killers motives are thin to say the least, it's utterly predictable & it doesn't come together that well at the end either. How many more dull, lifeless films about annoying American teens do we need? There is a distinct lack of gore, in fact this is one of the driest slashers I've seen & considering it was made in 1998 when special effects were very advanced there's no excuse, it wouldn't be so bad if the character's made up for it but they don't because their all rubbish & the dialogue is poor too. Then there's the generic run down theatre location which is just a bore of a setting & not used to any great effect at all. You know it's over 40 minutes before the clown kills someone, that's 40 minutes of dullsville I'd rather be doing something fun like watching paint dry. Then there's the confused ending in which three people end up dressed exactly the same as the clown, why? For a start why did George go back & get dressed like the clown when he could have been saving Kate? Why did he need to dress as the clown anyway? It's pointless. Then there's the none too shocking revelation that the initial suspect didn't do it, wow what a surprise. He claimed he was trying to help them, yeah right & he did a good job didn't he as 5 people were killed & I didn't see him anywhere frankly until the pathetic twist ending which is so obvious it's embarrassing. You know who the killer is the very first time he appears on screen it's that obvious. To make matters even worse the only half decent looking cast member Liz Crawford is the first to be killed, although it takes a while to get there...
Director Pellerin does nothing to liven things up, the films well made & professional but very dull, flat & lifeless. The stalk scenes are poor, it's not scary, there's no tension as it's all so clichéd & obvious & there isn't even any decent gore in it either. You know slasher films have moved on since 1978 when Halloween came out but you'd never have guessed it watching Clown at Midnight. The violence & gore is tame with no imagination to the kills, someone gets a spear through the stomach, someone is strangled, someone is thrown off the roof, someone is electrocuted, someone is impaled on what looks like spikes although I don't know why someone would keep a load of spikes under a trap door on a theatre stage & someone is decapitated, seen it all before & done better as well.
Technically the film is pretty good actually & the best thing that can be said about it overall is that it's well made with decent production values. Filmed in the real life Walker Theatre in Winnipeg in Canada. The acting isn't anything special but it's alright, I didn't like anyone particularly but Liz Crawford was quite hot & she gets her top off as well. I take it Chirstopher Plummer & Margot Kidder need the money to agree to appear in this.
Clown at Midnight is a dull slasher film with a low body count, next to no gore, annoying teen character's & a very predictable twist ending which I predicted within 30 minutes, poor all round then really. There are many good slashers out there you really shouldn't be wasting your time or money on this.
This Canadian production was directed by Jean Pellerin & guess what? It's rubbish. The script by Kenneth J. Hall seems to take itself very seriously & has all the usual clichés, the teens keep splitting up for trivial reasons, the killers motives are thin to say the least, it's utterly predictable & it doesn't come together that well at the end either. How many more dull, lifeless films about annoying American teens do we need? There is a distinct lack of gore, in fact this is one of the driest slashers I've seen & considering it was made in 1998 when special effects were very advanced there's no excuse, it wouldn't be so bad if the character's made up for it but they don't because their all rubbish & the dialogue is poor too. Then there's the generic run down theatre location which is just a bore of a setting & not used to any great effect at all. You know it's over 40 minutes before the clown kills someone, that's 40 minutes of dullsville I'd rather be doing something fun like watching paint dry. Then there's the confused ending in which three people end up dressed exactly the same as the clown, why? For a start why did George go back & get dressed like the clown when he could have been saving Kate? Why did he need to dress as the clown anyway? It's pointless. Then there's the none too shocking revelation that the initial suspect didn't do it, wow what a surprise. He claimed he was trying to help them, yeah right & he did a good job didn't he as 5 people were killed & I didn't see him anywhere frankly until the pathetic twist ending which is so obvious it's embarrassing. You know who the killer is the very first time he appears on screen it's that obvious. To make matters even worse the only half decent looking cast member Liz Crawford is the first to be killed, although it takes a while to get there...
Director Pellerin does nothing to liven things up, the films well made & professional but very dull, flat & lifeless. The stalk scenes are poor, it's not scary, there's no tension as it's all so clichéd & obvious & there isn't even any decent gore in it either. You know slasher films have moved on since 1978 when Halloween came out but you'd never have guessed it watching Clown at Midnight. The violence & gore is tame with no imagination to the kills, someone gets a spear through the stomach, someone is strangled, someone is thrown off the roof, someone is electrocuted, someone is impaled on what looks like spikes although I don't know why someone would keep a load of spikes under a trap door on a theatre stage & someone is decapitated, seen it all before & done better as well.
Technically the film is pretty good actually & the best thing that can be said about it overall is that it's well made with decent production values. Filmed in the real life Walker Theatre in Winnipeg in Canada. The acting isn't anything special but it's alright, I didn't like anyone particularly but Liz Crawford was quite hot & she gets her top off as well. I take it Chirstopher Plummer & Margot Kidder need the money to agree to appear in this.
Clown at Midnight is a dull slasher film with a low body count, next to no gore, annoying teen character's & a very predictable twist ending which I predicted within 30 minutes, poor all round then really. There are many good slashers out there you really shouldn't be wasting your time or money on this.