Clown (2014)

Episode 87, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s film, comes to you straight from Netflix. If you like it, you can check it out now. It is the 2014 film, Clown. Clown, just in time for, I think we have a new version of It coming out soon, which to me is, like, the most essential clown evil clown movie. At least it scared the heck out of me when we were in middle school. That was you know, a lot of people don’t 

Craig:  Me too. 

Todd:  Yeah. Right? And a lot of people don’t realize, at least today, that it was a it was a TV movie. It was like a TV miniseries. Mhmm. Remember that? Yep. Yeah. I I remember being in, like, 8th grade, and I I mean, it’s clear as day coming into band class. And our teacher, like, the first thing out of her mouth, our our director was, Janine, do you see it last night? And we’re like, yeah.   And she’s like, that scared the heck out of me. Imagine this woman talking to 8th graders about how it scared the heck out of her. She must have, she must have had a fear of clowns. I, I have to say, as a guy who kind of liked, doing magic growing up, I was I was kind of into that scene, You know? I one of the first jobs, actually, that I got ever got paid for was doing magic shows for birthday parties and events and things. But the one thing that I steered clear of, even though I was into magic, I took up juggling a little bit, I’ve I’ve even I was twisting balloon animals last week for the kindergarten that I was principal for. Like I have I don’t except when I was a kid, one Halloween that I have photographic evidence of, I’ve never been fond of, dressing up as a clown. Like, getting that white makeup on, kinda doing the whole clown thing just was never my thing. And that being said, I’ve also never, like, had a fear of clowns.   It just, I think that’s a fairly recent thing. And maybe it I mean, don’t get me wrong. There are always people there are always people who have been afraid of clowns. I mean, there’s a there’s a word for it. And, it’s like a fear of spiders. You can have a fear of about anything. And if you’re a young enough kid and this guy in makeup is coming in, you know, kind of in your face and doing whatever, it’s understandable that it’d be kind of frightening. But for so many centuries, you know, clowns have just have just been fun and happy for the most part for most people.   Right. It seems like lately, just within the last few decades, it’s been, I have to say, kind of trendy to say that clowns are evil and that you hate clowns and that you’re afraid of clowns. 

Craig:  I do know what you mean, and I I think, it really was kind of the turning point there. And then I don’t know. I I’m sure that there had been clown stuff before that. I don’t remember when Killer Klowns from Outer Space came out, but even that, I mean, it was kinda scary, but it was goofball too. Yeah. But ever since it, I think, clowns have kinda gotten a bad rap. And, you know, re even recently in the last few years, there have been all these scary clown sightings, like, in real life. Like, I don’t know who these people are who are dressing up as clowns and going around scaring people, but, I guess, the real clowns in the clown industry are are kind of struggling.   They’re struggling because there’s not the demand for them there once was. I mean, when we were little kids, you know, clowns were you’d see them at the circuit, you know, there was Ronald McDonald, they were kind of a cute fun kid thing. But I think that’s, that’s kind of shifted. I, I imagine it’ll probably shift back at some time, but, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. This movie is not gonna do it any favors, do the clowns any favors. 

Todd:  Absolutely not. This movie takes this movie takes a whole different take on the clown thing, and I have to say that’s the one thing that I really liked about this movie. I I’m pretty mixed on it, actually. I’ll just say it right up front. I did enjoy it at parts. I felt like at times it got a little draggy, and I felt like totally, it didn’t really know where it wanted to be. And that’s the biggest I mean, otherwise, it’s a pretty it’s a pretty gutsy movie. It was really willing to go a lot of places that a lot of movies aren’t willing to go and take some risks, and 

Craig:  for 

Todd:  that, I’ve gotta give it some Craig. But, at the end of the day, yeah, I I just I was just a little mixed, about this film. But I do have to say that the concept is kind of unique and cool. It’s not super unique in that we are getting a lot of these sort of retconned, origin stories. Right? We did sent and Right. A couple different Santa Claus movies where they try to kinda make it seem like, the, you know, happy go lucky clowns actually had a sinister origin. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Yeah. So that that was that was kind of interesting. I thought, that’s something I hadn’t seen before anyway. 

Craig:  Well, the history of the movie I think is just as interesting as the movie itself. I mean, it was it started out, I guess as the director made a fake trailer, for this movie Clown that had he hadn’t made, and he put it up on YouTube. In the fake trailer, it said, from the master of horror, Eli Roth. And, of course, Eli Roth didn’t have anything to do with it at all, but somehow, Ross got wind of it, and, he was impressed that they were ballsy enough to put his name on it. And, so he ended up, you know, being one of the producers on it. And then it got made. They shot it in 2012 and and completed it. And then it just it just sat around for a long time.   Like, I guess it got released, in in Europe and and I don’t know where else. So it then it finally got a release, a limited theatrical release in 2014 and and then went straight to, disc. So I don’t know why it was shelved for so long. I guess they just couldn’t find a distributor. And that’s kind of strange to me especially since like we said, you know, there’s kind of been this hype around, clowns and there was hype around this movie. I mean I remember reading about it when it was being made and I kept seeing posts online about how it was finally gonna be released, was finally gonna be released and, it just kept getting pushed back. And eventually though I guess it found its distributor and we get it. And it’s just kind of strange to me that it Todd so long to come out because it’s not bad.   I mean it’s a pretty well made movie. The director, Jon Watts, I didn’t recognize a lot of the stuff that he had done in the past, but he just directed the new Marvel movie, Spider Man Homecoming that’s not even out yet. The directing is pretty Todd. And and the acting I thought was was actually pretty good. It was a little bit subtle. It wasn’t over the top too much. I mean, with the you know, it’s a a killer clown movie, so of course, it’s over the top. But it has a quality to it.   You’re right. I agree with you entirely that I’m kind of mixed on it too because it does seem like it drags a little bit. It’s a scary movie, but I think that in hindsight thinking about it and after I read some about it, I it’s really kind of more interesting, as a personal journey, of the main character. And I’ll be interested to talk about that as we get there. But tell us tell 

Todd:  us what it’s about. Okay. So, basically, it’s about this, this family. We have May and Kent, husband and wife and husband, and, it opens up at a birthday party. And we get a lot of information thrown at us at the beginning, which is a nice little setup. Jack, their son, is having a birthday party, and it’s a clown themed birthday party, and he’s really excited about the clown that’s going to show up. In the meantime, May is talking with her friend, Denise. And, she and Denise are chatting, and May kinda lets it slip that she’s pregnant, but she hasn’t really told anybody else yet, and particularly she hasn’t told Kent yet.   She gets a a call from the company, the clown company that, she had hired Right. To send a clown there, and they say they can’t bring their clown. So she calls Kent, her husband, and says, they’re not gonna send a clown. Now Kent, we find out, is a realtor. He is, fixing up a house here that’s getting ready to be sold, and he’s in the midst of this when he gets this phone call. So he gets this call on his cell phone, and I think she calls from her land phone, which was just a little weird in this movie. 

Craig:  I didn’t even notice. 

Todd:  Yeah. There’s a lot of she’s got a landline and an answering machine. It’s so bizarre. Like, even even in 20 I mean, the movie did take a while to come out, but it was like we’re talking 2013 was when it was shot. Right. That was the first thing that I was like, what the heck? But anyway yeah. So, he’s like, oh, don’t worry. I’ll I’ll do I’ll I’ll figure figure something out.   And he’s kinda vague about it. He he hangs it up. And it just so happens, I guess, in this house that he’s in, the previous owner left some stuff. We later find out this was a guy who died in this house and so, you know, he just kinda kinda went up and left and so he goes hunting around I guess in the clothing, and lo and behold, lucky him, he finds this chest in the basement amongst the things, and it’s monogrammed, and he opens it up and it looks like an old chest, and what is inside but a clown suit? There’s a clown suit, Yeah. And so a wig and and a nose. 

Craig:  As luck as luck would have it. I mean, there there are so many there are so many, you know, big, like, loose ends in this movie, and and this is just one of the first ones. Like, first of all, what are the odds that there would be a clown suit in this house? And and beyond that, you know, why would you even think to look like Yeah. Oh, I’ll just look just in case there is a clown suit. Like Yeah. 

Todd:  Of course. You’d you’d get on your cell phone, and you’d call a a a costume shop nearby. That’s exactly what you would do. Right. 

Craig:  Oh, man. But whatever. He finds this clown suit, and, he puts it on, and he goes, and he saves the day. You know? He’s the clown at the kid’s party. 

Todd:  It is the crappiest clown suit too. Like, I’m sorry, but if I had come across that clown suit and that outfit, first of all, I wouldn’t have wanted to put it on. It looks musty and old and disgusting. The suit itself is bizarre. You get kind of close-up looks on it, and this kinda gets explained later on. But if you’d come across this thing, it looks like a clown suit made out of, like, patchwork snakeskin or something. And of course Scaly. Yeah.   It’s scaly. Right? And this is kinda dark little nose, I guess, that’s I don’t know. Whatever. And then this, again, why would you put this old, musty, nasty looking wig on your head? Who knows? I would have called the costume shop anyway at this point. Right. Yeah. But, yeah, you’re right. He puts it on.   He shows up at the party as Domo the clown. And, of course, I think his kid realizes it’s you know, he’s old enough to realize that it’s his dad, but he doesn’t care. You know? And they all have fun. And it’s it’s actually a really cute moment. I I really liked this bit. I thought this is a nice little family. This is a cool guy. It you know, at first, I wondered if we were getting the dad who’s too busy to pay attention and and work things out.   He’s always failing his son kinda trope. But, no, he follows through with them and puts on this musty clown suit and does his clown act and everything. And then I thought we were gonna get a little bit of clown sex. 

Craig:  And yeah. 

Clip:  Mhmm. There’s a zipper.   Slipped right on.   I have big news for you.   Oh, yeah? Mhmm. Didn’t know it was my birthday.   What? This might be just a little too weird.   Come on. Make a little make a little clown piggy. 

Todd:  I was like, woah. This movie’s 

Craig:  so funny. Yeah. It I think we would’ve gotten some clown sex, but they couldn’t figure out how to get the costume off, which kinda sets up the the movie. And so she goes off to bed, and he falls asleep, on the couch and and wakes up in the morning still in the clown suit, and he can’t get the wig and the nose off, and he can’t find the zipper for the clown suit, and so he’s stuck in this clown suit. And so he has to take his kid to school and go to work in this clown suit. 

Todd:  He can’t even whirly wash off the face paint either, which which begged the question, was he using old nasty grease paint from that from that that case? Ugh. How stupid. 

Clip:  Well 

Craig:  and and again, why don’t they why doesn’t he or his wife think it’s more strange that he can’t get this off? Like Yeah. I would be freaking out, you know? Like it’s he he says at some point point that he didn’t even use any adhesive or anything. So, yeah. So I would have been more freaked out. But, you know, like, the wife sends him off to take the kid to school. He takes the kid to school. He goes to his worksite, and his workers are like, why are you in a clown suit? And he just kinda throws his hands up and says, well, don’t you have kids? And, they just kinda laugh at him. He goes off to the bathroom, and he’s trying to get this suit off, and he can’t get it off.   And he’s, god, he’s so dumb. He takes he takes a box cutter and sticks it under the sleeve right at his wrist and is, like, trying with force to to rip it open. And and he completely slits his wrist, and blood starts squirting everywhere. And I’m thinking, my Todd. You better get to the hospital. But he just, like, put some toilet paper on it, like, no big deal. That made no sense. No.   And then on top of that, then he goes out and gets like a buzz saw and sticks the buzz saw down his collar and turns it on and it breaks the blade. I’m like, Todd. God. He’s so dumb. 

Todd:  He even says, like 

Clip:  You are 

Craig:  going to kill yourself. 

Todd:  This is a really bad idea. He he Todd it anyway. It’s I yeah. I had to roll my eyes at that whole section. I thought this guy should just be going to the hospital. I mean, wouldn’t that be what you would do? Just Yeah. Go to the freaking hospital. And I probably wrote that down three times while I was making this, notes for this movie, like, go to the hospital. 

Craig:  Yeah. But then he goes home, and he still can’t get anything off. And so his wife takes him into the bathroom, and she’s like a dental assistant or something. So she pulls out her dental equipment, and she takes like the forceps and grabs onto his nose and starts pulling and it hurts like he’s clearly in pain. This hurts. And she’s like, well, I’m just gonna do this. And she rips it off and like rips the tip of his nose off, and it falls on the floor and the dog eats it, which is gross, but you also know that can’t be good. You know, there’s something there’s something wrong with this suit.   Can’t be good that the dog eats it. And then like you said, it gets a little bit long. I feel like if we wanted to, I don’t know how detailed we wanna get into it, but if we wanted to, we could really just kinda gloss over the most of the plot because for the next hour, it’s just him slowly transforming. And you realize that this costume is transforming him in some way. He’s becoming this clown, and it’s not just any clown. It’s, an evil clown. The, the, the wig has become his actual hair. He, you know, the, his skin has actually turned the colors, of the makeup, and it just progresses kinda slowly from there. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, you know, this was I was looking at this, and I was thinking, okay. So this is kind of like The Fly. Right? I mean, we’re seeing this guy who is kind of tragic, I mean, through really no fault of his own. This is, I guess, you could call it a cursed item type movie. But in a lot of times with these cursed item type movies, the the person was doing something they shouldn’t. Right? At the very least, they robbed the mummy’s Todd, and they were warned about the curse, but they took the thing anyway, and so they’re paying the price. And in this case, it’s it’s more like The Fly.   It’s just this guy was trying to do something good and something nice, and now he’s gonna pay for it because of this this cursed item, this ancient evil. And so at this point in the movie I thought, okay, this is where this is going and it’s really it’s really pretty tragic. But at the same time it’s interjecting quite a bit of humor in there, you know, at at spots. Right. And it’s I can’t really recall any specific things, but there there are parts that you’ll just kinda laugh laugh at, chuckle, or groan. And that’s where it started to feel I don’t know. At at times, it was trying to be kind of sinister and really spooky and scary. And other times, it was trying to poke fun and say, hey.   Look. You’re still only watching a movie about a killer clown. It can’t be that simple. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I feel like it was a little uneven in that regard. Like, I couldn’t really tell which way it was trying to go. Like, because it doesn’t really play for the humor a lot, and you do really feel sympathy for this character. The guy, Kent, is played by an actor named Andy Powers who, is is just a I don’t know. I’m sure he’s a very good looking guy. He’s a Hollywood actor, but, you know, they kinda play down his looks. They kinda make him very much an every man here.   And he plays it really well. He he plays in every man really well. And so you feel for him, you know, at first, you feel bad that this is happening to him, but it just seems kind of more like a nuisance, an annoyance, like how am I gonna solve this problem? And as the story progresses and you see him really kind of spiraling downwards, then you really start to feel, bad, for the guy. And when he realizes he can’t get the the stuff off, he does some research, and he he finds out that the guy who died in the house had a brother. The way that he finds that out is he goes back and he finds, I don’t remember. Anyway, he does some research 

Todd:  and Yeah. Yeah. He goes to a costume shop, like a random costume shop. 

Clip:  I don’t know. It looks old. Smells weird.   Come on. Anything else? Please.   I don’t know, ma’am.   We sell Halloween costumes and cheap stuff. It’s not like that. Okay.   But, cheap stuff. Not like that.   Okay. But who does? There’s, like,   a lot. They’re in here. 

Todd:  And she opens up the yellow pages, which, again, I’m thinking this is 2013, and this 20 something year old clerk is opening up the yellow pages for this guy. Yeah. Anyway, she flips it open, and he just like it’s like she flips to one page and the next, and he, like, looks and he points at it. He’s like, that one right there. And I really don’t know why. Was it because of the initials on the 

Craig:  It was the name. It was the name. The the owner of the house’s name had been Carlson, and he finds this place called car Carlson’s costumes. Oh, that’s it. And so he calls this Carlson costumes and 

Clip:  I’m calling about, a clown costume. I I think might belong to you. It was found in Martin Carlson’s basement.   Where’s Martin? Oh,   I’m sorry. Martin Carlson passed away. I’m the real estate agent handling   the Whatever you do, don’t touch that costume. You understand? Stay away from it. Are you still in the house? I’ll be over as soon as I can. But don’t touch the costume, please.   I’m wearing it. 

Craig:  All of a sudden the guy’s like, oh, that’s that’s fine. Just be careful. It’s old and fragile. Come to my warehouse, and we’ll we’ll get that thing off you. And so he goes to this guy’s warehouse, and this guy, Carlson is played by Peter Starmare, who’s been in a lot of things. Right now. He’s currently one of the stars of, Neil Gaiman’s American Todd. But you’ll I totally recognize this guy from a lot of stuff.   He’s kind of this scary big guy, but he seems nice at first. And he he offers Kent some tea, and he starts telling him, he says, you know, this costume, it’s an old traditional costume from Nordic regions, and he says, but, people don’t know what the real origin of clowns are. And, then he kind of gives that backstory that you were talking about how, like, it’s kind of retconning clown origins. And I have no idea if if any of this has any 

Todd:  Oh, no. 

Craig:  Grounding in reality. He’s got 

Todd:  no grounding in reality. It it’s always the same too on these retcon things. Kinda like our Santa Claus thing. Right? Santa Claus was this big, evil, mean, you know, possibly supernatural kind of creature that actually did the opposite of what he does today. Right? He he’s not a jolly guy who loves kids. He went around murdering kids, and it’s the same thing with the clowns. There’s some demon. And, I didn’t really get that either, to be honest, because and maybe you can help me out here, but his explanation is that there’s this demon that lived in the woods, and it was called the cloyn, and it would lure children.   But eventually, the residents learned that they could keep him appeased by feeding him 5 children every year. They had to basically sacrifice 5 kids a year once for each of the months in winter. Right? Which is Scandinavian winter anyway. 

Craig:  He yeah. He he lives I I I think he lived at the top of a mountain, and that’s why his face was white, but his nose was red because, of the Todd. The cold. And so that’s where the look came from, and and yeah, exactly like you said, you know, he was an eater of children, and and I guess this this is all explained in about 15 seconds. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Basically what it comes down to is eventually, people forgot, about him. And and for whatever reason, then because he was forgotten, I guess he was no longer an immediate threat and the whole image of the clown took on a new meaning and it became this fun thing for kids. As he’s finishing up this story, Kent is getting very sleepy and it becomes really apparent that he’s been drugged. When he wakes up, he’s tied to a table and Carl’s, oh no, the drugs are supposed to keep you, out for a lot longer. And he says, decapitation is the only way to stop the demon. And you can tell that he’s planning on cutting Kent’s head off. And he says, and I really like this, I thought it was clever. He says, It’s not a costume.   It’s skin and hair of a demon. And I don’t know, we’ve probably seen, you know, we’ve seen things where people put on masks and the masks have effects on them and stuff, but the idea of this demon, you know, having this MO where its skin is made to look like a costume so somebody will put it on and then the demon can inhabit them. I thought that was kinda clever. I liked it. 

Todd:  Yeah. That was clever. And, also, again, it rose a few questions in my head, like, where in this clown legend did did they kill the demon and skin it? You know, all that. Like, how did all that how did all that kinda go? But, anyway, yeah, you’re right. It it was it was it was clever. It was interesting. And, you know, when you look again at the clown suit, you can see, yeah, again, it it looked scaly and gross. Like, I never would have put it on in the first place.   It Right. I thought this is a real Eli Roth moment, right, in the movie. Like, you could tell Yeah. These guys really liked him when he’s and, again, this is where it gets kinda funny where he’s like, oh, I thought the drugs the drugs should’ve kept you out, you know, through your decapitation. But, anyway, we’re gonna go through with it now. Right. 

Craig:  But but it it doesn’t happen because Kent, apparently has super strength now. So he breaks free of his bonds. And this was kinda funny. He he he races home, and he runs in, and he’s freaking out. And he’s like, we gotta get to the police. We gotta get to the police. This guy tried to kill me. And, he turns around, and his wife is sitting there, like, with the in laws, like her dad and, I guess, maybe her sister and brother-in-law or something.   And of course, they all think he’s nuts because he looks nuts. You know, he’s dressed up in this ratty clown suit, and he’s freaking out. And he’s telling this big story about how some guy’s trying to cut his head off. And I thought that it was funny that they’re like, he shows the wife, look. He he he chopped me up with a a butcher knife, and he’s got this big gash in his shoulder. And she’s like, well, where is the guy? And so he takes him outside, and he’s just got Carlson, like, tied up in a blanket in the back seat of the car. Oh, man. Which was, I thought pretty funny.   I I didn’t know exactly what he was planning to do. And and, you know, the wife, even he’s like, we gotta go to the police. And she’s like, well, what are, you know, what are we gonna tell them? They object, and I feel like that one of the men who’s there, it’s not, it’s not Meg’s dad. It’s it’s just, I I guess, another in law. Like like, grabs grabs, Kent, and Kent grabs him by the arm and, like, inadvertently, but because he’s so strong, breaks his arm. And so then Kent just goes off, by himself and in the car and he’s speeding along, but then I feel like, Carlson starts trying to fight him from the back seat. Meanwhile, he’s going through this transformation where, like, his fingers are are getting elongating and, like, becoming more claw like and his feet are growing larger and bursting out of his shoes. They end up crashing the car, and I thought Carlson died, but he, shows back up later.   But, he before, Kent flees the scene, Carlson tells him, you’ve gotta kill yourself. It’s it’s the only way. You’ve gotta kill yourself before you completely lose control. He runs off kind of into the woods. Then, you know, things, things happen so quickly. Like there’s a boy scout camp. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. There there’s a cub scout camp, and, like, one of the cub scouts has to go out into the woods to clean off his plate. And he’s, like, shining his flashlight around and the flash light lands on Kent, which is really one of the only kind of scary moments, or at least jump scare moments. And Kent says, do you have any food? I just want food. And the kid tries to hand him like some cookies or something, but Kent grabs the kid’s hand and bites his fingers off. So apparently Kent is developing this appetite for kids, and he can’t control it. And then he just kinda runs around for a while. 

Todd:  This is where I thought it got really, really funny. Like, of course, he runs into a cub scout. Right? After he’s transformed, there’s a boy scout that he gets to bite the hand off. Then he runs into a gas station bathroom. And what happens? But, like, a bus full of students or something pulls up, and they all get out. And it’s like, alright, guys. You’re in there for 10 minutes, and then we’re getting back on the road. And you’re right.   It’s just a whole bunch of back and forth. There’s him kinda hiding or him kinda acting the dog starts acting Craig, and then Kent calls his wife at some point in here, and it sounds like a suicide message. He says, I’m sorry. This is the only way. And he’s got a gun, and he sit down, and he puts the gun in his mouth, and he shoots it, and he blows his you know, the back of his head off. And, actually and it’s funny because the spray against the wall, it’s, like, multicolored. 

Craig:  I thought that was genius. I thought it was genius. I didn’t see it coming, And, you know, we’re so used to that imagery of, you know, the suicide blood splatter. And so I was expecting it to look like it always does. And the fact that it was all 

Clip:  of these like pastel, it was almost like party confetti. I thought that 

Craig:  was so clever. And of, of Exactly. 

Todd:  Exactly. Except I did actually look at the time on the movie at that point. I was like, okay. So this seems to become an arc here. I he’s probably not gonna be dead, but and I looked at we had it all. We had a whole hour left to go. Yeah. And I was like, wow.   Where is it gonna go for this next hour? I guess he’s gonna keep transforming and but we’re only a third of the way through the movie, and it still felt like ages had gone by. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And and the next part, I mean it’s just kind of long. He the the suicide doesn’t work so he goes saw shopping And Good 

Clip:  to and 

Craig:  then he goes and then he goes back to this, like, I I guess this is like a motel room that he’s working on or something. I didn’t really understand that. His wife knows that he might be there because she finds him there later, but it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is there’s this little kid who keeps bugging him. 

Clip:  Are you a clown? I am Robbie. What’s your name? Woah. You really hungry. If you wanna eat, I got some cookies and waffle and cinnamon poke crunch and chocolate chip and chips and some doggies and something guilty. We’ll stay   on. 

Craig:  He sets the saws up, so that if he were he he puts a chair down in front or yeah. In front of the saws, and his plan, I guess, is that he’s going to lean back in the chair until he falls back, and then the saws will decapitate him. He’s hesitant, like he kind of false starts a couple times, but then it looks like he’s gonna do it. But right at the last second, the door flies open, and it’s this nosy kid again. He fell back, and he kinda fell wonky. And because of that, it, like, disturbed the saws, and they fell. And one of them broke, and the saw blade shot right through the little kid and killed him. And, then we don’t see it happen, but it’s implied that Kent eats the kid.   And it was at that point that I realized, okay, they’re really gonna go there. 

Clip:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  You know, this guy’s this guy’s gonna be a child murderer. And over the course of the next half hour or so, he kills several more kids in pretty brutal ways. And it’s not that I enjoy seeing children suffer or be killed on screen, but I did think it was pretty ballsy that they’re just like, yep. We’re doing it. We’re going there. We’re killing cute little kids. 

Todd:  Yeah. I I actually appreciated that about this movie. Again, movies don’t often go there. Why not? It’s a horror movie. You show absolutely every other horrible thing you can. Why not show kids getting eaten? You know? That’s kinda where I stand on this whole thing. Right. But Yep.   Yep. But at some point here then, her she finds him. And I I still don’t quite understand why she went to this motel, and I also don’t understand how she found his room so quickly. It’s like she’s wandering outside. They’re knocking on random doors or something, and she hears them through the door, and she starts talking through the door. It was there anything? 

Craig:  She had a list of the properties that he was working on. I don’t know why a realtor would be working on a lone motel room. Todd doesn’t really make any sense to me, but so no. I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is, but she does find him and they have kind of this sad conversation through the door where she says, you know, I I I want you to be okay. I just want you to come home, and she confesses that she’s pregnant, and and he says, take me home. And she opens the door, and we don’t see him. All we see is her reaction to him.   And it’s really good. It’s good in the acting because she Is obviously horrified by what she sees, but at the same time, it’s her husband. You know, it’s not like she runs a she’s, she doesn’t run away shrieking in fear. She wants to help. She realizes now that what he’s been saying, that something is wrong with this costume, it’s doing something to him, she realizes that it’s true and she wants to help. They go home and, she chains him up in the basement and, he says, You’ve got to keep me down here and no matter what I say, you can’t let me out. And so then it’s her turn, to kind of start, doing some research. And, she goes back to that original property, and, she finds this weird chair that’s, like, bolted to the floor.   And, then she finds this old VHS, camcorder. And of course, the tape is still in there. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So she’s able she’s able to watch what was recorded. 

Todd:  And, apparently, the battery to the camcorder is still fully, charged and operational. 

Craig:  Right? Right. 

Todd:  What Mabe is plugged into 

Craig:  the wall? 

Todd:  Who knows? But, 

Craig:  Okay. So she she looks through the lens, and at first, she just kinda sees the empty chair, and then somebody kinda walks by frame and that kind of gives her a start. But then she either rewinds or fast forwards, and she sees this demon strapped into this chair and it’s just straight up demon. You know, it doesn’t look like clown suit anymore. It looks, very much like a very scary demon, and I really liked the effect. We’re seeing it through the lens of this camera and it’s kind of in shades of blue. You know, it’s really low quality, almost like it was maybe shot in the dark or something. And I thought that that really kind of added to the mystique and and scariness, of the demon.   If we had seen it in more sharp focus, it might not have been as scary. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But she knows what she’s dealing with, at this point. Meanwhile, Jack, the son, is getting bullied at school. So he runs home and Kent calls to him from the basement and it’s really ominous and scary because Kent’s being really nice and saying, you know, come talk to daddy. You know, mommy said it’s okay. And the kid goes down there and they have this conversation. 

Clip:  At school, some kids tried to put face on my face. They’re always doing that stuff.   Who is?   Colton.   You know what I did when I was bullying? I hid so that they couldn’t find me. And then after a while, you know what happened?   They left you alone.   Hey, Jack. You know where the bolt gutters are. 

Craig:  And then it cuts back to Meg, who gets a call from her friend who was supposed to pick Jack up, and Jack’s not there. So she’s racing home, and I was just I didn’t know. I was I was fairly certain that she was gonna find, her kid having been eaten. But, no, she goes home, and the kid’s okay. But Kent is gone. And then we get another pretty brutal scene. 

Todd:  Yeah. So it turns out Kent went to the house, and I actually like this bit because, it it so for all of the landline phones and the yellow pages that we had before, suddenly we are kind of acknowledging a bit of the modern, and this kid is playing, I guess, on his Xbox or something with his friends. And now nowadays, when you play Xbox with your friends, none of you are in the same room. You’re all in your different houses, and 

Clip:  you’ve 

Todd:  got these headsets on, and you’re chatting with each other. And there’s one thing that, like, now I’m not a I honestly don’t play these multiplayer games. I like playing games, but I don’t like playing with other people online because most people are dicks. Yeah. But, but this this movie pretty much highlights that. And if you know anything about this sort of scene, you know that kids are really nasty to each other, and this kid is no different. He’s one of these kids, and they’re trash talking back and forth, and they’ve got this totally foul language. And, the kid has to get up because he hears something in the house and he walks around.   In the meantime, the other kids, we still hear kind of the soundtrack through his head through his headset, which has been which he Todd down on the counter. And, as the clown comes into the house and faces this kid down. In the meantime, the others are in the background going, oh, yeah. Well, Carlson, he told Jack today blah blah blah, and they’re basically retelling the story of how he bullied Jack while his dad is is facing him down in this you know, as a demon. Like, I don’t know. Must be, like, a a chunk of his head or a piece of his body flies and hits the screen. Yeah. Blood splattering. 

Craig:  Blood everywhere. Yeah. 

Todd:  Again, like, another total Eli Roth moment. But, again, this is where it gets a little totally weird because we’ve been we’ve been alternating between these really funny scenes, and yet we’re also getting these pretty horrifying scenarios where most horror movies dare not tread, you know, this violence towards children thing. No matter how bad a bully is, nobody’s in their right mind when they’re, you know, 12 years old. And, 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  You know, they don’t deserve that kind of treatment, and so it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty brutal. And now, again, I’m fine with it personally, but but, it does throw off the movie. You you really don’t know how to feel. And and honestly, to my mind, it’s still not scary. 

Craig:  Yeah. I know what you mean, and it it should be because it’s it’s pretty brutal. And at this point, you know, the Kent, the demon is is pretty menacing, but you’re right. I don’t know. It’s just it’s it’s that weird imbalance because it should be kind of fun like, you know, it’s like retribution, like, this kid’s getting what he deserves. But at the same time, like, well, he’s just a kid. You know? Like, so I don’t know. It’s it’s it’s a mixed bag.   Well, then it cuts back to the family home and, Meg, the mom, is confronted by the dog who is now a demon dog and kind of has a clown face of his own. And just as the dog’s about to attack, Carlson shows up and chops the dog’s head off. And and the dog’s body kind of flails around for a minute in front of Jack, which I thought was a good touch. Like, this poor kid is being traumatized. But then, Carlson tells Meg the same thing that he told, Kent, you know, he’s gotta be decapitated. He’s gotta be killed. It’s the only way. But somewhere along the lines, Meg had also looked through this book that Kent had found with the costume, and it was about the demon and whatnot.   And there were all these pictures stuck in there. And one of the pictures was, of Carlson in the clown suit. And so she says, I know that there’s more than one way to get it off because you got it off at some point. He gives the back story at some point and says, you know, I found this costume, I put it on. I, you know, my my brother was a doctor and he worked in a children’s cancer ward and I thought that I could help, cheer up the kids. And there’s these pictures of him like trying to cheer up the kids and whatnot. He says, But then the transformation started, and somehow, I don’t know how they figured it out, but they figured out that if they gave him, the demon, 5 kids, then, Carlson would be released. And so the, the doctor brother smuggled 5 kids who were very close to death out and fed them to the clown and that’s how Carlson was able to escape.   And there again, so many loose ends like, What? How would that happen? You know, like Todd noticed. Nobody noticed. 5 kids just went missing and that’s the same thing, you know. Some some crazy person dressed as a clown bit a kid’s fingers off in the woods, and nobody heard about that. It wasn’t on the news. You know, the cops weren’t involved. This he ate this little kid in the motel. Where were this kid’s parents? You know? Yeah.   This kid lived alone in the motel, I guess. At some point, Carlson and Meg go to Colton’s house and find Colton’s body. It’s like, where are his parents? You know, like, there’s this this whole string of dead children and mutilated children all over town. 

Todd:  But, you know, that’s kind of the inherent problem with doing a movie like this about kids is because, unlike adult, adults can go missing. Right? And maybe it could plausibly take a while to find them, but kids are monitored, you know, most of the time. So, yeah, it’s even more implausible, and and you’ve kind of got to address that, and they really don’t at all. 

Craig:  Yeah. Just about as implausible as a costume turning you into a clown demon, I suppose. So I guess 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Clip:  Well, you gotta go with it. It’s something too 

Craig:  much into it. For sure. 

Todd:  For sure. 

Craig:  Well, so this leads then into the final act, which was my favorite. Carlson and Meg are working together now, and, they think where would a clown go where he could be relatively unnoticed? And so, they go to Chuck E. Cheese. And, I I loved this scene. I thought this this scene I actually thought was really scary. And I love when movies can take something that is totally, you know, mundane and and nonthreatening, and even, you know, something that’s like joyous and celebratory and make it completely ominous. And she’s walking around this Chuck E. Cheese and just knowing that this clown is in there somewhere and there are so many places that he could be in the shadows or hiding.   It was really cool. And at some point, a kid falls into the ball pit and says, oh, somebody peed in here. But he gets out and you see that the back of his jeans are actually blood stained. And then you see this other kid looking for his brother in one of those big, like, play places, like those tunnel crawl throughs. And and eventually he crawls in there and we get all this whole brief scene of him crawling around in the tunnels. And it’s so scary. And eventually, eventually he does find the clown who has his brother, but he’s able to get his brother away. But then that kid ends up getting brutally killed and blood in it, like, I feel like a limb comes sliding down, the slide at which everybody sees.   And then it’s just total chaos in this place, and everybody’s trying to get their kids out. And and they do, but Meg is still in there. So then she goes into this really cool, like, black light forest, and she finds Kent, who is now almost entirely demon, and Kent can kind of talk to her a little bit, but then the demon kinda takes over. Bring me one 

Clip:  more child, and you’re gonna have your husband   back.   Perhaps I’ll find another. What’s this name? Ah, yes. The 

Craig:  cops are bursting in, and the clown takes off. And so she sneaks out, leaving Carlson there to take the wrap for these murders that have just taken place. And she goes out into the parking lot and she’s looking around and there’s all these kids. And I feel like it’s kind of in slow motion. She’s looking around and all these kids are running by and it’s like she realizes, I could nab one of these kids. And she almost does, but then the kid’s mom shows up. And so she’s just sitting in her car, and a kid comes to her and says, you work at the dentist office. You were always really nice.   I can’t I was at this birthday party, but now I can’t find anybody. Can you please take me home? And, of course, this is her perfect, opportunity. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I have to say this whole scene now, I like the fact that, stylistically, it was really cool that she ends up in this black light mini golf course in the Chuck E. Cheese that’s also done up like a forest. It’s like it’s like this demon’s back in his forest element or whatever, which was really neat. But at this point, again, the movie kinda changes a bit. Now first of all, it’s it’s really we’re not we’re not the fly anymore. You know? We haven’t been for a little while. Kind of dropped the idea of Jack’s transformation, him fighting this thing.   It’s it’s just full on demon. And so we kinda forget about the fact that this is Jack, except for the fact that she’s I guess, she thinks that if she can, you know, get this other kid, that, that he’ll be back to normal. But at the same time, this is a guy who’s just been running around eating kids, like, on his own. So why he would need to make a bargain with her to bring him one more child is a little silly. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  He can get another kid. Right. He he just burst out. He’s he’s pretty much invincible. He can just burst out into the parking lot and eat as many kids as he wants and and jump away, or he didn’t have to be so deliberate about, you know, getting the others, in the, you know, in the bouncy house. So it it just just like, you know? I was kind of at this point in the movie. I’m going, okay. Now now it’s gonna be another half an hour.   And and it really is. It’s like at that point, you’ve still got almost 20 minutes left to the movie. And I’m thinking, how much how how how far can this movie go? And, oh, by the way, I I really did like that sequence, by the way. Now, again, putting aside the fact that most Chuck E. Cheese’s are super brightly lit. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  And this would have way too much shadow, and and it was convenient when, like, suddenly, this really, really busy, area was suddenly devoid of kids so they could have the suspenseful scene. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  It was neat how they were clearly channeling like alien with them crawling through, like, ductwork, you know, and and especially that creepy moment where the girl pops in and says, don’t go up there. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that whole sequence. I thought it was good, and I thought it was really suspenseful. But you’re right. You know, at this point, why would this demon be making deals, period? Why would he be conceding to anything? Like, is he eager to get back into costume form? Like, why would he just take over this guy forever and just keep eating kids forever? You know, it doesn’t really make any sense. 

Todd:  He’s not chained to a chair. Right. 

Craig:  Yeah. But anyway, so she she takes the girl to where she’s supposed to to meet the demon or whatever, but at the last second, she chickens out. And because she chickens out, she knows that the demon’s gonna be going after Jack. So she goes back home, where Jack isn’t even supposed to be this dumbass grandpa who’s been a dumbass through the whole movie, takes the kid back home, which is so stupid. And eventually, she gets there, and the dad says, everything’s okay. The the the grandpa had found blood, and he’s like, I’m gonna help you out. You know? I don’t know what Kent did. I don’t care.   You know? You’re my daughter. I’m gonna make sure you’re not implicated in this. And then, of course, immediately, the clown rips his face off. But and he’s dead. 

Todd:  But that’s so against his character. I mean, that made no sense because the whole time through the movie, you know, which we haven’t mentioned, but he’s, like, trying to convince her the guy’s bad. You know, you kinda like he’s going crazy. You need to kinda leave him. You need to kinda get away. I hope why don’t you and Jack come and stay with me? So why he’s just not like, you need to get out of here. I told you so. Let’s call the cops.   It Todd didn’t make any sense. 

Craig:  No. It was clunky. I mean, what he says is I just wanna make sure that you’re not implicated in any of this, but Yeah. You’re right. You know, just why would you think that? Why wouldn’t you just get her out? You know, why would, why would she be implicated? You know? But it doesn’t matter. He’s dead. And so then it becomes the demon chasing the wife, Meg and Jack around the house. The he fights with Meg a lot, and there’s a lot of fighting going on.   I have to say also that all of this is really, really dark. Watch this movie in the dark. I always watch these movies during the daytime and it’s such a mistake because I can’t see, you know, what’s going on. But it’s it’s a lot of chasing around. Eventually, he gets her, like, pinned up against a wall. And apparently either he remembers because she told him or he can sense that she’s pregnant and he starts, like, push his pushing his hand up against her abdomen. And, like, I feel like one of the his claws, like, even penetrates her skin a little bit. But then he gets distracted by Jack, and so he chases Jack around for a while and he gets gets Jack cornered, like, in a closet, but he he can’t get in there entirely.   And then somehow, Meg gets a Craig. Well, she she slashes him with a knife at some point, and she slashes his throat. So there’s, like, this gash in his throat. Somehow as he’s trying to get Jack in the closet, she’s able to get a chain around his neck, and, she kinda pulls him back so he’s chained there. And at that point, I feel like she’s going to kill him, but, he reverts back to Kent’s voice and says, help me. And, so she turns to Jack, and she’s like, go get that book. Maybe we can still help daddy. And the kid says, That’s not Todd.   Which which I thought was good. And so then the demon, like, you know, jumps up and charges at them, but is still chained around his neck. And she takes the sledgehammer and just knocks his head off. Like the chain slices through that gash that’s already, in his neck and he’s laying there with his head hanging off. I knew that he wasn’t going to be dead yet because there’s a little tiny bit still attached, like like it was kinda hanging there by his skull. And of course you get that, you know, moment where Jack and and Meg are like embracing one another and then the demon jumps up again and she has to grab his head and rip it all the way off and then she drops the head and the demon starts to melt away and and again, you see Kent’s face underneath. So I guess and then that’s pretty much it. Then you see scenes of the costume getting packed up into evidence bags and that’s the last shot.   You just see, you know, the costume in these evidence bags, which, you know, implies that, Oh no, you know, somebody else could put back on or or whatever. I I tried to kinda speed through the ending there because there were there were things that I wanted to talk about thematically. But how did you feel about the, the end? 

Todd:  Yeah. You know, I guess the nice thing about it was, the movie doesn’t really pull any punches. It is brutal and bloody throughout, if you’re into that, and, it is not the low budget affair. There’s a lot of gore. There’s a the special effects are really Todd, the the parts that you can see anyway. Like you said, it’s it’s pretty dark for a lot of that. Yeah. I mean, at the at at some point, you know, I was thinking, where’s this how can this movie possibly end well for anybody? And it really doesn’t.   Right. I guess I like that too. I like that aspect. I mean, it’s not like Jack got saved at the last minute. He’s gone. And again, you know, when that sort of thing happens in The Fly, it feels really tragic and sad. And here too, I was thinking, yeah, This guy didn’t deserve any of this. Like, he absolutely was just a total victim to this.   And, it didn’t really pull all of the heartstrings it probably could have with them, you know, sort of knowingly just killing their own father because he he’s not exist like he said, like the kids said, that’s not dad. He’s not there anymore, and we never got that kind of emotional closure from the family. I don’t know. How much could you really throw in there? How much is really absolutely necessary? But it it does basically cut that off at the legs, you know, that whole notion that this is kind of a fly story, this tragic thing. It starts out that way, and then it just kinda fizzles out, just becomes, he’s possessed by a demon he’s gotta go Todd. Again, uneven maybe is the best way to put it. It’s like the movie really didn’t know what kind of movie it wanted to be, and so it’s hard to emotionally respond to that. You know what I mean? 

Craig:  Yeah. I I kinda feel the same way. You know, I’m kinda hot and cold with it. I kinda like the concept. It was interesting. Interestingly enough, another movie came out in 2012 called Scary or Die, and it was a anthology film. And there was like 5 shorts. And one of them was about a guy, who was played by Corbin Bleu, who was at a birthday party for his little brother or sister, and this scary clown stumbled in and started, you know, causing havoc and bit him.   And then he, like, turns into a zombie clown. Like, he starts turning into a clown, and he wants to eat kids and stuff too. Really kind of shockingly similar, but they were filmed the same year. So, even though even though clown came out, you know, a couple of years later, surprisingly similar, and it reminded me of that a lot. Critically, this movie, it, you know, it’s kinda like you and I. You know, we we don’t really know where to go with it. The the reviews were mixed. It got some really, really positive reviews, and some kind of mediocre reviews and some negative ones.   One of the more interesting reviews that I saw, and it was interesting to me because I hadn’t thought of it at all, but this, critic viewed the movie as a metaphor for a man struggling with pedophilia or or an impulse towards pedophilia. And and trying to deal with that and deal with having an outlet for that and and not wanting it to affect his own family or or his own child. And I hadn’t thought of that at all, and I really, really, really doubt that that’s what they were going for. Yeah. But but it kinda shed a new light on it for me, you know, instead of it being a literal demon, you know, a guy, just this normal, seemingly normal guy struggling with with inner demons and predatory instincts. And I I don’t know. I just found that kind of fascinating. Again, I doubt that was their intent at all, but for me, it made me think about the movie more. 

Todd:  Well, you’re that is interesting. Although, you’re absolutely right. There’s no evidence for it, really. I mean, we’ve we see so little of the guy in the beginning, and we get no sense of any of this before he starts. Again, Todd be a metaphor, it doesn’t you don’t have to. You know, you don’t have to get it, I guess, at the beginning. But, yeah, it’s a little too b movie at times. It’s a little too goofy to be that smart. 

Craig:  To be taken so seriously. Right. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Sure. Sure. Yeah. I I mean, it wasn’t a bad film at all. I I can see why probably people didn’t respond to it too well, just like you and I. You kinda walk away from it and go, you know, I he was entertaining at parts. You know, there were there were parts where, you know, the bloodlust kinda kicks in, and you’re like, yeah. Wow.   That was really sweet, or, man, I can’t believe they went there. You know, that scene at the at the Chuck E. Cheese is quite good. But as a whole, as just a whole movie, I seriously, I was kinda looking I was kind of checking the time the whole way through because I just maybe there wasn’t enough foreshadowing, maybe it wasn’t formulaic enough, or maybe it was following I don’t think it I think it was following too many different formulas. Maybe that there were so many times when I thought, okay. It’s going here, and it’s gonna end soon. You know? And it didn’t. 

Craig:  Yeah. And it and it could have. You know? Like, it just seemed like it was such a linear plot. Like, you could have cut out a third or more of it, and you wouldn’t have lost anything except some gore. Sure. There there, you know, there was a there was a progression of his going from Kent to this demon full on, but it was kind of drawn out longer than it needed to be. They were going for a feature length film but it’s an hour 40. I think they could have shaved off a good 20 minutes and, maybe it would have been a little bit more tight.   But I’m not complaining too much. It was entertaining. It was a little long, but I wasn’t bored. And that 3rd act for me, with the Chuck E. Cheese stuff, that kind of was worth the price of admission for me because I really, really liked that scene. 

Todd:  Again, it had kind of the stamp of Eli Roth on a little bit. You could see that these guys were obviously inspired by him, you know, it had some of the comedy in there but maybe not enough, it had it was trying to go for scary but it never quite reached it for me, You know I really like the idea of that being a metaphor for pedophilia, I really do. As much as I hate the idea that it seems like people who are clowns or who are magicians or are children’s entertainers in general nowadays kinda get suspected of that, You know? Yeah. As a guy who enjoys doing that kind of thing and likes kids and and and stuff, I have to admit, like, I people are overly sensitive towards, overly suspicious, I should say, of people who just like to hang out and be nice to kids, you know, and do things for them that, it it becomes you just kinda walk a dangerous walk all of a sudden. And so, you know, it would bother me if that were the intent of the movie, but I I really don’t think it was at all. At the end of the day, I’m glad we watched it. It was really interesting. I could see where it struggled to find an audience.   I’m not quite sure why it was so buried by the studio because we’ve seen much worse. It’s a mystery to me why why I’m watching this now, and I really hadn’t heard of it before. Well, thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and wherever your favorite podcasts are. You can also find us on Facebook where you could like our page. Let us know what you thought of this episode and this film. And, also, please suggest future films for us to watch.   Until that day, I’m Todd And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.