Review by Ben Bussey
If there’s one complaint that holds up above all else when it comes to 21st century horror, it’s surely the lack of any truly great new iconic bad guys. We can pretty much measure the best decades for horror by the great monsters they gave us, from Dracula and Frankenstein (both the Lugosi/Karloff and Lee/Cushing models), through to Leatherface, Michael, Jason, Freddy, Pinhead and… well, who have we had since? Candyman, perhaps; one great film, two sequels no one gives a shit about. Ghostface? I don’t think so – it was a different person behind the mask every time, so it just doesn’t have that same resonance. Jigsaw? I dunno, something never quite sat right about him; his lack of direct involvement in the carnage mostly, and the fact that his puppet was a more memorable image than the man himself. Victor Crowley, Jacob Goodnight? Pale imitations of their predecessors. The Dentist, Doctor Giggles, Wishmaster, The Creeper? Now you’re just taking the piss…
Well, back in 2000, it seems that our old pal Charles Band may have noticed that gap in the market, and sought to fill it with Killjoy, a wisecracking demon in the shape of an evil clown. Of course, being Charles Band he also set out to realise this vision on the tightest budget possible with a largely inexperienced cast and crew. The results, unsurprisingly, were pretty crude and bog standard, and yet there was just enough of a good idea in there to spawn three sequels which… well… are also pretty crude and bog standard. Oh, sod it though; this isn’t the latest lavish heartfelt epic of the macabre from Guillermo del Toro, it’s a cheap-as-chips shot on video slasher quartet from Full Moon. Go in with your expectations in check, and there’s no reason not to have a good time.
Having said all that, things do get off to a surprisingly dark and grounded start, as the first Killjoy kicks off in the mean streets of South Central LA, following a teenage outcast named Michael (Jamal Grimes, in his sole acting credit), who is besotted with local girl Jada (Vera Yell). Unfortunately, her boyfriend is a local gangster – and, as you might expect, a bit on the possessive side. But when he and his musclebound homies beat the shit out of Michael one time too many, the nerdy boy does what they all do on these occasions – performs a black magic ritual to summon a demon of vengeance in the form of an evil clown doll. Yeah…
Killjoy is a bit of a curiosity in many respects. It’s one of the comparatively few films of its kind to feature an almost-exclusively African-American cast, and in its own way it does attempt to seriously address the issues plaguing young working class black people in urban America, even making a point of not painting the wannabe gangsters as two-dimensional villains. However, as a result of all this the title character doesn’t actually show up until around the halfway point – and subsequent to his arrival, pretty much all that social commentary goes out of the window in favour of some cut-price Freddy Krueger-isms (we’re talking the Freddy’s Dead model here). And when I say cut-price, I mean cut-price: IMDb list its estimated budget as $150,000, but if that’s true then I’d say this film warrants serious investigation from the IRS as that money sure as shit doesn’t show up on the screen. Even by 2000 standards, the DV photography looks like crap, and the special effects and make-up are for the most part amateurish in the extreme.
But again – so long as you can get past all that, there’s no reason not to have some fun with Killjoy. Ángel Vargas is enjoyably OTT in the title role, and there’s a fun central device in an ice cream truck serving as a portal to another dimension. Surprisingly, it’s also the only film of the series to really deliver the T&A, one obliging actress covering all the bases with both a gratuitous sex scene and a gratuitous shower scene.
2002 follow-up Killjoy 2: Deliverance From Evil makes further tentative attempts to explore social issues, whilst taking the killer clown into more of a backwoods/hillbilly horror set-up. Two guards from a juvenile prison (one of them being DTV scream queen Debbie Rochon, the film’s only white lead) take a bunch of young offenders out into a remote country location where they will serve their community service fixing up a derelict property. Alas, this being a horror movie the bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, giving them no option but to head out looking for help; but when one of their number finds themselves shot in the gut by a po’ white trash trailer dweller, the group are forced to seek shelter with another nearby resident who just so happens to be a voodoo priestess, and knows a thing or two about the demon of vengeance called Killjoy.
Phew. As you can perhaps tell from that rather convoluted synopsis, this one takes a while to get going, again not introducing (or even making reference to) the title character until around the halfway mark – and once he does arrive, his entrance feels very shoehorned indeed. It does rather leave one with the suspicion that this might have been one of those pre-existing scripts that was refashioned as a sequel. All things considered it’s easily the worst of the four films, but it passes the time comfortably enough, and the bulk of the cast turn in surprisingly decent performances – including Trent Haaga, who takes over in the title role. (And get this minority fans – while the first Killjoy was directed by a black man, Craig Ross Jr, the sequel was directed by a woman, Tammi Sutton. Major representation points!)
Things take a significant creative leap forward with 2010’s Killjoy 3. Trent Haaga returns – in considerably better make-up – as Killjoy, whilst John Lechago (a white man, sorry) takes over as writer and director; and though this one rather sidesteps the African-American focus of the first two films, a concerted effort is made to broaden the universe of the killer clown. Key to this is the introduction of three new demonic partners in crime for our anti-hero: the mumbling, sad-faced, giant-fisted Punchy the Clown (Al Burke); the sinister mime with a conjoined fetus brother, Freakshow (Tai Chan Ngo); and, most inspired of all, a Tiffany to Killjoy’s Chucky in Batty Boop (Victoria DeMare). With her overly affected vocal mannerisms very much in the style of her almost-namesake, and a rather eye-catching body paint job, she’s a character which, I suspect, will leave viewers either loving or hating her. I’m going to leave you to guess for yourself which side of the fence I’m on there…
This aside, Killjoy 3 is fairly standard low budget horror. Digital photography and cut price CGI have come on a bit in the intervening years, so it looks a hell of a lot better than the first two films, but otherwise it does have the usual problem of a largely inexperienced cast trying to do their best with generic college kid good guy roles. Still, the dimension-hopping of the first film comes back to the forefront, this time with an antique mirror providing the portal to Killjoy’s hell dimension. While it’s still pretty tame in the gore and nudity department, this one does up the ante a little with a couple of enjoyably cartoonish kills, and whilst none of our young leads are fully exposed they do spend a fair bit of time with their impressively gym-toned torsos on display.
Finally, 2012’s Killjoy Goes To Hell is pretty much the only direct sequel of the whole series, and the first one to venture in a genuinely unexpected direction – with Killjoy on trial in Hell, on the charge of not being evil enough, following his defeat in Killjoy 3 (oh, come on now, that’s hardly a spoiler). The bulk of the team behind the previous film returns including writer-director Lechago and all Killjoy’s killer carnie cronies, with the barely-dressed Aqueela Zoll as the devilishly long-legged prosecutor, and Stephen F Cardwell as the presiding Judge – Beelzebub himself. By contrast with the first two films, the title character is unequivocally the lead now, and while he’s hardly armed with the wittiest dialogue ever written, Haaga does a fine job keeping us invested in the foul-mouthed anti-hero; and as this time around the action is mostly confined to Hell itself, things get a fair bit more outlandish, building toward an endearingly crude battle between Satan’s soldiers and Killjoy’s demonic clown brethren.
Naturally, the ending leaves things wide open for a fifth Killjoy movie – and I have to say, I’d be more than happy to see one. Sure, the character is unlikely to ever be counted among the genre legends we mentioned earlier, but as far as bargain basement direct-to-DVD horror goes, I’d take more of this over another found footage/torture porn/kids in a cabin movie any day of the week. If you like your slashers simple and have a thing about creepy clowns (or hot chicks in clown make-up, for that matter…), then you could do a lot worse than to give these movies a whirl.
The Killjoy Collection is available exclusively at HMV from 13th October, via 88 Films.