Clownhouse Review

 Song of Choice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8PcvrovE7k

There's an old adage that has held true for ages. Separate the art from the artist. The artist may be a piece of shit who's one scandal away from getting the boot, but they do still have talent and have been involved with genuinely good shows (or shows that appeal to you regardless of their quality.) But that stigma could easily be broken if the artist was involved in something horribly egregious, and/or their work could have aspects that parallel their worst sins. I can never look at American Beauty the right way again after what Kevin Spacey has done.

But it gets worse when the guilty get caught early on, then released and continue like nothing ever happened, long before the MeToo movement came along, meaning anyone caught beforehand is able to roam free.

Enter Victor Salva, I can't be confident you all know him by name, but luckily you have me to talk your ears off with some good ol' behind the scenes trivia.

Salva got his start in the late-80s with a short film, one that would soon be discovered by Francis Ford Coppola. With the aid of Coppola's son Roman, Salva would be set to directing his first feature length film... and then he got V&.

I bring up his short film because it starred one Nathan Forrest Winters, and so did Clownhouse. Salva was a family friend who would have Winters over often (in one incident, Salva would let Winters play as Mowgli and have him run around in a loin cloth.) Not going unnoticed, when Clownhouse was released, Winters would become Salva's greatest opponent, getting Salva booked on molestation charges and child pornography possession, and Salva never worked again.

Actually no he didn't, Salva got out and went on to direct more movies. Winters would protest Salva's next feature Powder, but that went on and he would then direct more, and I wouldn't be surprised if Coppola himself helped Salva get out. What I mean by that is Coppola himself would help Salva on his other better known project Jeepers Creepers and its sequel, and straight up too through his rarely seen production company. There's appreciating the art over the artist, then there's enabling a shit artist. If Coppola gets outed on a scale as grand as Harvey Weinstein, I'd go back to Twitter and celebrate.

By the way, if you look up "Francis Ford Coppola pedophile" you'd understand I'm not just running my mouth on Salva and Coppola.

And the Movie

Clownhouse was produced in 1989 and received a wide release in 1990. Along with Winters, this film featured the debut of actor Sam Rockwell. Eh no tears pal, nearly everyone gets their start in trashy horror, if it hadn't been for Campfire Stories we wouldn't have had It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Aside from contributing cameras, Francis Ford Coppola had little involvement in this film. It wasn't until Salva was tarred that he really wanted to be part of Salva's career.

That burden was thrown onto his son Roman Coppola. Most I know of him was a directing gig on a Presidents of the United States of America music video. Coppola helped finance the film through his Commercial Pictures label. Commercial would go on to produce a David Cassidy flick the same year Clownhouse got a theatrical release and would go under for nine years, resurfacing only to help produce an independent flick by Christopher Coppola, and his name is all you need to know.

For better or worse, this wasn't picked up by a major distributor. In its initial theatrical run it was released through Vision International. The most I know of them was their involvement on Dark Angel (I Come In Peace as some know it), a Dolph Lundgren venture, but some may know them as the distributor for Mac & Me.

Also, Vision's distributor was Triumph Films, and I bring them up because of their own infamous filmography. After breaking from Gaumont and after Vision went under, Triumph essentially became a label for Sony that released films they had no confidence in. Case in point, the first two Baby Geniuses movies (and yes, there was more after the second, thank you producers behind That's So Raven and Even Stevens.)

When Salva went under, this film suffered as well. Salva was arrested during post production, around the time the film was getting redubbed due to Coppola being too retarded to make cameras that didn't emit as much noise as my six year old MacBook Air. By the way, Coppola himself essentially told Winters point blank that he would never work in the film industry again. Just a reminder, Coppola himself would help Salva produce the first two Jeepers Creepers films.

Anyway, the film was cut from further screenings after the arrest and it had a brief release on VHS. Though unlike Wired, another infamous film though thankfully not for the same reason, this movie actually got released on DVD at some point, through Metro Goldwyn Meyer. However, protests from the anti-Salva crowd caused this movie to go under. At this point it seemed MGM didn't even want to renew the rights to the movie, so for years, a copy of the film had circulated on YouTube, untouched.

I watch crappy movies, but at least I can say with confidence that I never wasted money to see them.

The Movie

Clownhouse is a slasher film themed around asylum escapees who dress as clowns and torment three brothers who're left alone while their mother's visiting relatives, and the youngest has coulrophobia. It's too early to call this kind of premise cliche, but if you're a horror junkie you can't help but draw parallels. I appreciate shittier horror movies for the fact that their ineptitude keeps things interesting or their morbidity provides some twisted appeal.

The film feels like a total slog, any attempts at suspense happen late into the movie, which for the record is the high point of the film in that regard. No matter how old a film is, you can smell a set up for a kill, and for all its casualties, they all have build-ups, none of them happen by surprise. The only thing that came close to surprising me was a gag involving a noose dangler prop in front of the boys' house, and a clever indication of a family casualty.

With a premise so hollow, a line-for-line wouldn't translate well here. But what of the brothers? Casey is Winters' character, and is basically around for the sake of adding dimensions to an otherwise dire cast of meat puppets or expendables. There's the middle child Geoffrey who's actor also appeared in both Salva's debut short film, and basically disappeared afterwards (maybe Salva locked him in the basement to make him that something (Something in the Basement's the name.) and Randy's the dead meat, why else would he be such a pain in the ass right out of the gate?

Back to my point on how hard it can be to separate the art from the artist, check this. We have a pedophile director, directing a film starring his prime molestation victim, and his first scene has him in his drawers in a lingering shot. Okay, to be fair it's long pajama bottoms with no shirt, but fret not, we see Winters' bare ass a few scenes later. This isn't uncommon with most shows and movies, but given the context behind the director, as well as the fact this usually happens in cartoons, it makes it all the more creepy. At least Chris Savino, Nolan Bushnell and John Lasseter went after people their age.

A bulk of this film is mostly dedicated to establishing the boys, we don't even see the killers in action until fairly late into the film, the most we got was shots of the criminals being out and about and a corny foreshadowing bit involving a fortune teller. As for the killings, a downside to them is that they always happen to characters we care less about, meaning that the only value they have is shock value.

The casualties I can remember are three clowns from the carnival, hence leading up to the film's namesake, then there was this one guy from a scene that felt like a set-up for an encounter with the killer clowns, but when you cut it out of the film it wouldn't effect the plot. We know the psychos mean business through them killing the actual clowns, that one extra casualty felt more like a quota fulfillment deal. And Randy, but you probably guessed that since he was the resident asshole.

But on the boys, there is one interesting aspect about it that is tainted by Salva's reputation, the dynamic between Casey and Geoffrey. Without context it seems like Geoffrey and Casey have a one-sided incestual relationship, but with what you know about Salva, it's as if Salva wants to live vicariously through Geoffrey. I don't care how much you love your sibling, if it's anything like Geoffrey to Casey it's going way too far. I imagine Something in the Basement had several scenes cut depicting anal between both of them.

The movie did stick in my head after my initial viewing, but there really wasn't much going on that warrants discussion, beyond what's been warped. Sad thing is there was a lot more to talk about in Longshot and I stupidly ducked out early. I sat through this and all I got out of this was sibling bickering, set-ups for kills, one solitary good scare extending to decent foreshadowing and the end where it felt like just enough was happening, and filth plaguing what was once negligible.

Overall

It's hard to view this film without Salva's legacy ruining it. Through as little as the chemistry between the boys (and ass), we'd get the implication, then when the shit hits the fan it'd be like "Whoa, I saw that coming." Without that in mind, this seems like a surface level slasher, with the only thing going for it aside from the occasional decent scene is the lack of gratuity which is a focal point to lowgrade films in that kind of jumble.

This kind of movie doesn't even have that much of an appeal on me. I love any horror movie that has cheesy dialog and scenes that give me more to feel, as well as anything with a strong sense of morbidity. The movie was played fairly straight here, and the most morbid thing that happened was one of the brothers dying. Most I could say that I liked was the chase scene during the climax, the darkness and near narrow nature of the house and the music tied it all together, but it's a shame it occurred so late into the movie.

All this movie gave me was a desire to see a horror movie made in relation to Salva's misdeeds, it's been a while since we got a movie in relation to a pedophiliac antagonist, and you'd be a fool to normalize pedophilia.

And you can watch this movie too and tell me if you feel uncomfortable at the worst possible times.