CIRCUS OF THE DEAD

Circus of the Dead Movie Review

A group of clowns from a travelling circus kidnap a family, forcing the father, Donald (Parrish Randall), to make some tough choices in order to save his daughters. Along the way, the painted psychopaths go on a killing spree, and the blood pours in buckets. This movie was shot in 2014, released in 2017, and is the product of Billy Pon. Nicknamed "Bloody Bill", Pon is a veteran in the haunted house industry, and Circus of the Dead is his feature length debut. If you are automatically assuming a guy with extensive experience working on haunted houses would know how to bring some rad visuals to the screen...well, you're right. There is a lot to like about how this movie looks, and at times, you sense you are walking through a really good Halloween attraction. 

Now would be a good time to turn around

The clowns are a mixed bag--Bill Oberst Jr. shines as Papa Corn, the leader of the outfit. Oberst brings a very unsettling presence to the character--I've always believed the quiet, meticulous villain to be scarier than the loud, screaming type, and as a calm killer, Papa Corn is as creepy as any character you'll come across--unfortunately, this is shattered when, for some reason, the character becomes more the loud, obnoxious clown you would expect, and a character that just screams iconic becomes throwaway. As for the rest of our clowns, we have a giant who laughs incessantly, a dwarf who barks or yelps instead of talking, and one who smoke cigarettes the entire time--none are developed beyond this. Randall is a horrendous actor, making it hard to get behind his character, or even care what happens to him...or his family, for that matter.

2000 called, Donnie Boy

There's not much bordering on suspense here--the laughing and yelping kill any hope of it building up. The violence is amped up to extreme levels--if I didn't know any better, I would think Bloody Bill was making a political statement, or even delving into the media coverage of violence as a theme, ala Natural Born Killers, by using it to such excess...I suspect Pon's nickname would lead us to believe otherwise, and that nothing more than a gorefest was intended. There's nothing wrong with this amount of violence in a film, of course, but when the shock factor is used to this extent, every move after becomes predictable, and that certainly hinders this film, all the way to the ending we see coming for at least an hour. As disappointing is the very dark, almost grindhouse feel of the film in the beginning being traded in for horror and even action film cliché shots, such as the entire gang walking in slow motion, the camera mounted on the hood of the car and looking in, and the sped up shots to enhance the madness unfolding. Circus of the Dead is a movie filled with potential, and one with a fantastic start--once it gives in to the tried and true, the potential dies, and we are left with a fairly forgettable film. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5

Circus of the Dead Movie Trailer