
This is the original one sheet for The Clown Murders. Not exactly scary, is it? In fact, one might even say they're going for a kind of seriousness one would expect from a Deep and Meaningful Play like, I don't know, The Crucible, or something by an alcoholic Russian.
It's the graph

Oddly enough, you

To celebrate the closing of the deal, Philip is throwing a Halloween party at his country club. He orders his meek assistant, Ollie (played by funnyman John Candy in one of his first film roles), to order costumes for everyone attending. Charlie's buddies Rosie and Peter convince Charlie that they should scotch Philip's plan by kidnapping Alison from the party and hiding her so that she can't sign the paperwork to complete the sale of her family's property. I'm not entirely sure why, as I fell asleep for about 10 minutes at this point. But it's supposed to be a practical joke.
Anyway, for more reasons having everything to do with the plot, Rosie and Peter convince Ollie (who just wants to be one of the guys) to change the costume order to nothing but clown costumes. Now all the partygoers will look exactly alike. Ha ha! It's a whole herd of clowns! Scary, right?

And here is where things go terribly wrong for everyone. This is supposed to be a harmless prank, right? Only during the kidnapping Philip gets knocked out cold and you start to sense that some people have anger issues that are going to be a problem later on. Rosie, in particular, seems a little unhinged, which if you ask me might have something to do with the fact that he's called Rosie and is a full grown man. But more on that in a bit.
Having knocked Philip out, the four clowns (Charlie, Rosie, Peter, and Ollie) take Alison to an old farmhouse and deposit her in an upstairs bedroom. They leave Ollie to look after her. Then a bunch of talking happens and everyone gets mad at each other. You find out that Charlie is sad that he lost Allison, Peter is kind of a putz, and Rosie has some serious problems with women.
For reasons I again c

Realizing that this clown is not one of his friends, Charlie begins to worry. He worries even more when the clown chases him and he ends up trapped inside a chicken pen surrounded by an electrified fence. Yes, you read that correctly. And now back in the house a bunch of stuff happens that is supposed to be dramatic. Basically, Rosie is being an even bigger jackhole than he's already been, which is saying something. He's making fun of everyone--particularly Ollie, who eats a lot. I mean a LOT. He's a total fatty boombalatty.
One of the things Rosie decides is that he wants to have sex with Alison. But not in a good way. He kind of wants to make her have sex with him, if you get my drift. But Ollie protects her by baring the door and so Alison decides to have sex with him instead. No, I don't know why. But she does. And they show it. For far too long. Which is worse than any creepy clown in existence.

Rosie goes back inside, where he finds Alison standing wrapped in a towel. She drops it and tells him to come make love to her. Instead, he runs away. No, I don't know why either. I think they're implying that Rosie is gay and is going pyscho on everyone because he can't handle it, but that's kind of homophobic of them and let's hope it's not the case. Whatever the reason, he runs out of the house.
Honestly, I don't even remember who dies. I think the clown shotguns Peter, then Ollie shoots Rosie more or less accidentally (but not really, because he totally hates Rosie for teasing him so much). Alison stabs the clown in the hand. Charlie gets out of the chicken coop. The police show up and dawn comes. Everyone is sad because they realize they're unhappy. Or something like that.
Oh, the creepy clown. I almost forgot. Early on in the movie, when Charlie returns to the farm (where he used to live with Alison) to pick up some stuff he left there, we learn that the farm is being looked after by a caretaker with a Scottish accent and his semi-special son who likes to decapitate chickens. And guess what--they don't want the farm sold! So there you go. What? No, not the chicken-killing son. The father, although I suspect the son helped. (We know this because his hand is bandaged where Alison stabbed him.) Who saw that coming, eh? The film ends with the two of them walking through a field, apparently going to IHOP to have a celebratory breakfast, although it's unclear what they've accomplished.
As I said earlier, I think the filmmakers were going for Something Big. You know, the clown as the exposer of human foibles and so on. And good for them. But, well, I don't know. It was all kind of meh. Also blurry, as the DVD quality is crap even for a movie shot in 1976. Still, as one of the first movies to use the whole creepy clown trope, it's worth watching.
By the way, here are the covers of the VHS releases of the film and the 2007 DVD release. Notice anything different about them?

I thought you might.
I can give the artwork on the first VHS a pass, but the second one and the DVD are problematic. There's no graveyard in the film, no clown doll, and definitely no clown with a machete. So boo on you, Image Entertainment, for making us expect something a little more shriek-inducing than what we get. And boo on you for making us think John Candy is the star. Sure, he's got a pretty big role, but what about poor Stephen Young (Charlie), who was in Soylent Green and had parts in TV shows including CHiPs, The Bionic Woman, Hawaii Five-O, Magnum P.I., and Hart to Hart? Or Lawrence Dane (Philip), who appeared in a ton of stuff including Scanners, Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last, Amy Fisher: My Story, and Queer as Folk? Don't John Bayliss (Peter) and Gary Reineke (Rosie) deserve top billing too? After all, they were in episodes of Goosebumps and The Adventures of Sinbad respectively.
But I suppose you do what you have to do to move units.
Favorite Line: "There's more to life than just building apartment buildings."
Rating (out of 5)
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