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Review
by
Doug Red
Film:5
:
DVD:7
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| May
15th 1991 is a day that will live in infamy to clowns everywhere,
for that is the day that Edwin the tragically unfunny clown snapped
and unleashed his own killing jokes. Dubbed the "Massacre at Bonzo
Ranch", Edwin slaughtered every other face-painted participant
in a variety of ways, even going so far as filming part of the
carnage Blair Witch Project style.
As with Camp Crystal Lake to Haddonfield though, memories of the
carnage fade over time and the Bonzo Ranch Klown Kamp finally
reopens to give hope, inspiration, and humor to a new round of
recruits eager to fall out of the sad clown car of their lives
and into the center ring. The little detail left out of the recruitment
videos is that Edwin the kill-crazed clown is still on the loose,
and he's none-too happy about the eminent reopening. Will anybody
survive the fatal clowning? |
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Klown Kamp Massacre is built on this
farfetched premise, but it wisely decides to go big with the outlandish
concept rather than simply go home. KKM
happens in a world where clowns are a mainstream subculture (or
possibly the dominate culture), so much so that few people are
not clowns. All the television shows that characters watch are
clown variations of the kinds of things that appear on normal
TV such as reality programs, the news, even clown dramas. This
alternate clown universe already creates an odd atmosphere for
the film since the people attending the Klown Kamp are actually
already clowns for the most part. The new class are all types
you would recognize, such as the Dumb Clown (Lenny, as in Of
Mice and Men), the Sad Clown (Valerie, whose clown father
abused her in clowny ways as a child), the Balloon Clown (Philbert,
the main clown who is supposed to be solid-gold honest but who
has a slimy side), the Dirty Clown (Squirts, who compulsively
jokingly pretends to masturbates around people or actually masturbates
on people), the Magic Clown (Puff, who has the ability to appear
and disappear) and even an Insane Clown Posse-style Gangsta Rapping
Clown (Buster Pie, who tries to be hard like Tupac but comes off
more like a wannabe). The faculty are also clown types, from Bonzo
being an outright Bozo-esque former TV clown gone to seed, to
a rodeo clown with an attitude, a drill sergeant clown straight
out of Full Metal Clown Jacket, and a monkey-suited mime clown
(who also doubles as a kung fu master). For the pleasure of viewing
audiences everywhere, there are also clown groupies, hot chicks
who like to do the nasty with the nearest pasty-faced joker with
big shoes and a big horn which leads to a fun scene of debauchery
that warms the heart of the audience but is another bitter blow
to poor Valerie the sad clown. |
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All this detail doesn't quite describe what is so strange about
Kamp Klown Massacre. For 95% of the
running time of the film, KKM maintains
a tone between being a genuine and gory homage to the great horrors
of the '70s & '80s (Friday
the 13th, Halloween,
April Fool's Day, and even Carrie)
while maintaining clownish humor and comedy, sometimes even at
the point of death and beyond (one great gag involves a clown
whose head is destroyed by acid fired unsuspectingly from a seltzer
bottle but who is still somehow alive enough for some of the young
clowns to think that if they can get him to a hospital he can
recover and live a useful life... even though all that is left
is his neck stump and part of a lower jaw). The unusual tonal
tightrope the film takes helps maintain interest in the low-budget
but lovingly made film. Not everything works throughout, but for
every dull spot there are three more inventive and unusual filmic
moments worth seeing. Klown Kamp Massacre
however does take a tumble out of the center ring due to a late
development in the plot during the last five minutes which is
likely to make a portion of the audience feel let down, this reviewer
being one of them. The filmmakers even discuss this polarizing
event in their audio commentary as being a possible problem, and
while I can appreciate what they hoped to achieve, it is
a letdown finish to what had up until then been an unusual visual
and tonal orgy of unusual proportions. Still, with all the gore,
gratuitous nudity, and wacked out humor, Klown
Kamp Massacre does keep the pies with knives embedded or
lit dynamite flying in the air for two of the three ring circus
of death. (NOTE: Keep watching after the credits for a fun extra
that helps to make sense of an otherwise non-sequitur in the film
involving a football-helmeted killer.) |
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| Troma's
anamorphic 1.78:1/Dolby Digital Stereo release looks and sounds
quite decent given the film's super-low budget indie pedigree,
and naturally comes full of the "Tromatic" extras that
the company is known for. |
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Aside
from the light and fun audio commentary with filmmakers Philip
Gunn, David Valdez, and Darren Gunn, there is a substantial making-of
featurette that shows just how impoverished KKM's
production was. Among other revelations is the last-minute trouble
finding clown groupies willing to get naked during location filming,
showing that perhaps clown lust isn't a universal constant across
every community in America. Deleted scenes include Bonzo Ranch
Tour (showing some of the new clowns touring the facilities),
Dorm Room Introductions (where we find out some character
pieces for Philbert, Buster Pie, and the newbie clown Gerald),
More Death Curse (involving additional scenes with a Friday
the 13th-ish town drunk with a bike who tries to warn anybody
he comes across about the multiple death curses in the area),
and an extended character demise (wisely cut out because of a
later scene that needed him somewhat more alive). There is also
a music video built with some of the throbbing new wave and rap
songs from the soundtrack set to still behind the scene footage
(Isaac Kappy's "Klown Kamp" song is an infectious synth
rocker, with the actor also rapping and portraying Buster Pie
in the film). Seven different Clowning Specials are also
included, showcasing various behind the scenes hijinks, including
a rather shocking Pink Flamingos
bit involving a producer who licks a cow's rectal thermometer
that may (or may not) still have a little chocolate sauce on it.
Of interest to completists are two early short films by the filmmakers.
The longer of the two is Edwin (a school project shot on
video in the early '90s), which is where they got the idea of
a tragically unfunny clown from. The other film promises a "Boob-A-Minute
Guarantee", almost seeming like an extra for a different
Troma film altogether, in that KKM
does not feature a boob a minute (maybe more like a boob every
15 minutes, with occasional multiple boobage). Aside from the
original trailer for the film there are a number of Troma trailers
(Mr. Bricks, Father's
Day, Poultrygeist, and Toxic
Avenger) as well as Lloyd Kauffman's Make Your Own Damn
Green Screen extra. Lloyd also appears in a Troma-style comedy
sequence before the main menu, shilling the film and Troma as
only Lloyd can. 2/03/12 |
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