"Clown" (2014)

Watched "Clown" (2014). It was only recently that I learned that this film began as a faux-trailer that caught the attention of Eli Roth (no doubt because he is listed as it's director), who liked what he saw and agreed to produce a feature film version of it to give a couple of young filmmakers their big break. That explains a lot. The film (like the faux-trailer) is about a suburbanite father who dons a discarded clown suit he finds for his son's birthday party, but soon discovers that not only will it not come off, but that he is slowly morphing into some kind of demonic clown. Think of it as Cronenberg's "The Fly" meets "It", with a pinch of "The Santa Clause". It's an absurd premise for sure and you would think the filmmakers would play it all up as camp (which at first it seemed to be headed that way, with the main character bleeding rainbow colored blood for example), but for some strange reason the film turns quite serious in the second half. You start to get a strong sense that the filmmaking duo didn't know what else to do with it beyond what they had already done in their trailer, as much of the film seems padded out. There's even one change in the film's plot in the latter half that sends it in a whole other direction, quickly skids to a halt with no resolution, then resumes where the film was going as if it never happened. I would say just watch the faux trailer and save yourself the time. 4 out of 10 for me.