BUY FROM AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
MSRP
$19.95
RATED Not Rated
STUDIO Seminal Films
RUNNING TIME 72 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES
• Slide Show

The Pitch

In the wilds of texas, grown men gather to hunt the rarest game of all: clowns.

Once plentiful and common now one must pay a hefty sum to hunt clowns, and for some it’s become an annual tradition. However this season the appearance of Albino Willie, a rare albino clown poses a special prize and danger.

The Humans

Barry Tubb (Writer/Director/Actor), Brendan Wayne, Savannah Welch, Matthew Posey, David Keith

The Nutshell

Everything you expect from a movie about clown hunting, except far more insane.

This has nothing to do with the review, I just though you’d want to see what’s going on at the Gathering of the Juggalos.

The Lowdown

So it’s clown hunting season. The hunters have assembled at base camp and are preparing for the festivities to come. The landowner (David Keith) stops by to tell the hunters about this year’s crop of clowns.

Earl (Paul Timek) bribes Keith with a 2-foot long vibrating double-ended dildo for the location of the last known sighting of the legendary “Albino Willie.” Meanwhile Fred (Joey Williams) and Clete (Brendan Wayne) mud wrestle in their underwear for the privilege of having the CB handle “Clown 1.” Earl informs everyone that Senator Fuchs will be arriving shortly but that the only way he would be able to come is if he brought his daughter (Savannah Welch), on break from school in Europe.

The hunters spy on the clown camp where the clowns are stomping baby chickens and launching kittens into the air on trampolines and the night before the big hunt Robert (Matthew Posey) goes to take a shit in the woods and is accosted by Albino Willie. He has his shovel and his gun taken and then is brutally raped by the clown.

Then things get weird.

A sane reaction to most of this movie.

Yes as bizarre as the opening of the movie was, shit really goes off the deep end in act 2. A clown threesome happens, there’s a licorice tree, two men opt to have sex with a dead mime, Santa Claus shows up, a desk receptionist on roller skates chases after a man in a bunny suit whilst firing a large handgun.

There were certain expectations I had of this movie going in that were not even close to met. I expected a goofy Mr. Show sketch stretched to movie length that would probably wear thin toward the end of the running time. What I got was something that was far far crazier than anything I ever could have dreamed up. I think this is crazier than something David Lynch could have ever dreamed up. Though it is more devoid of midgets.

Of course, easily the most surprising part of this movie is how competently made it is. Director/Writer/Guy Who Plays “Gene” Barry Tubb has been in the film industry for years and he apparently knows how to run this kind of thing.

While “Clown Hunt” always looks cheap, it never looks poorly done. Squibs clearly weren’t a high priority, nor were blanks, but there’s so many little touches that give the movie so much charm.

At one point one of the hunters gets arrested for shooting a sad clown out of season offering the excuse “he was smiling when I shot him” to try and get himself out of trouble. There’s a completely non-sequitor section where two of the hunters stumble onto a newspaper office amongst a herd of sheep, they then corner the movie reviewer who asks “Did I give something a bad review?” To which one hunter replies “Not yet.” before opening fire. I also kind of appreciate how the first characterization we’re given of the hunters is through their bumper stickers.

Good luck getting to sleep now.

The acting of most of the male cast members is better than it has really any right to be. Matthew Posey just gives some of the funniest line deliveries. His character is obviously meant to be the drunken oaf of the bunch (a very arbitrary designation as they’re all drunken oafs) but he manages to elevate it somehow with ridiculous facial expressions and body language.

Paul Timek’s Earl is mostly memorable for having the more off-the-wall one-liners and moments. Things like “I’d rather jack off and eat it than drink my own piss” or “I feel like something that fell out of a bum’s ass in a train wreck.” Though I may be giving him too much credit because he’s pretty much the non-union Mexican equivalent of Hector Elizondo.

David Keith has a small part but nails the role of a rich Texan shit-kicker perfectly. He has all the ticks and motions down perfectly, his line delivery is so naturalistic and organic that he doesn’t even appear to be acting. Why the hell aren’t more people hiring David Keith?

There is no appropriate context for this.

Of course, all the things that are great about this movie are really just in spite of how goofy and terrible my preconceived notions were coming in. Had I actually expected anything out of this I easily could have been disappointed. It’s still a very low budget movie about hunting clowns and while it’s good for what it is, it’s still not a great movie.

I enjoyed the shit out of this but I think its mass appeal is extremely limited and I couldn’t in good conscience recommend it to anybody unless I knew they were into this kind of thing.

The Package

The audio quality is great here, all actors can be heard clearly (a good quality since the DVD has no subtitles to speak of.) Video quality is average but never bad, in line with any other direct-to-DVD horror movies that have come out recently. The box promises that the movie is 90 minutes long but that’s a dirty fucking lie; it comes out to a mere hour and twelve minutes. And if you’re looking for special features look elsewhere because all this has got is a short slide-show of production photos.

Rating:
★★★☆☆

Out of a Possible 5 Stars