Film Review: Killjoy (2000)

Rate This Movie

SYNOPSIS:

Three youngsters encounter an evil clown.

REVIEW:
The ghetto gets a horror icon… Well, that wasn’t my “first” thought when I used to see this film glaring back from the rental shelves. Scary clowns are usually a win-win with the number of phobic clown viewers in the world. I’m guessing though that with that being said, they probably didn’t grab this one up to add to “their” collection. Still horror fans like to see scary things do bad things…of which we are introduced to a whimsical sadistic clown who calls himself Killjoy.

KillJoy, wears its influences on its sleeve with a supernatural killer clown summoned from beyond by a scorned teenager. As a character he seems to posses the kind of powers that we’d expect from “Wishmaster” or Freddy Krueger”. Though the setting is geared to a different crowd that resembles something we’d expect more from the Snoop Dog Films. A seedy town, young thugs, violence, drugs, and lower class environment…. make this a shoe-in for the gangster horror genre. Despite, those aspects what we really want to see is a new interesting character with even more interesting ideas.

The origins begin like many, a school crush and a jealous boyfriend.

Michael played by actor Jamal Grimes simply wants to take young Jada to the home coming prom. Jada being unaware of his crush warns him that he should be cautious of her boyfriend Lorenzo.

As Michael ignores her warning, Lorenzo “just” so happens to be driving by with his 2 thug buddies. The 3 of them teach Michael a lesson by attacking him and leaving him in the street. This would appear to be enough, though they also trick him into coming outside later that night, so they can scare him with an old fashion joyride. The circumstances get botched and a thought to be unloaded gun, just so happens to contain the single bullet that ends the young boys life. From this……well karma…. they say is a bitch. That karma for these ghetto residents is Killjoy.

Killjoy acts in according to vigilante style killings modeled and wrapped in a sick humor driven character vehicle. He taunts, laughs and unleashes his supernatural dreamlike executions always with a few one liners played against clever kill-offs. We also assume that Killjoy is pulling others into a spiritual realm with past victims showing up to comment to the living.

Killjoy, the character while somewhat effective as a reoccurring lesser horror icon-style entity, does in fact come across as poor man’s “Wish master”. Killjoy like past inspiring mythological figures, also serves its purposes as a focal character bent on retribution. I can’t seem to recall who I’m thinking of at the moment, but we have seen our share of movie characters who cross over from the spiritual, realm to take out the bad guys. (“Warlock” followed this trend, though his driving force was more in line with being evil himself) The Killjoy set is less than desired which is limited to an old warehouse, but I did like the idea that victims are transported into an alter realm thru Killjoy’s ice cream truck. Those who are easily scared by clowns, will find themselves fidgeting in their chairs a bit at the appearances on this formidable scary clown villain.

“Killjoy“, I wouldn’t call a great film, but I do have a soft spot for new horror franchise entries (even the low budget ones). I was upset when the character from “Brainscan” didn’t go onto more sequel follow ups (aka Trickster), so you have to hand it to the filmmakers for keeping their evil model of mischief alive for 3 films now (Killjoy had 2 sequels). This first entry came from the product of a recent Echo Bridge 3 set released containing all 3 films. This makes for a nice pack that allows you to follow the whole set. I’m looking forward to seeing how its progressed and if a potential bigger budget is pumped into future follow ups.

Kill joy (2000)