Description (from klownkampmassacre.com):
Fifteen years ago, Edwin went to clown camp to fulfill his lifelong dream of bringing laughter to the world… but nobody laughed. Humiliated on graduation night, Edwin viciously murdered the entire camp before vanishing into legend. Now, despite the warnings of the town drunk, old man Bonzo has reopened the ranch and a new class of clowns have unwittingly signed up. When their die-hard instructor Sgt. Funnybone (Miguel Martinez, The Donor Conspiracy) is found dead in a puddle of cream pie and blood, the curriculum changes from comedy to survival! Edwin slashes, stabs, strangles, and disembowels the clowns while laughing insanely at his own bad jokes.
Major Cast:
Ross Kelly as Philbert, Ashley Bryce as Valerie, Jared Herholtz as Edwin, Isaac Kappy as Buzter Pie, Mike Miller as Bonzo, Chris K. Payne as Puff
Special Features:
Includes over 2 hours of special features, including audio commentary, behind the scenes featurette, deleted scenes, and more!
Written and Directed by Phillip Gunn and David Valdez
David Valdez – co-writer, co-director of KKM – sent me a copy of this script back in 2005 or so. I was on a trip to Europe to visit some family and friends, and had the KKM script as my reading material on the long train ride from Frankfurt to Paris. I read it from cover to cover without so much as a pee break. The script grabbed me right away, and I COULD NOT WAIT to see the final result.
Jump to late 2010, and I finally have a DVD in my hands of that script I read so long ago. The anticipation and excitement were hard to bear. My wife and I sat down to watch KKM… and it did not disappoint. Not in the least; it actually went above and beyond my expectations in a lot of ways.
For a quick little explanation of what KKM is about: imagine if Camp Crystal Lake was not a summer camp but a clown college, and instead of drowning because of inattentive counselors snogging, Jason was a clown named Edwin that could not get the laughs, to the point of destroying his sanity. That’s basically the history of KKM.
The movie picks up 15 years after Edwin’s night of terror. Old Man Bonzo has decided to ignore the warnings and re-open the clown camp to a new group of students looking to learn how to make with the laughs. No one ever pays attention to the old town drunk with his warnings in any slasher movie, and no one heeds that drunk bastard’s advice in KKM either.
The clown camp has a new set of students of multiple clowning types – the mime, the magic clown, the “insane clown killa”, etc. – all who have come together to learn from the master, Bonzo, and his staff, including drill sergeant Funnybone. I loved Buzter (the insane clown killa) in the script, and on screen he was even better than in my head so many years ago; the eventual moment that you know is coming when this hard-ass “gangsta” is finally shown to be the little wuss we knew he was is priceless.
Overall, KKM is probably exactly what you think it is. If you like slasher movies with humor, if you like boobs and blood, if you like Troma movies (but with much higher production value than 99.5% of the movies released by Troma), you will enjoy KKM. It is a throwback to the fun films 80’s, with more than a little originality added in. The acting is solid for a low-budget feature, and the aforementioned production values completely “sell” the production company built around this movie (I Can’t Believe It’s Not Hollywood! Entertainment). The kills are inventive and clown-themed (not an easy task, really), and the dialogue is hilarious. I completely enjoyed KKM, and am glad to hear that it was picked up by Troma for national distribution, so that others may also have a chance to share in the klowniness. If you just can’t wait for the Troma edition, you can get your own copy at http://www.klownkampmassacre.com/ right now.
Overall 8 / 10
KLOWN KAMP MASSACRE on the IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754022/
KLOWN KAMP MASSACRE for sale: http://www.klownkampmassacre.com/ and soon from http://www.troma.com
KLOWN KAMP MASSACRE site: http://www.klownkampmassacre.com/
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