Introduction: Not Just a Bad Movie, But a Rotten One
There are plenty of bad horror movies from the late ’80s. Some have monsters made out of rubber, others have plots stitched together with duct tape and desperation. Clownhouse manages the rare feat of being both a lousy film and morally bankrupt, thanks to its director Victor Salva—who, during production, was arrested and later convicted for sexually abusing his 12-year-old lead actor, Nathan Forrest Winters. This is not some murky Hollywood rumor. This is a matter of record, one that should hang over Clownhouse like a funeral shroud.
So let’s be clear: Clownhouse isn’t just a film that’s aged badly. It was toxic from birth. The celluloid itself seems to reek, and no amount of cult nostalgia can wash the stink away. With that said, let’s treat the movie as it deserves—with a review as merciless as the clowns that stalk its characters.
The Premise: Coulrophobia, Meet Cash Grab
The plot is simple enough to fit on the back of a circus ticket. Casey, a boy with a pathological fear of clowns, goes to the circus with his brothers Geoffrey and Randy. There, he meets a fortune teller who tells him he’s doomed—a convenient way for the script to cheat at foreshadowing. Meanwhile, three escaped lunatics murder actual circus clowns and wear their costumes. Instead of joining Cirque du Soleil, they decide to terrorize Casey and his siblings back at their farmhouse.
It’s basically Halloween with greasepaint, a slasher flick that thinks clowns are inherently terrifying. And sure, clowns are creepy—John Wayne Gacy did half the work for filmmakers everywhere. But Clownhouse leans so heavily on “clowns are scary” that it forgets to actually build tension. Watching it is like being stuck at a birthday party where the clown keeps telling knock-knock jokes that end with “Boo! I’m scary!”
The Brothers: Whining, Yelling, and Not Much Else
The three brothers are supposed to carry the story, but they mostly carry your patience to an early grave.
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Casey (Nathan Forrest Winters): A bundle of nerves with coulrophobia so severe you wonder why his brothers drag him to a circus in the first place. His character arc? He’s scared of clowns. That’s it. He ends scared of clowns, too. Growth!
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Geoffrey (Brian McHugh): The middle child who’s there to say, “Calm down, Casey” about thirty times before wielding a hatchet like he’s been watching Hee Haw reruns for training.
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Randy (Sam Rockwell): Yes, that Sam Rockwell, making his film debut. He spends the runtime alternating between bullying Casey and being punished by the plot. He survives by charisma alone—Rockwell could read a tax return and make it interesting—but even he looks like he’s wondering how he wandered onto this set.
The dynamic is meant to feel like natural sibling rivalry, but it comes off like three strangers forced into a group project they all hate.
The Killers: Cheezo, Bippo, and Dippo (Not a Law Firm)
Let’s talk about the clowns themselves. They’re mental patients, which is shorthand for “generic psychos” in lazy horror. They murder three circus clowns, take their outfits, and… do nothing creative with them. You’d think homicidal clowns might use balloons, pies, or at least some slapstick kills. Nope. It’s all strangling, stabbing, and generic slasher attacks.
Cheezo, Bippo, and Dippo sound like breakfast cereal mascots gone rogue. The costumes are disturbing enough if you hate clowns already, but there’s no flair, no imaginative carnage. If you’re going to name your villains after rejected Bozo the Clown understudies, at least let them juggle chainsaws or strangle someone with a balloon animal.
The Horror: Mostly Shouting in the Dark
The “scares” rely on two things: Casey’s shrieking and the camera cutting to clowns suddenly appearing in doorways. It’s the horror equivalent of shaking your car keys at a baby. There are no inventive set pieces, no creeping dread—just a lot of running around the farmhouse while the power flickers.
Even the kills are underwhelming. Bippo dies by falling down the stairs after being smacked with a wooden plank. Dippo gets shoved out a window like an unwanted Jehovah’s Witness. Only Cheezo makes it to the end for a final showdown, which consists of him choking Casey until Geoffrey buries a hatchet in his back. If this is supposed to be the stuff of nightmares, then my nightmares are a lot more creative.
The Real Horror: Behind the Scenes
Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room—or rather, the predator behind the camera. Victor Salva was convicted for sexually abusing Nathan Forrest Winters during filming, including videotaping the assaults. He served time in prison and then, astonishingly, went on to have a Hollywood career, directing films like Powder (for Disney, no less) and the Jeepers Creepers franchise.
This isn’t trivia—it fundamentally taints Clownhouse. Watching Winters’ performance, knowing what he endured, turns every frame into exploitation. The movie becomes unwatchable, not because of the clowns, but because of the director’s crime. MGM eventually pulled the home media releases, and good riddance. This isn’t a cult classic. It’s evidence.
The Sundance Nod: An Embarrassing Footnote
Amazingly, Clownhouse premiered at Sundance in 1989 and was even nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. Let that sink in: a film that is basically Paint-by-Numbers Slasher With Clowns sat at the same festival that would later debut Reservoir Dogs and The Blair Witch Project. It’s like discovering your high school valedictorian once lost a spelling bee to someone who fainted on stage.
The Legacy: Out of Print, and That’s Fine
Due to Salva’s conviction, the movie was pulled from distribution. Copies of the DVD and VHS float around on the collectors’ market, but honestly, why would anyone want it? It’s not even entertaining as a “so bad it’s good” curiosity. It’s dull, uninspired, and forever stained by its origins. Horror fans deserve better than to romanticize garbage like this. If you want scary clowns, watch It. If you want creepy farmhouses, watch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. If you want Sam Rockwell, literally anything else.
Dark Humor Breakdown
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This is less Clownhouse and more Borehouse.
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Cheezo, Bippo, and Dippo sound like the lost Marx Brothers who were cut for being too unfunny.
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The movie tries to make you scared of clowns, but the real clown here is Victor Salva—face paint not required.
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Casey’s fear of clowns is irrational. His fear of his director was tragically justified.
Conclusion: Shut the Tent Down
Clownhouse is a case study in how not to make a horror movie. Its scares are recycled, its killers are bland, and its script feels like it was written during detention. Worse, it’s forever shackled to the crimes of its director, who turned what might have been forgettable into something unforgivable.
In the end, the only thing scary about Clownhouse is the knowledge of what happened off-screen. And that’s not horror you can laugh at or enjoy. That’s just tragedy, wrapped in greasepaint and marketed as entertainment.
