Killjoy 3/Killjoy Goes to Hell (2010/2012)

Director: John Lechago

Screenplay: John Lechago (with Carl Washington for Killjoy 3)

Cast: Trent Haaga as Killjoy, Al Burke as Punchy, Tai Chan Ngo as Freakshow, Victoria De Mare as Batty Boop and Jessica Whitaker as Sandy

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Consider it a bonus, bozo!

When Killjoy 3 was produced by Full Moon Pictures, it was as much rebooted at the same time in 2010. The first film of eight years, it frankly ditched the existence of Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil (2002), following from the original 2000 film as a reset. Truthfully, the franchise will not be to everyone tastes, especially the first two, but this is an interesting case where the sequels, rather than spinning their wheels, actually begin to expand the simple template of before and become really idiosyncratic. The two sequels covered here, as more came after, are not perfect even for this context, but the step up is admirable and makes this a far more entertaining franchise at this point in its history, to the point they helped me come to enjoy this franchise.

Killjoy 3 is still a low budget film, shot in mainland China and disguised as an American location, set around only two locations, the home of a professor who trapped Killjoy, a homicidal demon clown, in a mirror, and inside the mirror itself. The almost sound-alike of Joan Jett's Bad Reputation, introducing the leads after a party needs to be cleared up at the professor's house, shows at the get-go the lovably homemade nature of these films, including the use of a Puppet Master film for the characters to watch. Aptly like the Puppet Master franchise and others from Full Moon, Killjoy got a posse from this point on, the head of minions trying to figure out how to escape, even if it means trying to figure out the magic mirror's manual, and finding it even has Chinese language translation. That reference also shows that, from this point on, there is clearly an emphasis on more humour from these films on, which helps a lot even if one or two jokes between the films have became un-PC by 2020. It certainly rejuvenates Trent Haaga, who took on the role of the evil demon clown from the second film, able to have more to work with now he can be funny and, by Killjoy Goes to Hell, even pathetic for comedy effect.

Killjoy 3 still has to follow a conventional premise where a young woman Sandy (Jessica Whitaker), at the professor's house, with her boyfriend and friends, have a mirror delivered at the door next morning with the trapped soul of a demonic clown. As a result of this, the tone is still being fleshed out for this new take on the franchises, the cronies Killjoy has in particular not getting as much as they do in the next film. But they stand out aesthetically: one is a hulking if dim-witted clown, a mime sadly underused in Killjoy 3, with a brother sticking out his side, and the most interesting of the trio, a succubus named Batty Boop played by Victoria De Mare.

It is not for the obvious reason, as her design, even for titillation, is inspired by nude body painting which the actress had done on herself for both films, but also because playing the foil to Killjoy, you get a shot in the arm for humour and charisma. Named after the animated character Betty Boop, it is very clear too she is inspired by Harley Quinn, not the version Margot Robbie would bring to life, but the original character created not from the Batman comic books, but originally a figure from Batman: The Animated Series (1992-9) who became so popular, she crossed into being a canon character for the franchise. Specifically it is the original voice actress Arleen Sorkin who was also the inspiration in appearance and personality, as De Mare plays her role as the exasperated girlfriend with a voice like an old Hollywood gangster movie moll which she fully commits too, becoming the best thing with Trent Haaga of these two films.

Killjoy 3 still struggles through issues of lower budget horror and genre films, the plot basic and recreating the original Killjoy premise, but this is a higher budget take so far in the series, and is able to flex its muscles a bit more if stuck having to play to a conventional story to reintroduce these characters. Instead, it is the characters themselves, and where the next film goes, where you see director-writer John Lechago is able to have fun between the movies, with a knowing humour of Killjoy as a sarcastic evil clown. Haaga is allowed to play for yucks as much as there is now gore, coming by the end of this entry with people being served for dinner and a head being crushed by a comedy mallet. That this bothers to nod back to the 2000 Killjoy is to be admired too, as it is not wanting to separate itself from the source, as a prominent character from that original film is important here, whilst with the humour that this story has works, as much stemming from Killjoy being stiffed as a demon of revenge by the person who conjured him.

There is still the problem with a lot of exposition, as much to bring viewers up to date on the previous films, which were bare bones but they may have not seen, and also an issue with genre films in general in being unneeded. However, you are seeing this franchise really attempt to expand this character. And it pays dividends with John Lechago returning as editor-screenwriter-director for Killjoy Goes to Hell, a very unconventional sequel to any horror franchise and the best of all the four that came from the first quartet of this series. A huge reason for this is the premise, making Killjoy himself the actual protagonist, an evil clown demon who is now sympathetic as an anti-hero. Now he has been resurrected in Hell by a witch and unfortunately now has Satan himself putting him on trial for being crap at his job as an evil homicidal clown. With all his demonic names stricken permanently off from existence, he will become nothing unless he can defend himself as being legitimately evil.

This continues the resolution of Killjoy 3 where, huge spoiler, Sandie was committed in an asylum. Here, connecting this to that last film, is the issue of closure, detectives still trying to figure out what happened, especially as she is now permanently in a laughter based psychosis. Even if it is slight next to the main plot, it helps adds more to the plot of what is still a horror comedy, especially as there is some logic to this like the main detective and her psychiatrist, not believing the Killjoy legend, still taking it seriously as a concept that might have influenced the scenario psychologically. Even if with obvious CGI too, this is a really idiosyncratic film in ideas, where Hell is literally a skull faced spaceship with parts of a castle and a factory built on a meteorite, cruising in outer space. The joke of the main character being on trial for incompetence really works, with one of his spurned former lovers the prosecutor, and a former human turned new demon named Skid Mark his bumbling defence attorney with interior motives. There are some jokes and dialogue which has not aged as well, trying to be edgy, but for the most part even with its profane amount of language, this was actually funny for me, over-the-top and with gags like needing a translator of a mime translating a clown speaking carny which did win me. This alongside such sights like custard pie-ing a person so hard their head is crushed to goo on the wall, and this is what I want in my lower budget horror films and horror sequels in general, an attempt at creative imagination.

It still struggles with the limits of the budget, still limited in sets and with an ending involving a demonic clown rebellion involving a group of extras tussling in a room with careful editing, but I have to admire the production. This is a work which is a lot more ambitious with being a sequel than trying to repeat the previous films, something not learnt from far more known horror franchises in general. When jokes land, they are funny, and there is even an abruptly sombre scene as, with an inspired take on Hell being a cosmos in space, Satan shows that the ninth lower circles of Hell is literally a place of nothingness. I see this as an admirable way to try to expand a sequel to any horror film into something idiosyncratic and, more importantly with the exception of the second film, actually make sitting through the others necessary and able to be more appreciated. The franchise continues after this, John Lechago returning for Killjoy's Psycho Circus (2016) with Charles Band having produced all the films beforehand or in a co-producing them. Band is not there for Bunker of Blood 07: Killjoy's Carnage Caravan (2019), with an entirely different director and screenwriter on that production. John Lechago himself, just for the fact I was not expecting Killjoy Goes to Hell to turn out as it did, has gained a respect for me as, honestly, watching the franchise beforehand, they are films I admire for the fact any film production is a challenge to complete, making me sympathetic on any level, but by his involvement in the series, I was enjoying these films regardless of their production values.

Killjoy 1 & 2: Deliverance from Evil (2000-2)

 

Director(s): Craig Ross (Killjoy) / Tammi Sutton (Killjoy 2)

Screenplay(s): Carl Washington (Killjoy) / Douglas Snaffer and ammi Sutton (Killjoy 2)

Cast(s):

Killjoy: Ángel Vargas as Killjoy The Demonic Clown; Vera Yell as Jada; Lee Marks as Jamal; D. Austin as Monique; Jamal Grimes as Michael; William L. Johnson as Lorenzo; Corey Hampton as "T-Bone"; Rani Goulant as "Baby Boy"; Napiera Groves as Kahara; Arthur Burghardt as the Homeless Man

Killjoy 2: Trent Haaga as Killjoy; Charles Austin as Nic Gordon; Logan Alexander as Lieutenant Harris Redding; Debbie Rochon as Denise Martinez; Nicole Pulliam as Cecile “Ce-Ce” Washington; Choice Skinner as Raymond “Ray-Ray” Martin; Olimpia Fernandez as Charlotte Davis; Jermaine Cheeseborough as Eddie Jasper; Tammi Sutton as Lilly; Rhonda Claerbaut as Kadja Boszo

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

The original Killjoy, the only one of the franchise I had ever seen over years, was one of many low to micro-budget horror films I picked on for that reason. A lot has changed over the years with my tastes in cinema, and Killjoy is interesting, from Full Moon Pictures and Charles Band, as a film made by a black filmmaker making a horror film set around a black cast, which should not be the immediate thing to pick up from in a review on the film aside from the fact, with mostly white directors and productions making the most well known horror films at this time into the Millennium, you get here a minority voice when even the horror genre did not feel as well representated as it probably should have always been. This story opens with a young man named Michael whom, asking a woman named Jada out, gets brutalised by her boyfriend Lorenzo and his gang. They do not suspect him to practice occult arts and try to bring forth the titular Killjoy, a homicidal clown figure. Michael neither expected to be killed by Lorenzo, who takes him to the woods to scare him, only to realise too late his gun was still loaded.

Killjoy is an odd one to try to review as, over seventy minutes, you cannot really elaborate on its premise, where the ominous creepy clown arrives a year late to bump off Lorenzo and his friends in an ice cream truck with a dimensional wormhole in the back. This is insanely economical in getting to the chase in the beginning, getting through the plot with little chaff, and concluding in a short running time. Set around Jada being under threat from this spectre, despite having long split from Lorenzo, this still has a personality, just in terms of being an early digital 2000s film, such as the vaporwave Windows 95 synth score if disarming for a horror film, or how Killjoy's opening gambit, in an ice cream truck that sells bootleg Sonic the Hedgehog headed lollies, is to drive up to Lorenzo's friends and offer them special weed. Effectively, this character is inspired by Freddy Krueger if not preying on people in dreams, able to wander in real life and taking people into the ice cream truck. Said truck sends them to a scary warehouse out of dimension where he can kill you in a variety of ways with wisecracks following. It cannot really do the elaborate effects of the Elm Street franchise, though this presents the warning to never smoke a random joint you find lodged in a chain link fence, or you will be lit up in many ways than one, and at its short length, there is no time to mood building. Thankfully you do get, in its swift length, Ángel Vargas as Killjoy, someone who brings energy to the proceedings because he decided to swing for the fences with the performance, plus a subversion of a genre trope of a no bullshit elder sage who cuts past being mocked for his supernatural warning to the leads by just providing them the truth psychically.

Sadly with Killjoy 2, a lot of this established lore goes out the window, and it feels more disappointing for me because a) this is a female filmmaker, again which should not need to be pointed out barring how at the time female filmmakers even in genre cinema were more a minority voice, and as someone who has come to admire micro-budget films, I have to respect anyone who tries to make a film. This is especially the case as a film where J. R. Bookwalter, a director of this field behind the likes of The Dead Next Door (1989), helped as a co-producer. Nonetheless, I have to admit I was not taken by this sequel, which promises a more elaborate premise, a group of criminals, petty thieves alongside a few women, including a sex worker caught for soliciting and a psychologically traumatised woman who was done for pyromania, who are taken by two police under orders to help construct a house to compensate for their crimes. You can also see a semblance of a very interesting premise as one of these criminals had cocaine planted on his by two white cops, a semblance of a political critique if there ever was one.

All minor demeanour figures, regardless, find themselves stuck in the woods with just the two cops sent to keep an eye on figures who double their number, a logic gap not of concern when the guys are goofing about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and getting condoms thinking they can seduce the female officer. Things go south when, after the car breaks down, someone is shot by a local thinking they are trespassing, by the director herself playing a hillbilly stereotype with a shotgun. In the chaos afterwards, Killjoy is summoned presuming he could heal him only to cause bloodshot, despite the warning of the voodoo priestess they wander into the home of. Killjoy is abruptly introduced after said priestess introduces him for the first time in the dialogue, and it is here that the film feels very disconnected from the original, sadly as much because Ángel Vargas is not here to reprise the role.  Whilst the new actor Trent Haaga does a good chicken impression and tries, what they established with the character in the first film is lost, and the sequel in general is a significant step down from before. Barring one scene where chattering teeth are used to gruesome effect off-screen in a wooden outhouse, there is a film here which feels too restrained to fully embrace a chaotic tone, trying to tell a story which is less interesting than if it had jettisoned it.

As her first film, thankfully Tammi Sutton would continue to direct and produce after this production, which in mind to how IMDB can be challenged for accuracy, was a film shot in only eight days¹. That does not necessarily equal a film can falter, but in this case struggles there is the sense they could not get much onscreen barring the essentials, and what they were able to create was material which did not win me over. Craig Ross Jr., the director of the first film, directed other films and television, never returning to the franchise as did Angel Vargas, never returning to the Killjoy role whilst Trent Haaga would reprise the role in sequels. There is a significant gap where the franchise was put on ice by Full Moon, taking to 2010 with Killjoy 3. This leaves this as a double bill of the early version of the character, before a reboot in many ways, from the 2010s onwards. Killjoy would come dormant for those eight years before the additional sequels would fully immerse this as part of the many franchise that Full Moon Entertainment would have under their belt; truthfully, Killjoy 2, if I still had any of the venom of my younger self, would replace the first film as one I once had on a "Worst List", but I do not even feel that way inclined anymore, only disappointed it did not appeal to me whatsoever, wishing what is here over rewatches will grow on me in spite of that initial disappointment so I can be able to appreciate it. Killjoy is an economically put together film which does not have the lurid weirdness of other micro-budget films, but I can appreciate for what it does, accomplished and tries, so I find the long time to reach it with happiness.  

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1) IMDB's trivia page for Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil.

Lurking Fear (1994)

 

Director: C. Courtney Joyner

Screenplay: C. Courtney Joyner

Based on the serialized short story by H.P. Lovecraft

Cast: Jon Finch as Bennett; Blake Adams as John Martense; Ashley Laurence as Cathryn Farrell; Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Haggis; Allison Mackie as Ms. Marlowe; Paul Mantee as Father Poole; Vincent Schiavelli as Knaggs; Joseph Leavengood as Pierce

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

He was nice to goldfish…

Two women, sisters, are locked in a building arming to protect them and the child of one from what is outside. Their concern is well heeded as there is an entity trying to get after the baby with horrible intentions…tragedy strikes when one of the women is pulled through the hole the abomination made, leading to a bloody mess.

This is the prologue; a set up to a Full Moon Production adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s serialized 1922 work of the same name. This is a very loose “adaptation” truthfully, Lovecraft’s tale of a local monster hunter obsessed with the macabre in a 1920s setting finding himself involved in a curious series of gristly massacres with monstrous results. Whilst also showing a hint of Lovecraft’s unfortunate racism, sadly to be expected alongside his very idiosyncratic use of description, it is however a macabre and compelling piece. Like the beautiful ring that is rigged with a fatal trap you can never disarm, most Lovecraft stories come with the issue that, a true one-off in talent, the man himself was as mortally flawed as you could get, which is almost ridiculous in this story’s case as it is casual racism off-the-cuff. The story itself in entirely the basic set up of a perverse family lineage that lead to troglodyte like figures who eat other humans, something timeless regardless of setting, something which has a befitting Americana morbidness to it and could be found as far forward Bone Tomahawk (2015), and is not an issue to see here if for budget reasons to set in the then-modern day.  

His tale is a different animal to Full Moon’s, which is fun but does open up how I have not really come to appreciate Full Moon truthfully. Only getting into their back catalogue long after my adolescence, their films are not opaque or complicated, not necessarily even weird, competent and frankly distancing for me in how they play their stories completely straight. This is a type of film, as I eventually came to enjoy the movie for what it is, entirely for its simple pleasures, not for reinventing the wheel. Lurking Fear is in the same scenario as the source, though this is thankfully a tale, around people trapped in one location, which brought in a few character actors too. A man imprisoned for four years, guided by Vincent Schiavelli for a brief cameo, inherits from his criminal father the other half of a map which takes him to Lefferts Corner, place of the original source material, and a cemetery where his father stashed away money in one of the graves. Criminals, led by Bennett (Jon Finch), are following behind him, but for those living in Lefferts Corner, they are a nuisance as they themselves are dealing with a band of baby eating, flesh devouring monstrosities living under the graves in caverns in the cemetery. It is here where the film is helped as, whilst basic for me, there is fun to be had with a solidly made horror tale with a crew of memorable figures.

Whilst it was only afterwards the film ended I recognized her, it was a delight to encounter Ashley Laurence again, famously the lead of Hellraiser (1987), a working actor as everyone else here who, with the figures Full Moon signed up to these films, had name recognition. Here as well you can also time stamp when the film was made as, playing the surviving sister who took the loss of the other badly, Laurence plays her character of Cathryn as a Sarah Conner. This is marking how Linda Hamilton, reprising the role of Sarah Conner for Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), a huge blockbuster at the time, was playing a character who had transformed into a hardened figure capable in context having prepared for the robot apocalypse in firearms and survival skills, a feminist figure and also one as seen here that other films were happy to evoke. Jeffrey Combs is thankfully here too, playing a doctor helping Cathryn, grizzled from having to treat the wounds of those who managed to surviving lurking fear attacks with only face disfiguring scars from their claws. Whilst a stereotype, the context makes it completely understandable why the doctor who drinks here is an alcoholic from the nightmare he has survived so far.

Add a pregnant young woman and a priest, and Lurking Fear pretty much goes from A to B as a plot. Full Moon are sticklers for telling their plots, and neither are they like horror films from even lower budgets or non-professional groups where “quirks” can accidentally slip in. Lurking Fear was entertaining, undeniably, but the moments which shone here were when there were a few eccentricities allowed to slip in. Jon Finch by himself was one of them, playing the gangster boss, an English actor whose accent stood out among the cast and whose role ended up with some additional camp to the proceedings. His is a fascinating get for the production very later into his career. The lead of Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (1971), a Hammer Horror and Shakespearian alumni who wandered into this, who plays his small role with a glorious amount of ham only Combs is getting into. Combs is eventually breaking out the communion wine and asking God forgiveness for this act, but still manages to be more straight laced than Finch, who thankfully managed to get dialogue, despite being the callous villain of the piece, that allowed him to start throwing out pithy remarks. The premise is far closer to Key Largo (1948), the famous film noir of people trapped in a single location which has likely influenced so many horror films without many realizing, than the original Lovecraft text, but there is a considerable amount to this film where it became entirely as enjoyable as it was because of the actors involved. I am not wishing to forget Allison Mackie, the mirror of Ashley Laurence on the villains’ side of the cast, someone who I swear had a prominent role in something that immediately made her recognizable to me, but sadly seems to have had a career not as prolific as it should have been considering she gives it her all here. Even Blake Adams, sadly the male lead who is cursed, as most do, with being the least interesting figure among character actors and figures like Ashley Laurence getting a lot to chew on being tough, still gets to throw in with the sarcasm and is not bulletproof from the monstrosities onscreen. As a horror film too, this gets suitably macabre when the creatures, a family mutated by inbreeding as the source text had them, are living underground among the corpses in a necropolis hellhole of caverns, with all the fake but appropriately morbid corpse and bone props the production could get their hands on.

It is not a perfect film, which could be seen as the worse discredit one could get, neither super negative or positive, but considering that I have had a cold reservation for Full Moon films I have seen, this one was fun, which in itself was entirely what the company has built itself upon, and why they have such a diehard following as the decades have passed. Certainly with its eye towards crime storytelling as well, this feels different as well from something like Subspecies (1991), and this is where one of the coolest back-story details comes into play in regards to its director-writer C. Courtney Joyner. He is a figure whose career as a regular collaborator with Full Moon Productions shows the positivity the company has, in how Charles Band its figurehead has directors and figures producing films for them over decades in various roles, but he also has this enticing second career in terms of westerns. As a writer of western texts, both actual western stories but also documents on western films, including audio commentaries on westerns like Blue Underground’s 2013 release for Grand Duel (1972). Knowing this adds a nice flourish to Lurking Fear, as whilst this is not an exact adaptation of the original Lovecraft text, he clearly added touches that are crime based but could easily, with its isolated rural location, have explicitly Western frontier vibes in the modern day. Little details like this will make me come to appreciate a film like this, and I had already really enjoyed Lurking Fear as the film it was.