Super Happy Fun Clown

Bluesky

A sort of clown-based Falling Down, Patrick Rea’s contribution to 2025’s Frightfest follows a young woman whose many years of misery with a deadbeat husband and overbearing mother suddenly become too much, prompting her to go on the rampage and kill as many people as possible on a single night. Letting us know at the outset that she will ultimately be confronted by the police, it intercuts her violent actions in the present with flashbacks to her unhappy childhood and the disappointment of what she had hoped would be a more fulfilling adult life.

There’s a lot of ambition at work here. Jen (Jennifer Seward), who prefers to be known as Jenn-o when she’s in her clown gear, is a complex character, ably played, with easily enough going on to keep viewers interested for an hour and a half, but she’s also depressed when not in clown mode, and the weight of that depression hangs heavily over the film. Whilst there is the potential for comedy in the contrast between past and present, too often the flashbacks – despite being the more satisfying part of the film – slow down the pace at the wrong times and result in something tonally uneven. Where it needs to build momentum in the run-up to a final massacre in a haunted house event, it tips in the other direction, and the whole thing ends up feeling rather flat.

Violet Rea is sympathetic as the young Jen, dragged around by a mother (Deborah Madick) whose vicarious need for her to succeed extends beyond giving her her own name into trying to make her famous, no matter how uncomfortable the child feels. Taking refuge in a scary clown obsession which isolates her from her peers, Jen will go on to complain that she’s lonely all the time and that nobody helps her at key moments like getting her first period or wanting to know who John Wayne Gacy is. Her violent fantasies clearly start early, so that by the time she’s ready to act on them, they’re elaborate in the way many horror film fans love, just a little lacking in energy, over-rehearsed. The film delivers on grotesquerie but never really goes anywhere beyond that. Jen is, perhaps, emotionally unable to.

Seward invests heavily in her character. Despite everything Jen does, one keeps hoping for the world to give her a break. In between the cannibalism and the necrophilia, there are moments when she entertains children with simple routines and really seems to enjoy herself; but small acts of kindness, like giving a lollipop to a homeless man, always seem to be punished. The implication is that there’s not a lot of room in society for being super, happy and fun, and all that remains is for her to pour her creativity into something darker. Her muteness in clown form reflects the world’s lack of interest in her voice, but she can communicate through mime, and she knows how to make a statement.

It’s a shame that the film struggles as it does because there’s the germ of something powerful here. It’s only the second feature scripted by Eric Winkler and one wonders if he just needs a little more time to settle into it, or a tougher script editor. It has clearly succeeded in engaging with some fans, but like poor Jenn-o, it never lives up to its promise.

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