Scary clowns are a common theme in horror movies. A generally decent example is the TV movie It starring Tim Curry in a wonderful performance as Pennywise the clown. True, it faltered towards the end when the clown became a killer spider creature. The Clown at Midnight is a really bad example of a scary clown movie.

A group of teen stereotypes including the Gay Guy, the Jock, and the Slut are supposed to clean up an old theater that is going to re-open. One of the teens, the Girl With Visions, has flashbacks involving her mother’s death. Turns out her mother was an actress that was murdered by an evil clown in an opera. Their teacher, Margot Kidder, who once was famous as Lois Lane in the four Superman movies, vanishes one day. Christopher Plummer is a mysterious old guy who owns the theater. A killer clown enters the scene and chaos ensues.

This movie makes The Ice Cream Man look like it deserved an Oscar. The directing is some of the worst I’ve seen. Horrible timing wrecks the poorly filmed killing scenes as does the awful acting performances. Christopher Plummer is not awful as a killer clown. The Gay Guy has surprisingly fewer lines than I expected, his most memorable being, “Oh, you guys go ahead. I’ll just wait here and polish my saber.” Probably the oddest thing in the movie is a scene where the Gay Guy fences a girl while the movie cuts between the lame fencing scene and the Jock getting it on with the Slut.

The Clown at Midnight sucks, especially considering the title. There is a clown in the movie, but it does nothing at midnight. Nothing even happens at midnight, nobody ever call him the clown at midnight.

I give the Clown at Midnight * out of ****.

It really should not be dificult to make a decent horror flick. All you need is worth-while special effects, an interesting-looking villain, and a bunch of stupid teenagers. This movie has all of those, yet still manages to suck.The killing scenes, are poorly lit, and you never really see any of the wounds until after they're made. All of the deaths were shot, as if the director was just trying to get them over with.

The movie also tried to add some plot twists to make it more interesting, but failed miserably.

* out of ****