Set over the course of one night, Gags the Clown follows several pockets of inhabitants of a city being plagued by a sinister clown. He has become both somewhat of a nuisance as well as a celebrity with the residents divided as to whether he’s a hero or villain. The figure keeps popping up all over town and his calm, silent, demeanour is a tad unsettling. With his true identity yet to be uncovered, some members of the community spend their days and nights trying to track Gags down and unmask him.
Gags the Clown joins a handful of groups searching for Gags, each having their own, very different reasons for locating him. First we have a trio of teenagers on the prowl for Gags, whilst at the same time trying to have their own fun by having one of their own pose as the clown. Then there’s the police officers hoping to get him off the streets, the news anchor tasked with reporting all the sightings, and finally, an ex-military podcaster who decides to take his city back and declares war / death on the elusive clown.
Told via a combination of phone cameras, dash cams, body cams, and good old-fashioned TV cameras, Gags the Clown offers a rather unique take on the found footage technique. Typically, found footage films just follow one or two groups, but here we get four separate groups, the footage cutting back and forth between them, driving the narrative forwards. Director Adam Krause also doesn’t fully present the film as being found-footage, it instead simply begins to feel like that as the story progresses. You slowly realise that everything you’ve watched is being filmed by one of the characters, which in some ways makes it much more insidious.
Unfortunately, it’s one of the only dynamic elements of the film, the one other exception being Lauren Ashley Carter’s news anchor, Heather. Carter channels her inner Gale Weathers beautifully, and as the film unfolds, it quickly becomes clear that the film might be more engaging if it would just hone in on her character. Outside of Heather, the rest of the characters are rather dull and unformed. Thinking back, it’s difficult to recall anyone else’s name and instead you find yourself referring to them as ‘female police officer’, ‘teenage male’, or ‘angry old dude’ etc.
Based on, or rather inspired by, the real-life instances of people roaming the streets dressed as clowns, the film attempts to delve into the zeitgeist and offer a supernatural spin on the phenomena. This manoeuvre happens a little too late in the story however, and with Gags appearing fairly sporadically up to then, the main bulk of the film is just people walking around having discussions about it. This doesn’t make for the most compelling of watches, in the wake of It, people want their scary clown movies to actually feature the scary clown.
There’s some interesting ideas within Gags the Clown, but unfortunately they are not handled in the correct manner.
Gags the Clown is available on DVD and Digital HD from 9th November 2020.
Gags the Clown
Summary
A watchable, but unengaging film that passes the time without being fully satisfying.
