Clownhouse (1989)

Director: Victor Salva

Writer: Victor Salva

Composers: Michael Becker, Thomas Richardson

Starring: Nathan Forrest Winters, Brian McHugh, Sam Rockwell, Michael Jerome West, Byron Weible, David C. Reinecker, Timothy Enos, Frank Diamanti, Karl-Heinz Teuber, Viletta Skillman, Gloria Belsky

More info: IMDb

Tagline: ...A circus of the mind.

Plot: Just before Halloween, three young brothers alone in a big house are menaced by three escaped mental patients who have murdered some traveling circus clowns and taken their identities.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

A friend of mine picked this up at a flea market for a dollar.  We watched it and then he sold it on ebay for over a hundred bucks.  Why?  Is it because it's Sam Rockwell's film debut or maybe it's so good that folks can't get enough of it?  Nope.  Apparently it's because the director molested the kid during the film's production and MGM discontinued the DVD.  I don't know exactly how the two are related but there it is.  Is it a good movie?  I don't think so.  Knowing what I know now the opening ten minutes makes more sense as there are a lot of shots of the kids in their underwear and the camera lingers on them.  That's creepy.  The sound effects (car screeches, people falling, etc) sound like they're from cartoons which makes the film feel cheap and the synth score doesn't help in that department either.  I can overlook certain things, especially when they are due to budgetary restraints, but a poor synthesizer score is awfully hard for me to put up with.  Hey, at least my friend made over a hundred bucks off this movie.