Sometimes watching horror is remarkably like witnessing a high speed train wreck. You can see it coming from a mile away, the sirens in your head are blaring, and you’re desperately hitting imaginary brakes, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it. That’s the feeling I had in one particular scene in Super Happy Fun Clown (no spoilers, but it involves a spoon). I simply sat there with my mouth agape for a stupidly long time because I couldn’t believe they actually went there.
Directed by Patrick Rea, Super Happy Fun Clown is a carnivalesque exploration of revenge, rage and the search for infamy. It is full of moments that you may see coming but which are no easier to digest because of it.
Perpetual outsider Jen (Jennifer Seward) has been abused all of her life, by her mother who scapegoated her and favoured her sister, by her jealous classmates, and by her disgraced-now-unemployable loser of a husband. As a child, her only happy places were in her love of clowns and a healthy, growing interest in serial killers and classic film monsters.
Jen rises above it all. An anonymous office worker by day, she balances the mundane by moonlighting as children’s mime artist Jenn-O the Clown, a wholesome persona that is a tribute to the one shining beacon of her childhood.
But no matter how clever her disguises, she cannot make the most important people in her life see her. Asking herself what would John Wayne Gacy do?, Jen decides to turn that frown upside down.
What starts off slowly, almost reasonably, ramps up in the weeks leading up to Halloween as Jen prepares for one night of mayhem that will elevate her amongst those she most reveres.
"The idea of acquiring power through consumption, even if it means taking it from those you love"
Super Happy Fun Clown is a wild ride with fantastic performances from both Jennifer Seward (adult Jen) and Violet Rea (young Jen). Seward is magnetic and utterly convincing as the lovely, friendly, miming clown.
The clown that steps over the line
As a horror film, this one is not so much about the scares and more about the gore; it is gratuitous and disturbing in the most violent of ways.The soundtrack was very well chosen too, elevating the mayhem of the film and underlining Jen’s descent into chaos.
It is wish fulfilment at its darkest and the message here is clear: if you’re going to snap, you may as well ensure the world never forgets it. But it is also what will make Super Happy Fun Clown controversial. This film opens up a whole lot of questions, especially around why we love Jen so much. With her little smiley faces and cute-as-a-button makeup, she is almost impossible to hate.
It is also impossible to ignore that this film is heavily influenced by Joker (alongside countless other pop culture references), and the undertones inevitably brought to mind the 2012 Aurora massacre.In that tragedy, the perpetrator was quite rightly reviled and universally despised. It is a disturbing contradiction, and one that Super Happy Fun Clown leans into unapologetically.
For sending me down an unexpectedly self-reflective rabbit-hole of why I enjoyed this gratuitous and violent film so much, I give Super Happy Fun Clown an excellent four out of five stars. It is clearly my kind of horror and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Patrick Rea, Jennifer Seward and Violet Rea.
★★★★☆
Super Happy Fun Clown enjoyed its international premier at London’s Frightfest on Sunday 24 August
