Mr. Jingles

For some reason, there are just tons of people who are afraid of clowns. Personally, I don’t get it, are they afraid of those tiny cars too? Clowns are just weirdoes in makeup, and while, I’m usually afraid of the weirdoes myself; just because they’re in makeup doesn’t make them any more or less strange! Well, fear of clowns is so common that it’s become nearly it’s own sub-genre in horror. I just finished watching a clown movie with a slight twist, Mr. Jingles.

Mr. Jingles

Mr. Jingles is a local horror movie (shot here in the Bad Movie Guy’s stomping grounds, in the suburbs of Detroit), so, maybe the horror felt a little less to me, because I recognized a few of the locations that were in the movie. That said, here’s the story: Seven years ago, the clown, Mr. Jingles, killed Angie’s whole family. Angie, being the only survivor is now being released from the psychiatric hospital that seeing her family killed by the clown drove her into. Now that she’s home, people are starting to die again, and since the local urban legend of Mr. Jingles is still around, rumors of his reappearance start to circulate! So, when a group of Angie’s friends throw her a coming home party, all hell is certainly going to break loose!

Mr. Jingles is certainly low budget, but that doesn’t really take away from it and, while I had a little trouble distancing myself from the familiar locations, it’s certainly an original take on the ‘horror clown’ genre! If you have a fear of clowns or know someone who does, Mr. Jingles is probably going to be far scarier to you than it was to me. Now, does that mean I don’t recommend it, not at all, Mr. Jingles is a great movie, the acting is great and the story is pretty strong, although a bit derivative at times. I’m giving Mr. Jingles 3 out of 4 cigars,

and it lost one cigar because there were times when I could actually tell what was coming, but the ending still held one quick surprise! So, until next time, when I’ll do the whole review in clown makeup, remember that the best movies are bad movies!