Clownhouse - 1989 * * *

Let's get one thing straight - clowns terrify me. I don't care how happy and genuinely funny they are, they freak me out so much I can't be anywhere near them. There is something so sinister about a clown with a painted on smile, as though beneath the smile there is an evil personality.
Because of this I have always had reservations about watching horror movies with clowns in fearing I would be so scared I woul have to switch the set off. However last week I made the conscious decision to sit through this film, and on my own to top it off! And I managed it!
This seems like the sort of film that young boys would sneak in to see on a friday night at the cinema but it really scared me. The whole concept of the story is based on a circus with three popular clowns who quite early on get massacred by three evil ones, who then take on their personas and costumes. A group of friends spend ages trying to scare each other with scary stories of clowns and one of the boys suddenly realises that the three 'cute' clowns are in fact very bad indeed. One of the scenes towards the end really terrifies me involving the boys house, in fact that's the kind of nightmare I would frequently have when I was younger and it's obvious the film makers know this as a popular children's nightmare. I was so pleased after finishing this film and realising that I was still alive that I went straight to sleep and didn't have any nightmares about the movie at all!