Apocalypse Clown

When a solar flare knocks out all of the technology in Ireland, a group of failed clowns travel the countryside in a clown car, looking for purpose and a last chance amidst all the chaos for them to realize their clown-dreams.

Okay, fine, I guess it’s “clown week” here after all…

Before I saw Apocalypse Clown, I was not at all familiar with it, or the people behind it. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I didn’t even know it existed. One day it just popped up in the endless scroll through the titles on one streaming platform or another, and despite my complete lack of love for clowns, I was intrigued.

Very clearly low budget, and filmed locally over the course of only two or three weeks, Apocalypse Clown was written by an Irish comedy troupe that has decided to call itself Dead Cat Bounce, because apparently comedy and/or improv troupes all over the world are the same… they are just incapable of doing a good job when it comes to picking their “quirky” names. Just cannot be trusted at all. Anyway, the film was directed by George Kane. I looked them all up and found that they had all previously worked together on a mockumentary in 2012 called Discoverdale, which is about a band touring Europe, while searching for David Coverdale, lead singer of the rock band Whitesnake, who one of the characters thinks is their father.

That sounds awesome. I’ll have to look for it.

So…

In Dublin…

Bobo, a hobo clown, despondent when faced with the reality that clowns have become obsolete as children’s entertainers, accidentally takes a shot of methadone while quitting his job as a clown at a children’s hospital, the job that he was just fired from, and passes out.

Funzo is a feral “street clown” with an ambiguous European accent, who has “gone scary” and lives and works in park, panhandling by clowning for tourists. It doesn’t go well usually. During a fight with a Living Statue dressed as the Statue of Liberty, she bites their ear off, for which the other Living Statues all swear revenge, so she is forced to flee the park.

Pepe, an avant garde clown, is taking a class at the world-renowned Jean Decoque International Clown Academy, where we learn the three universal truths all clowns must accept before they can truly be a clown.

1. God is dead.
2. Laughter is the only sane response to a meaningless existence.
3. If you’re going to do a tumble, make sure you land on the meat of your buttocks, or you will really damage your ass bone.

In the middle of a scathing critique of Pepe’s act, Jean Decoque dies.

Later, the Great Alphonso, the formerly famous tv kid’s show clown, and host of Alphonso’s Fun Club back in the 90s—which was cancelled after a celebrity death—takes the opportunity while eulogizing Jean Decoque on the morning news to very selfishly announce to the world about his big tv comeback special.

Jenny Malone isn’t a clown. She was once a big time reporter, but she fell from grace, and now she’s working for the website Viral Load, a site known for articles like “25 Juice Cleanses that won’t give you the shits — and 2 that will!!” Jenny‘s on a hot story: the impending dangers of solar flares, but Viral Load isn’t interested. Instead, they want her to cover the impending clown funeral for Jean Decoque, as that kind of topic alone will drive clicks, but also, because Jenny is known around the office as a “clown fucker” because she once fucked a clown.

That clown was Bobo. He still carries a torch.

Our heroes all converge on the funeral, which is then crashed by the still-angry Living Statues looking for Funzo. A fight breaks out, and they all end up arrested. While they’re sleeping in their cells, a massive solar flare shorts out all electronics the world over, plunging everything into darkness.

Now that the world has come to an end, the clowns realize that they need to find other people, reasoning that, because all the electronics are dead, the only form of entertainment left… is clowns. Luckily, Bobo’s clown car starts by hand-crank, so they strap the body of Jean Ducocque the roof of the car… for reasons… and take off to find their destiny.

What follows is a tour of a broken-down world, through the last hot dog stand in existence, the twisted reality of conspiracy theorists, and a raver commune deep in the forest, all with the still-angry Living Statues dogging their heels.

Unfortunately, their attempt to claim the post-apocalyptic future as the Era of Clowns goes badly, and Alphonso losses an eye during an impromptu clown show for the ravers. Obsessed with his big tv comeback, upon discovering that there is still working broadcast capabilities in existence, he kidnaps Jenny and runs off to make it all happen. Bobo still in love with Jenny, so, along with Pepe and Funzo, he takes off in hot pursuit, determined to save her. But they run out of gas and get stuck in a bog. Stranded and low on moral, they decide to give up clowning, so they burn their clothes and revert to their real names: Ken, Dean, and Janet.

It’s only when Bobo is flipping through his old childhood ”clown idea” notebook, which included a near-impossible and potentially deadly clown stunt, that the trio realize their shared clown destiny once again, and decide to stop Alphonso, to save Jenny—whose obsession with being the world’s only newscaster has blinded her to the fact that she has been duped by nonsense conspiracy theories—and also to put an end to those asshole Living Statues once and for all.

But just as the chaos threatens to engulf them all…

The electricity comes back on.

Later, as Jean Ducocque is finally buried, and society has returned to normal, Bobo takes one more shot at love with Jenny, who immediately turns him down, because she doesn’t have much, but she still has some of her dignity, leaving him, Pepe, and Funzo with no other option but to form a new clown troupe together.

Apocalypse Clown is an absurd, fun, and pretty funny, albeit somewhat uneven, good time about a bunch of clowns wandering around after the end of the world. It’s a film that mostly coasts on the chemistry of the five leads bouncing off each other, especially Funzo, played by Natalie Palamides, who is absolutely unhinged, and steals basically every scene she’s in.

Not every joke lands, sure. That’s fair. The third act is pretty predictable. It really doesn’t take much to guess how things are going to end. And despite a runtime of about 100 minutes, it does drags a little at times.

This is all true.

But in the movie’s favor, there’s isn’t an attempt here to be anything but a ridiculous story, and to drop as many jokes as possible, even if they’re as obvious as a pie to the face… especially if they’re a pie in the face. That’s all this movie is. There really isn’t a lot going on otherwise. Apocalypse Clown is just a silly good time, and that’s fine. I enjoyed it.

It’s totally worth a watch sometime.

Also, at one point, the film uses the same house that shows up the movie about the cursed folk song, All You Need Is Death. This doesn't mean anything really, just that it's a creepy house available for film shoots in Ireland, and I recognized it, so I’m telling you. That’s all... just fyi.