Ten years after ‘Killjoy 2’ yawned its way into video stores, Charles Band steps up to produce whats best described as the opening part of a ‘soft reboot’ for the franchise. Carl Washington returns on writing duties, but otherwise; this is a pretty clean break from the first two entries. Recentering ‘Killjoy’ as a much more charismatic and comedy driven figure and moving the franchise from ‘a generic slasher with a supernatural clown killer’ to something resembling a mash up of ‘Hellraiser’, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and elements of ‘Batman: The Animated Series’
The film doesnt really acknowledge the first two films, theres a VERY fleeting passing mention to the first film, but the 2nd one is pretty much ignored. As we establish that ‘Killjoy’ is a demon who once again can be summond via blood ritual to take vengence on behalf of someone who’s been wronged. Though; rather than doing it through possession this time, he’s his own agent, and he’s not alone.
Using his…demon…clown powers? Killjoy summons 3 henchmen to help him on his task. But this cut short when he tries to bite off more than he can chew.
Some time passes and a group of college students looking after a teachers house recieve a gift in the mail, a mysterious mirror. Without thinking they unwrap it and put it up, unleashing Killjoy once more to seek his vengence and collect the souls of the living in order to escape his strange clown world.
And honestly? after 2 very stale and awkward entries, its nice to see this series land on something that feels tonally right for it. Its not an original idea, but it picks up this new tone and energy and runs with it for all its worth, producing EASILY the best ‘Killjoy’ movie i’ve seen up to this point.
The characters are all somewhat dimwitted comedy knuckleheads, the deaths are played as grimley reimagined comedic pratfalls, but most importantly. While the script is basically 75% haunted house movie married up to 25% black comedy. It feels like theres been some heart put into this thing. Like; an ACTUAL attempt to just try and make an entertaining and engaging film.
Its not perfect; I have a love hate relationship with ‘Killjoys’ henchmen, particularly ‘Batty Boop’ who I cant decide if her overly cutesy performance is endearing or insufferable. Killjoy himself is a much more well rounded and well written character here than in previous entries, but I do feel we lose a bit of his pathos in this one. I quite liked the idea that he was ultimately a character brought forth of tragedy. The idea that he was aware he existed solely for destruction and was somewhat conflicted about that…NOT HERE though, here he’s playing Mark hamills ‘Joker’…Which is a bit of a departure…but hey, they trade tears for ‘yuk yuks’ Im not gonna complain.
The stories kind of basic, but the script keeps a good pacem it clocks in at 70ish minutes sans titles and credits, I didnt get bored watching it, and most importantly of all! The ending wasnt awful and I was GENUINELY curious to see what the next entry had in store! So thats gotta count for something!
The cine and direction once again get a massive boost! Mercifully; Full Moons streaming service actually has this one in full HD, Widescreen and running at its intended frame rate, but we have an ultra colourful, if not slightly grungy offering from John Lechago which isnt anything *too* crazy, unfortunatley…But to me? it trounces the absolutely washed out, uninteresting and muted schemes that ‘Killjoy 1 and 2’ worked with. This feels a LOT more animate, the cast are given much more carte blanche to work with props and to fully utilise the set space.
The cine is decently composed, theirs a feint heir of that generic ‘full moon’ look about this one in places, but for the most part it feels lively, engaging and pretty fresh. I just kind of wish the script had more to offer than the 2-3 set location offerings we ulitmately ended up with.
The edit is nice and tight, it runs maybe a little bit longer than i’d have like, but I appreciate they were on the border of ‘feature’ runtime with the edit they had…So I cant go too hard on them…But I feel it absolutely could have been 5-10 minutes shorter.
Theres a decent utilisation of colour, with greens, reds, oranges, blues and yellows getting splattered all over the place to great effect. The lighting has had a big boost quality wise too with lots of nice moody atmospheric pieces. Im not gonna lie, this thing still looks quite cheap, but compared to the first 2 movies? its a different ballgame alltogether.
I also have to compliment ‘Killjoys’ redesign in this one, his makeup and new contacts are really well done, While im still not entirely sold on the hair design, its the best so far and his outfit feels very fitting.
The cast are kind of on the generic side, but our demons in this shine through helping to save the picture from being a bit on the dull side. Of note Trent Haaga as ‘Killjoy’ is superb and really brings a less complex, but more consistent tone to the character. His physicality is genuinely impressive.
As mentioned the jury is still out on Victoria DeMare as Batty Boop, but im leaning more towards liking the character than disliking her. Shes very animate, has a stong ‘Harley Quinn’ energy and really cranks up the nutty as and when required. I could see how she could be irritating to some. But I had a bit of a soft spot for her truthfully. And not to forget Al Burke as ‘Punchy’ who probably scored the biggest laugh from me across the runtime and had a few fun moments too.
This really seems like a turning point for the franchise, though quite what it’s turning into, I cant say for sure. The next film will probably clarify, and at this point it could go either way in terms of getting better or much….MUCH worse. For now though, this is the best ‘Killjoy’ movie in my opinon! Not…that that’s saying much…
TYTD Reviews 