Its rare that a series gets BETTER as time goes on, but with ‘Killjoy’s Psycho Circus’ the [currently] final part of the reboot ‘Killjoy’ trilogy, I feel things have ended on a definite high. Barring ‘Killjoy’s Carnage Caraven’ which reads more like a clip show than a fully fleshed out movie (and it has no ties to these 3 films at all) If things were to end here, i’d be pretty okay with it.

The plot picks up a short time after the events of ‘Killjoy Goes to Hell’ and Killjoy is basically now a demented murderous and goofy host of some kind of cable/web series thingie and he’s hating almost every minute of it. His necks on the line for sponsorship deals, the sponsors themselves arnt happy with how he’s hocking their wares (featuring a nice little cameo from the ‘Evil Bong’ series) and his posse have all but becomes dispondent since Batty Boop left because Killjoy was being an ass. Same old same old…

We then pick back up with Satan, who’s been demoted for fleeing from a virgin in the previous movie. As such he decides to set revenge plans on Killjoy and his group, he charters a weapon clad spaceship and head for Earth.

and…I cant really go into much more detail past that because it’ll seriously spoil the film, that and the whole plot of this thing is kind of aimless and reliant on character pieces so not only is there not much plot there, what plot there is is MASSIVELY spoiler heavy. But lets just say things take a turn for the surreal when in the middle of the 2nd act it all suddenly becomes a ‘coming of age’ story…

This is by far my favourite of the ‘Killjoy’ films, unapologetically crude, dumb and self aware about it’s own shortcomings, while I wont go as far as to say it’s ‘cerebral stupidity’ it is smarter than your average Full Moon affair in terms of the type of dark and goofy comedy its going for…and it blows 95% of the Evil Bong movies clean out of the water.

Probably my favourite thing this film does is it makes ‘Killjoy 1 and 2’ into movies that were made by this universes ‘Killjoy’ as adaptations of what he’s capable of doing, where Killjoy himself has made his cinematic version much more dark, gory and badass. Which is exactly the kind of thing that this universes Killjoy would do.

That and I have to applaud the very minor snipe that this movie does to ‘Evil Bong 420’ where they have an elongated discussion about getting Killjoy to hock full moon merch on his livestream, before he launches into a tirade about how it’s not his job to sell merch and how noone would be interested in this crap. Its a little bit ‘having your cake and eating it too’ given both ‘Bong’ and this are produced by Band…but hey, if your gonna do a snowjob, work every angle I guess.

In terms of the script, its pacy, builds on the last two films nicely, brings in some unexpected themes that help build a sense of complexity, the tone is perfect for this thing in terms of it going for the ‘lazy man’/’homer simpson’/’Beavis and Butthead’ style of self aware easygoing comedy which does dealve into lowbrow at times, but I dont think it ever quite crosses the line into fully crude humour.

The dialogues probably this films strongest element, with some decent one liners that help keep things quotable, It could have easily have been 10-15 minutes shorter with nothing too valuable lost, but even so this one didnt grate on me, I didnt feel the need to clockwatch and I was pretty much on board with its style from the get go.

The direction and cine is probably some of the strongest for the franchise yet, with the CG in particular getting a big boost over previous entries. compositions look very filmic, the lighting and colour usage in this one is a little weaker than ‘KGtH’ everythings kind of just, broadly lit, theres a few more creative scenes, but the bulk of the movie is just kind of generically lit…and while Killjoys show does utilise colour quite well, its largely reds, browns and blues present here…Which, while they handle that styalisation well, isnt quite as creatively motivated as the last entry.

Compositions are kind of flatter too than last time, but when they do go into a bit more of an experimental push, it’s a very enjoyable experience and sequences are cut together with near perfect comedic timing. While It has to be said the the production values are a little lower on this one than the last entry, they’ve really tried to polish this one up to make it as engaging as possible, and in that sense I think they’ve succeeded.

The cast all give fantastic performances, easily the best of the series so far, with Trent Haaga and Victoria Demare easily giving my favourite turn as Batty Boop and Killjoy out of the whole series. they’re now full self aware childish dumby dumb dumbs, they get to work a fantastic range, theyre the most animated of any of the entries so far and they push the boundary of cringe SO impressively far without ever actually falling into it. I was very impressed and entertained honestly.

It was a little dissapointing though that the rest of the supporting cast, while prominent, dont really get to do much. with Al Burke and Tai Chan Ngo relegated to ‘one liners’ and occasional fight sequences. some of the best moments in the previous entries were where the gang all teamed up and took turns in causing chaos, and barring one big fight at the end of the 2nd act, that doesnt really happen much at all here.

Oh! and the soundtracks fine. if I didnt know any better, I’d swear they just pinched the best tracks from Killjoy 3 and 4 and slapped them on this thing to cut a few corners…it does the job.

All in all? this ones recommended! I had a lot of fun with this, I cant believe I put off watching the rest of the ‘Killjoy’ films for so long after being dissapointed with the first one. This really was a great time, and If you have seen the first ‘Killjoy’ and didnt gel with it, i’d say skip 2 and jump into 3 up to this one. the 3rd filme explains the whole backstory anyway, so you dont have to worrry about missing plot. Go watch this, its a hoot!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/killjoys-psycho-circus/