Clown of the Dead is a 2015 supernatural horror film directed by Awi Suryadi (Claudia/Jasmine), starring Daniel Topan (Street Society), Christoffer Nelwan (Habibie & Ainun), Aurelie Moeremans (Hunt for Me), Ratu Feslisha (Midnight Show), Tiara Westlake, and Ronny P. Tjandra (The Night Comes for Us). Three friends discover the evil spirit of a circus clown after the death of several children and must send it back to hell before more children are murdered.

If you were able to watch a knockoff of It (and not a very good one) mixed with A Nightmare on Elm Street this would be the movie. It’s about a dead clown that haunts and kills little kids after one of them discovers a music box. The story itself is an interesting premise however it’s piss poor in its pacing and execution. Despite the ever growing presence of the clown there’s really no stakes and the absolutely no interesting subplots. Yeah, we get backstory on Badut but its pretty shallow and rips off A Nightmare on Elm Street. There are things that happen with no real buildup and some with no explanation at all. Some sequences even feel random. Perhaps one of the biggest sins is the fact that there’s literally nothing going on with the characters themselves. Even the resolution sucked. And when I say sucked it really sucked. It wasn’t anti-climatic, it was just plain bad. So the pacing was slow, no engaging subplots, and a piss poor main story. (1 out of 5)

The characters are probably some of the worst characters I’ve ever seen on film. Are they important? No. Are they interesting? No. There are poorly written characters who are given nothing to do. From what I’ve seen the characters have nothing going for their lives. They don’t seemingly have jobs, well one’s writing a book, nor do they have anything interesting going on in their lives. So, the entire time you’re watching them they are pretty much sitting in the living room doing nothing. No goals, motivations, interesting quirks. There’s literally nothing interesting about the characters.

There is however, one saving grace, and that’s the character Nikki. She’s this apparent Asian version of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and she’s got more personality than all three main protagonists combined. She’s the only character that I liked and the movie would’ve been better had it focused on her. Even the clown Badut lacked any interesting qualities. I expect my movie horrors to be memorable and if they don’t deliver I’m disappointed. There’s exposition about the Badut and how he came to be but it’s hard to make a villain that doesn’t talk, doesn’t taunt interesting. We don’t know why he’s a clown. Did he like clowns? Was that his job? Was it a hobby? (2 out of 5)

The cast were okay but really nothing to run home about but it’s hard to judge due to the dubbing. The English dubbing was atrocious, just fucking awful. There’s literally no reason for a movie to have this bad of dubbing. Having said that, I didn’t mind the performances but honestly maybe it’s the director or the writing that just failed them. The cast includes Daniel Topan (Donald), Christoffer Nelwan (Farel), Aurelie Moeremans (Kayla), Ratu Felisha (Raisa), Tiara Westlake (Nikki), Marcel Chandrawinata (Rocky), and Badut (Ronny P. Tjandra). I didn’t mind Westlake’s performance and even found her to be the most standout among the cast. Tjandra’s decent as our main villain but he’s literally given nothing to do. (2 out of 5)

Some good aspects of the movie are the special effects. It’s done well enough for the low budget and even manages to effective in certain scenes. The clown makeup effects are decent but nothing standout. It does come across as creepy even before he becomes a ghost. The presentation of the movie is decent enough to have a grim atmosphere. The impoverish setting also makes for a pretty effective setup for some of the scares and dark undertone. There’s little to no gore but the death scenes are done well enough to have impact. This is probably the best aspect of the movie. (3 out of 5)

The music was decent but after the credits rolled I didn’t remember a lick of it. Yeah, for some of the scenes, the music does capture the foreboding atmosphere that the movie gradually builds to. In this I can give a thumbs up to Ricki Lionardi though unfortunately despite his long career this is the only work I’ve heard of his. Decent score overall.

But this brings me to the biggest problem of the movie. The dubbing is totally screwed. There is no reason in the world for this movie to have been English dubbed if it was this terrible. It would’ve been leagues better had they left the original dubbing and just added English subtitles. What I want to know is who greenlit this crap? There’s this little boy who’s voice came completely from left field. There’s no reason dubbing should be this bad. It’s so bad it literally distracts from the viewing experience. (1 out of 5)

I gotta know what the director was smoking when he got on set because believe me, it shows. This movie feels like a mess from beginning to end. Awi Suryadi directed this crap and I’m just disappointed. Aside from kids being killed he doesn’t take any kind of risk. He uses shallow techniques to try and scare the audience but they’re ineffective. Again, the dubbing is some of the worst dubbing I’ve every had the displeasure of listening to. But it isn’t all bad. There are a couple good scenes here-and-there but they’re not good enough to pull this movie out of the hole.

The writing’s just as bad as the direction (or lack thereof). There are scenes that stretch for far too long, subplots that are never addressed. The character Nikki is able to see Badut before any of the other characters and has visions of his origins and the deaths of the children. How this happens is never clearly explained. What’s the importance of this music box? Why didn’t Badut just outright kill Vino like he did the other children? What is the actual nature of Donald’s and Nikki’s initial tension? How was Badut brought back? Why was he possessing people? It’s like this movie tries its best to be horrifying (and in a lot of ways it is a horrifying movie) but for any potential it had it got swept under like a bug under the rug.

But it isn’t all bad. There are some decent scares. Predictable but decent. Some interesting concepts such as the children drawing pictures of the clown. Having scenes where the children commit suicide and then going back and showing that the clown got them killed. But it’s still pretty bad in nearly every aspect. (2 out of 5)

In the end, Clown of the Dead is crap from start to finish. It’s not only a bad It knockoff but a bad movie in general. In the hands of someone with actual talent this could’ve been something memorable. But unfortunately, poor writing, direction, characters, editing, story, dubbing; nearly everything just drive this movie into the grave. I will not be watching this movie ever again and it’s definitely made my worst clown movies list. Clown of the Dead gets 2 out of 5.