Killjoy

Okay, I've put this off long enough. For the past few days, I have been living in denial. I didn't want to accept the fact that I was jumping from a Troma film to a Full Moon film. But I am. I swear to Satan, once I have bulldozed my way through this precarious trilogy, I am committed to bowing out of z-grade territory for a little while. Don't worry; I'll eventually crawl back to no-budget cheese. I always do (now I know what it feels like to be a battered spouse...Charles Band promised me that he would change!). Killjoy has a despicable reputation. Was it the mephitic stalemate that I feared it would be?

Yeah. It was. If I'm being honest, it wasn't quite as reprehensible as I thought it would be, but it's still a mess. Because I'm such an affable guy, I'll whip out my positive comments first. Killjoy is reasonably well-produced. The photography is sharp, the acting is suitable (this was the biggest shock) and the titular clown can be creepy when he wants to be. Unfortunately, he doesn't want to be creepy. Angel Vargas plays Killjoy with the peppy exhibitionism of The Riddler and Ace Ventura. This leads to a fuckload of dismal one-liners, half of which don't even make sense. What's worse, the script never decides if Killjoy is supposed to be a villain or a sympathetic anti-hero.

The plot holes...Jesus Christ, the plot holes. Where did this clown come from? Why did it take a year for the black magic to manifest itself? Who is the homeless ghost (yes, there is a homeless ghost), and how does he know everything? I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the sequels don't answer any of these questions. Boy, I can't wait to find out. What the hell did I get myself into? Do the sequels answer that question? This jerry-built tilt-a-whirl is content to fork out the bare minimum with regards to ignoble slasher fixtures. You know what that means, don't you? Off-screen kills.

The kills that happen in front of the camera are instantly forgettable. Killjoy does deliver gratuitous nudity, so there is that. Believe me when I say that the shower scene is worth at least one Z'Dar all by itself. In the words of the wannabe gangster side characters, "That bitch is fiiiiiine!" Fore and aft (it's a nautical expression; try to keep up), this b-movie doesn't offer a whole lot. I will be a sad fucking puppy if this turns out to be the best entry in the Killjoy saga. RANDOM FACTOID: Angel Vargas portrayed Tito in The Jacksons: An American Dream.