The Clown at Midnight


This poor movie suffers from some seriously bad poster designs. I apologize in advance.

Nearly 20 years ago, a famed, up and coming opera singer named Lorraine Sedgewick was supposedly stabbed to death in her dressing room by another opera star, Lorenzo Orsini. Orsini disappeared right after the event and the controversy surrounding Lorraine’s death caused the opera house to shut down not long after.

Years later Kate, Lorraine’s daughter, tags along with her best friend to that same opera house. After years of disuse the old theater has been donated to the city and their school’s drama teacher has taken up the task of cleaning the place, along with a small group of student volunteers. Kate has been having bad dreams about the place ever since she found out that she’d been adopted, and is convinced that ‘facing her demons’ will help her overcome her newfound trauma. Unfortunately for everybody though, that’s not the case, as ‘ghosts’ still haunt the old theater, and at least one of them doesn’t care to have anyone around.



The Clown at Midnight is a Canadian slasher film from 1999 that I had never heard about before. And truth be told the only real reason I watched it was because I thought this month deserved a ‘killer clown’ feature, and I got tired of re-watching IT. But it turns out that the movie was subsequently released straight to video. Which probably explains why I’ve never heard of it before. However, I was very surprised to see that it stars the likes of Christopher Plummer, Margot Kidder, Tatyana Ali, and (I assure you this was completely coincidental) James Duval. Still not sure how they managed to coax Plummer into this (maybe he needed to make a house payment or something), but I figured with some actors like that in the cast the film couldn’t be all bad. And to my immense relief, it wasn’t (*whew!*). In fact, it’s surprisingly a fairly decent slasher. It’s just not good enough to be all that memorable.



First of all, I was very surprised by how good the movie looked. This may have been a straight to video affair, but you can tell that they at least put quite a bit of effort into it, which is very much appreciated. They had decent equipment to work with, so you can always see and hear everything that’s going on. The location is GREAT! Very moody and atmospheric. Attention is given to things like lighting and framing. There are things like subtle touches in the background, and there are even some attempts at foreshadowing in the story. The point is, they thought this one out to a level you don’t always get in movies like this and, dear gods, do you love to see it.



The acting, too, is better than one might expect from (what was at the time) a VHS only release. Plummer is, sadly, only in 3 scenes. But his mere presence alone always seems to elevate a production, so it’s nice to see him regardless. And Margot Kidder is… Well, it’s Margot being her lovely self. The only chink in the chain is that some of the ‘kids’ are a bit hit-or-miss sometimes. But since this is a slasher you know you don’t have to deal with most of them for too long. And for the most part they were still pretty fine. At the very least I haven’t seen Sarah Lassez or Tatyana Ali in anything for a while, so it was nice to see their faces again.



The downside though, and probably the reason why the film has largely been forgotten, is that the movie is trope-y as hell. Like, no originality at all. If you can think of a popular slasher trope, odds are it’s in here. Run down location that the characters get trapped in? Check. Unable to contact the outside world? Check. Suspicious side characters? Check. A crazy killer who can inexplicably do things they shouldn’t be able to do? Check. Mysterious backstory that somehow ties back to the main character? Check. Mousey girl? Check. Misunderstood outcast? Check. Dimwitted jock? Check. His bitchy hoe? BIG Check. Flamboyantly gay guy? Check~. The nice, quiet girl who is clearly the main character? Check. Her sassy best friend who also doubles as the token black character? Double Check! It’s here! It’s ALL here.


Damn predictable white people.

Now, blessedly the movie does its best to tie all these things together into a semi-decent plot. So there’s that. And since at least one person (but probably more) knew what they were doing, most of the really important parts of the movie (to slasher fans, anyway), like the chase and death scenes, end up being very well done. There’s a lot of blood, some strangling, a lot of stabbing, and even one decapitation. So that’s all great. But I think it’s safe to say that most well-watched, modern day horror fans probably aren’t going to be all that surprised by too much this movie has to offer, since they’ve likely already seen most of it half-a-dozen times already in various other films.


The decapitation part was pretty great though.

So, for the most part, I think the film does a very good job. But despite their efforts there were still a few odd oversights that irked me. A lot of it was small things you can probably find in just about every horror movie. Like how the characters end up getting locked when someone chains all the doors shut from the outside. They make a big deal about not being able to get out, and they get all panicky, and yadda yadda yadda. But then at the end the survivors simply use an axe to break the chains before casually strolling out of the theater, as if it were the most logical thing to do (it was.)

Or there’s the part where they talk about trying to get someone’s attention from the outside. Which shouldn’t have been too hard, considering you can see quite a few people walking and driving around once they make their way onto the roof. But building a fire on the roof was inexplicably their first option. They do try the phones first, but of course that never works in these things. But if there were people outside and their goal was to get their attention, why didn’t one of them simply plant themselves by the front door, open it as much as they could (which was at least a couple inches), and yell for help? And then later, when one of the characters is fleeing the killer, they bang on one of the (locked, naturally) exit doors, yet seem to be completely oblivious to the fire alarm right next to said door. Oh, and how did that obviously deadly platform of spikes conveniently get placed, like, right there at the bottom of the trapped door? Did the killer do that and it backfired on him? Or was it just left there for 20+ years with the entire stage crew just ignoring the blatant safety hazard? I’m not sure, but they are definitely questions to ponder.


Honey, the fire alarm. Pull the fire alarm. It’s there. It’s right there! Honey…Hon-…Fine. Die then. Whatever.


Also, why does this place have a dungeon?

What really ends up being more puzzling though, are the more obvious plot-related issues. Especially the ones that are never resolved. Kate, for instance, is often shown having these ‘dreams’ of her mother’s death. And when she gets to the theater her ‘dreams’ become full-on, lucid visions. Why is this happening to her? No idea. It’s heavily implied that the dreams/visions didn’t start until a few months ago when she learned of her adoption. And the movie pretty much states from the start that Kate’s mother is haunting the theater. But guess what? – SPOILER! – There are no ghosts. If there were, that would actually make more sense. Because then they could have said that Lorraine was trying to warn her daughter of the danger, or trying to get her to solve her grisly murder or something so she could rest in peace. But that doesn’t happen. Kate just has random visions for some inexplicable reason. Why? Don’t know. You just have to accept and deal with it.



Another big question I had was this: Where the heck are all these kids’ parents? Because I wasn’t sure at first, but it was confirmed mid-film that all these kids were supposed to be high school students, not college students (college students would have actually made more sense). And we also learned fairly early on that they were cleaning up this place over winter break (In other news, I unintentionally found a new vaguely-related Christmas slasher. Go me!) AND we can tell from what little we see of the lighting outside that they came to the theater during the day and were subsequently trapped there until the next morning. So really I have to wonder: did nobody worry about these guys? I know not everybody’s a helicopter parent, but this was filmed around the time when the TV would still religiously ask every night at 10pm, “Do you know where your children are?” Yet you’re telling me that out of six families that had kids at this thing that not a one of them noticed they were gone, or tried to figure out where they were, or went to go check on them when they straight up just disappeared one night? In an earlier scene we saw Kate’s parents dash into her room about 3 seconds after she screamed after having a nightmare, just to make sure that she was okay. So I’m a little dubious that they, at the very least, wouldn’t have gone to the theater to check on her and her friend. Or sent the police to check on them. Or… Or something!


Forget the fact that their room seemed to be down the hall and would have had to teleport to her to reach her as fast as they did. That’s its own issue.

But even considering those annoyances, much to my surprise, The Clown at Midnight ended up being a pretty decent slasher. I don’t think it’ll ever be anyone’s favorite slasher. Or their favorite Canadian slasher. Or hell, even anyone’s favorite Canadian clown-themed slasher. But I still think it was pretty good. It looks nice, the acting is decent, the atmosphere is creepy, the location is GREAT, and it’s got some solid chase and death scenes. So really, I’m very happy with this one. It’s easily my surprise film of the month. Especially considering I half expected it to be utter trash, like most of the things I watch. I do like it when I’m wrong about such things though. The Clown at Midnight may not be a great film, but it has its moments and is very easy to watch. So if you like slashers (and don’t have a crippling phobia of clowns) feel free to give this one a try.

The Clown at Midnight is available on a variety of streaming services.

The Clown at Midnight is also available on DVD, as part of a double bill with Phantom Racer. But that version is (apparently) long out of print. It is, however, available on DVD in other non-US territories.

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