Killjoy

STARRING
Angel Vargas as Killjoy
Vera Yell as Jada
Lee Marks as Jamal
Jamal Grimes as Michael
Rani Goulant as Baby Boy
Napiera Groves as Kahara
Arthur Burghardt as Homeless Man
William L. Johnson as Lorenzo

THE TAP

Killjoy is without a doubt one of the worst movies ever made. It's fascinating to know that. Have you ever heard Patton Oswalt's comedy routine about writing a movie? Its fits some of my thoughts about this crappy flick. Here's a link, give it a listen.

Like Patton's rant a lot of time, money, effort and resources went into making this movie, and its ridiculously bad. It's not the premise…a supernatural killer clown is almost something you expect to see when looking for a horror movie. It’s the acting (which is bad), the script itself (which is retarded) and the special effects (which is a cheap shot, but yeah, they sucked too, even for 2000).

There's a kid named Michael. Just Michael, no one in this movie has a last name, that is lonely and picked on by his peers. You would suppose Michael and the other characters are in High School but that’s blurry. No one has parents that are seen or mentioned, so when you see the characters in their apartments and homes you can’t tell if they are college students or high school students.
Anyway, Michael has a crush on Jada but Jada is dating a drug dealing gang member named Lorenzo. When Lorenzo finds Michael talking to her he and his friends T-Bone and Baby Boy beat the snot out of him on the street, in front of Jada and her friend Monique. So, Michael does what any young man in love would do. He goes home and conducts a ritual to summon the powers of the netherworld for revenge! Of course, he does this in the most ludicrous way, he tries to bring his raggedy little clown doll, Killjoy, to life!

But Michael is no Doctor Strange, so nothing happens initially. Baby Boy beckons Michael to come outside saying he wants to be his friend now, even though he, T-Bone and Lorenzo gorilla stomped him a few hours before and Michael falls for it. He's quickly whisked away by his attackers to a secluded spot where Lorenzo threatens him with a pistol and then shoots him “by accident”. I say by accident because Lorenzo says he thought the gun was unloaded. What difference does it make, the thugs show absolutely no concern or remorse for killing the poor fool. They just jump back in their car and leave dead Michael on the ground. Probably went out for smoothies right after.

Somehow Michael’s death causes Killjoy, a demonic clown to manifest…A YEAR LATER. Killjoy drives around in the crummiest Ice Cream Truck ever made and in really, really, really, lame scenes kills Michaels attackers. Somehow entering the ice cream truck transports you to a warehouse and then Killjoy annoys you to death. But with his vengeance complete what does a killer clown from hell do? He decides to kill Monique, Jada and her new boyfriend, Jamal because they had absolutely nothing to do with Michael’s murder. Luckily a Homeless Man with magic powers warns them and then disappears. I don't mean he just is never seen again, he disappears like magic because a wizard did it or something. This Homeless Man is like Ghetto-Gandalf! The trio travel to Killjoy’s world via the back door of his Ice Cream Truck…I think. Because when they leave the warehouse they’re just back on the street and the truck is parked on the street. But when they enter it again they go to Michael’s room (???) where they must destroy the Killjoy doll because the magic Homeless Gandalf told them to. Look, it's difficult to describe what happened because it was so monumentally stupid nonsensical it kills brain cells just thinking about it.

I’m not joking, that’s what happened and it wasn’t even as interesting as the tripe I just wrote was. Nothing in this movie makes a lot of sense and that's compounded by horrible dialogue that no living person would really say and acting that is so devoid of emotion or nuance you must see it to believe it.

Killjoy was an attempt by Full Moon Pictures to tap into the Urban Market. It has an all African American cast and takes place entirely in the inner city, which, as an African American myself I find a little insulting. What I find even more insulting is that if the idea was to create a horror franchise that would appeal to the Urban / African American market THIS IS WHAT YOU CAME UP WITH?

I’ve had the DVD for years. One day before I retired from active duty I sat down with some of my soldiers to watch it ( It was during the Christmas Holidays when we were working half days, on and off….so no, your tax dollars weren’t wasted, we were just there to ‘mind the store’ while half the unit was on leave). I wanted to see what younger, hipper folks thought of it. The troops thought I was punishing them for something.

Strangely enough this movie spawned two sequels. How that happened I really don’t understand. I guess the makers of Killjoy had incriminating photographs of the studio’s staff or they were holding their loved ones hostage.

LET'S DO SOME SHOTS

1.) Michael is remarkably unbruised and non-bloody for someone who just took a super ass whoopin'.

2.) How old is Michael or any of the characters supposed to be? Are they in High School? I wasn't the most popular kid in High School myself, but it's easy to see why Michael doesn't have any friends; to wit:
• He's definitely too old to play with dolls. Why does he have a clown doll? It's not an action figure like the stuff I *ahem* have, it's a clown ragdoll.
• He sits in the dark surrounded by candles saying "Killjoy, come alive!" to his ragdoll.
• He's really stupid. When Lorenzo's flunky comes to his house he's way to easily tricked into going outside for another ass-whoopin'. Damn boy, these guys just beat you like a drum a few hours ago. Why would you fall for that?

killjoy doll — "It'ds not a doll! It's an ACTION FIGURE!"

3.) It's not actually killing Michael that makes Lorenzo and his crew truly deserving of some supernatural clown revenge, it's their really stupid dialogue (and acting). Lorenzo thought his gun was unloaded when threatening Michael, and he and his cronies get a good laugh at Michaels expense when he's pleading for his life. Then it turns out the gun was loaded and Lorenzo accidentally does shoot and kill Michael. Instead of acting like normal people this gang of three have a "I thought the gun was unloaded" conversation with all of the emotion and intensity of watching paint dry. Even if they don't seem to care that they just committed a murder, the acting and dialogue will make you want to commit one, too.
• How crummy are the cops in this place? Lorenzo, Baby Boy and T-Bone don't do anything to conceal the body, they just leave. These bozos ain't criminal masterminds. The police couldn't figure this crime out? They need to hire Lt. Joe Kenda!

4.) Killjoy lures T-Bone and Baby Boy into his Ice Cream Truck because, well, frankly, they're imbeciles. But when they enter they are somehow transported to a dingy warehouse. You would expect two guys, even thugs like these morons, to be surprised and shocked, right? Nope. They act as if walking into the back of an ice cream truck and suddenly finding yourself in an unknown building is completely normal.
• This is made worse because Baby Boy is laughing as if it's a joke. No one acts like this! The only joke is on the audience for watching this pile of goat sh*t. (and don't tell me "Well, he was high from smoking weed"...there ain't no weed that damned good)

5.) Lorenzo walks outside in the middle of the night, sees the ice cream truck and opens the back door to it...for absolutely no reason. At this point I'm guessing a six year old wrote the screenplay.

6.) If you've watched the movie up to the point where Lorenzo dies and thought well, it can't get any stupider than this, Whoa Nelly, are you in for a surprise. Again for no plot related reason, the Homeless Bum who was seen for a few moments in an alley at the start of the flick breaks into Monique's apartment. He gets her to call her friend Jada who comes over with her boyfriend Jamal. There the old bum tells them to stand in a circle and hold hands (which somehow gives them flashbacks of whats happened so far) while the bum narrates the most excrutiatingly horrible and moronic exposition known to mankind. Basically he tells them that Killjoy is going to kill them and they have to destroy his heart or the doll or get the seven burritos of power or something. It doesn't matter because this movie is so remarkably awful and idiotic you won't care. But not content to punish the audience with the simple fact that they're watching this, the makers of this seeping fester on film torture you further with really, really bad acting.
• AGAIN...how old are these characters supposed to be? Jada and Jamal were studying for a class they talked about earlier in the movie. Now they're in bed together sleeping (obviously afer having sex) when Monique calls. If they're in college it makes you wonder why Jada or Kahara would even hang around, much less date or sleep with a person like Lorenzo. If they're supposed to high school age where are their damned parents?
• Jada gets a 911 message on her PAGER from Monique. I suppose you can't help dating a movie by what technology is available when it's made. Thats not really a nit, I just thought it was funny. Not funny enough to make anything else in this movie worthwhile, so don't get your hopes up.

7.) After Monique, Jada, and Jamal enter Killjoy's Mystical, Magical, Dirty Warehouse of Doom™ via the Ice Cream Truck Jamal says...and I bullshit you not, "I have a plan. We have to split up!" . He just went full Scoody-Doo, right there. You never go FULL SCOOBY-DOO!

HANGOVER MOMENTS

♦ You want a hangover? Between the acting and the story you'll feel as if you've been on a 12 hour bender where monsters stick a funnel in your mouth and force fed you Jack Daniels by the gallon.
♦ Lorenzo's new girlfriend, Kahara, asks him "Where do you see you yourself in five years" post-coitus. This really pisses Lorenzo off, but he's a creep anyway. I'd like to know why she's asking this chump about his future plans in the first place. They're either in her apartment or his. If it's his then how is he paying for it? Is he a drug dealer? That seems likely given what we've seen in the movie, so that makes her question even dumber. He either expects to be dead, in prison or selling even more drugs in five years, sweetheart. If it's her apartment then how is SHE paying for it? Is she in High School? Again, dialogue supports the characters to be around that age even though no one has any parents in this movie. Even if you say they're in college now (it's a year after Michael's death) wouldn't she be smart enough to know what an unemployed thug like Lorenzo does for a living?
♦ Lorenzo fires somewhere around 21 bullets....from a revolver.

FAMILIAR TROPES

The only trope that I can find in this movie is that it's So Bad, it's Horrible.

THE BAR TAB

While the movie seems to promise an "urban thriller" with the smooth taste of a fine aged whiskey, it goes down like a vile brew fermented in a septic tank somewhere in the lowest level of hell. Prepare the Porcelian Goddess! Killjoy will leave a stain in it that will take military-grade cleaner and maybe fire to cleanse. If you dare to watch it, make sure you spare no expense while picking your poison at the liquor store...and buy lots of aspirin. This movie is what garbage calls garbage.

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