Clowns, man. They creep people out. They have ever since John Wayne Gacy and Pennywise, perhaps even long before the both of them. They’ve long been a mainstay of the horror genre and today’s current landscape is no different. Over the past year, coulrophobia has been infecting the air of the nation, from “creepy clown sightings” to multiple seasons of “American Horror Story” to the latest iteration of Stephen King’s It tearing up the box office. Enter Gags.
What is Gags? I’ll let the film’s synopsis tackle that question…
It’s been eight days since the clown first showed up in Green Bay, WI. Now, over the course of one night, four different groups of people cross paths with the clown everyone calls “Gags” and his true intentions are finally revealed.
That’s pretty spot on, although it doesn’t illustrate the film’s true focus: fear.
Fear elicits all kinds of reactions in people. Some love being scared. Some love scaring others. Some are so enamored with the act of fear that they seek explanations for it. Some are so consumed by their fear that it destroys them. That synopsis mentions multiple groups of people crossing paths with Gags the Clown throughout the film. What it doesn’t say is that these different groups fit into some of the categories I mentioned very well.
Some hate it when politics are brought into cinematic discussion, but I don’t see how they can be left out. Art is inherently political, be it intentionally or not, and films are absolutely art. Yes, even horror movies. Whenever our socio-political environment dives deep into turmoil, horror films always arise to comment on it.
Gags is a film very much interested in the ways we deal with our fears, both as individuals and as a society. Sure, it does it by preying on the collective fear of clowns and it might stumble a bit at times, but even in this test screening form, it was an effective piece of filmmaking.
It’s not often that I can get into found footage horror films these days. They’ve flooded the market so heavily that at times I feel like I might actually drown in them. Given the glut, it takes a lot for a particular film to set itself apart from the heard. Gags does so by going for a polished look, focusing on an ensemble cast, and spicing things up with cutaways to newscasts and video blogs. The result is a film with more of a docudrama feel to it and it works. It doesn’t sound like this one will be arriving before a wide audience until 2018, but if it sounds up your alley, seek it out when it does. It’s not perfect, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Gags is an original horror film. It is directed by Adam Krause, from a screenplay by Adam Krause and John Pata. The film is produced by Robert Patrick Stern, John Pata, and Sarah Sharp. It stars Eric Heuvelman as ‘Gags’, Lauren Ashley Carter as ‘Helen Duprey’, Tracy Perez as ‘Chrissy Renard’, Aaron Christensen as ‘Charles Wright, Evan Gamble as ‘Jake Gruber’, Wyatt Kuether as ‘Dale Russell’, Jake Martin as ‘Wayne Barlament’, Michael Gideon Sherry as ‘Tyler Zepnick’, Halley Sharp as ‘Sara Renard’, Steve Herson as ‘Ralph Jungwirth’, Zarai Perez as ‘Rebecca Chambers’, Fiona Domenica as ‘Ashley’, and Squall Charlson as ‘Chris’.
