#KilljoySoWhite…and…#KindOfGay

Want a prime example of how OCD can destroy lives? Even though I should have stopped after the franchise took a turn for the worse with the third film, I’m still buying Killjoy movies on DVD because I began way back in 2000, and I would go insane if my collection wasn’t complete. But even more psychologically damaging? With this latest installment, I’ve learned that I’ve been lied to almost from the start…

After Killjoy Goes To Hell, Killjoy escapes hell! Now he’s back on earth, and he and his campy crew have their own TV show. Meanwhile, Beelzebub has manned a spaceship to come looking for Killjoy to drag him back to hell.

Honestly, Full Moon Features just doesn’t give a fuck anymore. It spits in the face of horror, horror comedy, exploitation films, and midnight movies by taking the concept of shit cinema and deep-frying it in shit that’s been impacted in the colon of a constipated pig for three months. Killjoy’s Psycho Circus plays out like a (more) demented, (more) adult version of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. It’s mostly just an array of stupid characters in nonsensical skits that aren’t funny at all.

It’s unfortunate that they can’t seem to write any quality material, because as far as cheesy crap goes, there was some potential here. Beelzebub eventually enlists 6 psychos to hunt down Killjoy. It’s a good plot point that could have carried the film, with each psycho getting a glorified hologram introduction, but it goes nowhere.

Instead, when the conflict finally begins, after a brief laser gun battle, Killjoy’s clan and Beelzebub’s alien army have a spaceship battle to the death.

On the bright side, visually the film looks great. There’s a faux Mortal Kombat techno theme song when two chicks battle it out. And there’s some Full Moon crossover – a common incestuous practice of recent years – with the Evil Bong franchise (and yes, I still have to buy part 5 even though part 4 was a shitfest). Best of all, things get gay when two hotties – a muscle boy, and a full-bodied leather bear – try to sell Killjoy weapons. Their dirty talk and writhing is so sexy I could have listened to it for the entire movie.

But now comes the moment that may have killed the Killjoy franchise for me for good. It changes everything I thought I knew to be good and true about Killjoy, and I can’t believe I’ve been scammed since 2002 and didn’t know it.

Here’s the deal. Killjoy got his start as an urban horror icon. The first film is a supernatural slasher. A bullied kid in the ghetto uses black magic on a clown doll, and when he is shot dead by his gangster bullies, he comes back as the clown and begins to kill them off. The urban slasher theme continued in the second film, but by the third film, things began to shift. The cast of victims was predominantly white, and all Killjoy’s ridiculous sidekicks were introduced.

But little did I know, Killjoy himself had been whitewashed beginning with the second film, and the truth is revealed by a meta scene in Killjoy’s Psycho Circus. Fucking Killjoy has been played by a white man since the second film! WTF? One Trent Haaga shows his true color in this film when he appears as himself on Killjoy’s show. Yes, Killjoy (aka: white boy Trent Haaga) plays opposite white boy Trent Haaga, as they bicker about whether or not the guy playing Killjoy since the second film is better than the guy who played Killjoy in the first film.

I would be giddy about the massive in-joke if I wasn’t hit by the awful truth. I’ve been duped. One of my favorite black horror baddies has been a fricking white dude for all but one film. Fuck you, Full Moon Features. I bought a 50 fricking dollar doll of this damn character at a horror convention, and now I find out it’s nothing but a fucking Ken doll in clown makeup.