PREVIEWS: a Clownado Seeds a Killer Sofa

None of these three upcoming films were fully what I expected, which was a good thing in one case, and not so good in the other two. Let’s take a look.

CLOWNADO (2019)

Todd Sheets has been making horror movies since the 80s, so if you’ve seen any of his films, you know what you’re in for to an extent. For me, his films are hit and miss. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don’t.

Clownado could have been my thing, but it didn’t work out for me…beginning with the 100-minute length. A clownado just shouldn’t spin for more than 80 minutes at most!

This is one of those low budget indies in which all the actors are caricatures—it’s like watching a local theater group performance. And the film seems to be catering to the gross out gore crowd but ends up exploiting the guts and squishy stuff so much that it becomes redundant and uninspired.

As for the plot, a wife decides to get revenge on her evil clown husband with the help of a spell.

Unfortunately, the spell sucks the husband and all his clown cohorts into a tornado and they come back down as vile murderers. In the meantime, a black Elvis impersonator, a trucker, a stripper, a teenager, and two tornado chasers join forces and must put an end to the madness.

All that wackiness alone does not make for a good midnight movie. Hell, this doesn’t even utilize the “nado” enough to make this as stupid fun as a Sharknado film. Not to mention, if you’re going to ride the wave of Sharknado movies, at least throw in a scene of a shark blowing by and make some bad meta joke about it.

For me, the best part of Clownado involved a waitress and a joke about the 1970s TV show Alice. Well, that and the tits with teeth.

Clownado is available from Wild Eye Releasing.

KILLER SOFA (2019)

While Killer Sofa has gotten plenty of campy attention, what was so satisfying to me is that it isn’t an absurd, “so bad it’s bad so viewers have to pretend that makes it good to justify watching it” production (which might disappoint those looking for exactly that kind of movie).

Instead, Killer Sofa takes the unique approach of mostly taking itself seriously despite being about a killer chair that even has button eyes and a mouth. I say chair because regardless of the title, the first thing I said and continued to say repeatedly throughout the film until a character in the movie finally agreed with me was, “That’s not a couch, it’s a recliner.”

It’s a minor detail except for the fact that the movie is called Killer Sofa. I guess it just sounds better than Killer Recliner.

Anyway, the goofy moments are darkly funny because despite the fact that it’s about a killer recliner, the movie presents itself as a genuine horror film. That’s what’s so satisfying about it; it’s not stupid just for the sake of being stupid. Hell, it even passes up the ass-eating opportunity that’s presented to it.

A young woman buys a recliner from a thrift shop, brings it home, and has some sort of erotic moment while writhing in it. Pretty soon the chair is targeting anyone who gets in between her and it, including her boyfriend (who her friend thinks is gay, although it’s never revealed for certain), a guy who is stalking her, and anyone who tries to help her rid herself of the chair.

The chair moves, chases victims, kills, dumps bodies, and eventually talks, making for an oddly entertaining slasher. The only thing I didn’t much care for was the unnecessarily complicated back story as to how the chair became possessed—including flashbacks. It took away from the basic killer chair plot for me.

Meanwhile, the film gets bonus points for featuring a guy with loads of shoulder hair wearing a tank top.

Killer Sofa coming in time for Halloween month from High Octane Pictures.

SEEDS (2018)

The poster art for Seeds is quite deceiving—despite the fact that the exact image comes to life in the movie.

I guess this could be considered a psychological horror, but for me it’s not a horror movie and not something I would have watched to begin with had I known what I was in for.

The “monster” is essentially symbolic, and we only see its buggy legs a few times and eventually see the whole thing once. It haunts the mind of the protagonist, a man being tempted and/or seduced into having an incestuous relationship with his niece. Really, that is the focus of this slow drama, not the big monster.

So the question becomes, is the monster real? Is he the monster? Is she the monster? Is there more to it than that? Will we ever know when all is said and done?

From a horror lover’s standpoint, it’s really a bummer, because this could have been one cool monster movie.

Seeds is available soon from Dark Star Pictures.