User Reviews

Let me say first, I rarely have had the overwhelming desire to shut off a movie without first 1) giving it the benefit of the doubt 2) watching it long enough to make an informed opinion on the work. With regard to this film; Within 25 minutes, I was completely disinterested in continuing.

I kept looking for any glimmer of hope; some redeeming quality about it, that would bring it to at least the level of "watchable".

Firstly, the special effects & cinematography: Although I did enjoy the simple, creepy, properly-stylized, well-scored opening credits, the rest was very disappointing. I understand it was to be an "80's feel" - but I feel like they literally used 80's technology, 80's specials effects, 80's everything; and for that reason and others, it failed miserably. I am a "child of the 80's" and this movie most certainly did NOT make me feel all "warm and nostalgic".

The bigger problem came when the actors & actresses opened their mouths. At that point, the two biggest (most fatal) flaws of the film were exposed; the bad acting, and the bad script. Tim Curry, you are better than this man! I don't even know why he joined this project (slim pickings elsewhere?) I don't like calling people out by name, but Erin Hayes..She was just terrible in this film. I won't ramble on with flowery adjectives, but we all know poor acting when we see it; it's just awkward and uncomfortable. Yes, it's a given that the script was as, if not more terrible than the acting. And yes, I think most would agree that GOOD actors/actresses with a BAD script, can still pull off a GOOD movie despite bad writing. This is not the case. Although Mr. Ashley Lloyd's performance is better (and easily eclipses) than Ms. Hayes' performance, the fact remains the same; the acting stinks.

The script! AUGH! Someone once told me; people swear out of ignorance, because they have nothing better or more intelligent to say. This seems to be a perfect fit for this film. It would seem that the writers ran out of ideas and substituted those ideas with copious, pointless, annoying, and ultimately distracting amounts of profanity. The rest of the script is like a rapid-fire succession of bad one-liner dialog (ie: "through here!" and "What was that?" and "I'm scared!"). This was so unpleasant to watch.

One can only hope that it was all a matter of budgeting problems or some similar issue. I did not see a stated budget, or a ticket office gross, so one can only guess.

As I myself never rely solely on other people's opinions and prefer to form my own - take it with a grain of salt. But then, if every reviewer says essentially the same thing - you have to wonder.

This movie tries to recreate a nostalgic 80s horror look about a trio of teenagers battling monsters in an abandoned amusement park. As a result the movie looks as if it was made in the 1980s using bad animatronic effects. The result is truly awful. Not because the movie looks bad (although it does), but because it has a terrible story and even worse acting by all involved. The protagonists are unknowns who just can't act, although given the material it is not surprising that it is difficult for them. Although it has Tim Curry, Lance Henriksen and Sean Young amongst others doing the voices of the monsters, this adds nothing to the film as their involvement is minimal and the dialogue itself is badly written. The voice actors probably agreed to do this knowing that at least their faces won't be on screen.

The story itself is clichéd beyond all belief. There is the nerd who is in love with a hot girl who is dating a bad tempered jock. All of them stereotypes. The jock forces the nerd to go into an abandoned and supposedly haunted amusement park. The jock's friends who sound Hungarian cheer this dumbness on. The girl pitying the nerd goes in after him, and then the jock does the same. Then they are pursued by weird monsters such as Gingerclown, Wormface etc. The jock gets what he deserves and the other two survive. And that's pretty much it. There is plenty of profanity, and the characters make decisions which make no sense. There is nothing positive to say about this movie. It's badly written, badly acted with bad dialogue and implausible events. Best avoided at all costs.

As harsh as that sounds Gingerclown really is that terrible, if not quite so much as to be down there with the worst films ever made. To be honest there wasn't much to expect considering how pretty bad the trailer looked, but when the likes of Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen and Tim Curry are involved you couldn't help but want to see it for curiosity. As bad though the movie is there was effort put into it, but when the movie tries too hard in paying homage to 80s horror it doesn't look that way, instead of it actually trying too hard it looks like small glimpses of effort in a sea of inept schlock.

The sets do give off some atmosphere and look very like what you would find for an 80s creature feature or horror, hardly house basement quality here. Unfortunately what effort went into the sets did not show in the rest of the production values. The lighting was far too dark a lot of the time(most of the time when the creatures appear you can't even tell which is which and have to rely on the voice to work out), even for an 80s-set horror film at night-time, and the photography and editing managed to look cheaper than the worst-looking 80s horror(it never did give off a nostalgic vibe, all it was was cheap), but it were the special effects and puppetry that were especially bad. The creatures look little more than Halloween costume decorations, exude little personality and move in a way that suggest that they would fall over any minute.

With the music, there was one place where it was done very well and that was in the opening credits. That was some creepy scoring there and gave me the feeling that the movie would not be as bad as the trailer looked. The rest of the movie however was very generic, over-scored stuff with a number of the cues/music choices being wildly inappropriate and too stuck in the 80s. It was the script where Gingerclown falls down hardest on, it's just appalling and should never have been approved. You know that something is wrong when the still face palm-inducing "quack quack quacker..." is the most memorable line of the entire script and movie. The comedic lines and the slapstick are not funny in the slightest, if anything it's immaturity at its worst that was best flushed down the toilet(the big names were most likely secretly wishing they had). Every single one of the one-liners(childish and over-used), irrelevant ramblings and ridiculous over-load of cussing(some of it clearly there with no reason other than for the sake of it) were mind-numbingly annoying and enough to make anybody cringe.

The story is pretty much the same, improving very little over the cringe-worthy plot synopsis. Quite a lot of it is uneventful and randomly structured actually with padded scenes, a lot of rambling and little if any exposition and also consists of all the characters constantly making decisions that don't make any sense and that it never explains the origins of the creatures. What hurts the story even more is the complete lack of atmosphere. The setting made for such a great idea and could have provoked thrills, scares and a glimpse of innocent fun but Gingerclown is not scary at all, the bad visuals are part of the problem but that the movie is never sure where and when to focus on comedy slapstick or on house of horrors. It's too padded out to be thrilling, as well as being so painfully predictable, and while this viewer likes to think themselves as very patient they found themselves looking at the clock before the halfway mark(which has not happened in some time). And it's too crude and structurally and tonally messy to be any fun.

Gingerclown has terrible characters too, the lead trio are so annoying in personality and in their decision making that you wish they'd be done away with quickly. They're horrendously acted too, can't decide which is the worst of the three as they are as bad as each other. Erin Hayes seemed to mistake screaming her lines for acting, Ashley Lloyd whines and whimpers through his role and Michael Cannell-Griffiths' constant yelling is assault on the ears. Which brings us onto the celebrities(Tim Curry, Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen, Michael Winslow and Sean Young) voicing the creatures. The good news is, their acting is undoubtedly far better than that of the lead trio and there is no problem recognising the voices. The bad news is, they are woefully under-used, no matter how hard all of them tried( the voice acting itself actually is not bad at all) their characters just aren't on screen anywhere near long enough and their material is too awful to properly do anything with it. The most memorable of them- and of the movie in fact- is by far Tim Curry, as the voice of Gingerclown he is genuinely creepy, he's also badly used and has worthless material but he does manage to make it come alive through his menacing delivery. While the script and story are the biggest failings in Gingerclown, it is the waste of these talented celebrities that angers me the most.

Overall, terrible in almost every way apart from the sets, the music in the opening credits and Tim Curry. The script, story, characters, acting and puppetry are all of Z-grade quality, and you'd expect the big names to liven things up. Instead they're saddled with pretty insignificant characters and worthless dialogue which wastes them in what is most likely the worst film for all 5 of them(yes Henriksen's been in a fair few stinkers but at least they utilised him better). Waste of talent is a pet peeve of mine when it comes to films/movies, they deserved much better than this. 1/10 Bethany Cox

OK I just created an IMDb account for the sole purpose of giving you a warning:

First, some info about my personal taste in movies. I actually never write reviews, and that is for one reason: I wont be good at it, because I practically like every movie I watch, and I could only write positive reviews all the time, suggesting that you watch it with an open mind. And really, who would be so damn interested in that? No one.

OK, so I've seen many bad movies. I actually love most of the movies that people call bad. I love low budget slash horrors, they entertain the hell out of me. I cried laughing at all 6 Leprechaun movies. Yes I did. There is something hilarious to me about movies that are explicitly sh*t. I cant help it.

BUT. This movie is something else. I'm actually one of the few (an I mean VERY few) people in the world who has seen it at this point, as I was at the world premiere about 3 and a half hours ago. My friend and I were alone in the whole theater (world premiere!) It should have been a sign, but we're both hardcore movie fans, and can't be discouraged so easily.

Then it started: 20 minute long scene - slow, boring, trite. 450 ways to make this an interesting lead-in, none taken. This is the point where I should mention, that the whole thing is supposed to be a "fake 80's movie" - in style (some kind of retro American thing, realized mainly through costumes and hairstyles), and in production, meaning it lacks all modern computer-generated effects. In short: the monsters are ridiculous looking plastic dolls moved by actors. Now as I said, this wont be a bad thing necessarily, and actually these monster scenes are the high points of the movie - not because they are good, but because apart from the rest of the movie, they are SOMETHING.

Yes, and we have arrived to the main problem: the NOTHING that this movie is. The 4 or 5 scenes with the monsters are the small pieces of floating material in the pond of pure boredom. This is what happens in between: They walk. Wander around in completely random places. Sometimes they run. They talk about completely irrelevant and uninteresting things. They look scared. Thats about it.

It was around the 2/3 mark that I realized it wont get any better. In the beginning I thought OK it opens slow but it should get better any minute. Later I thought OK this is definitely not a good movie but they spin it around with some crazy sh*t and it'll be OK in the end. Nothing happened.

I'm getting tired here and there's so many other things that are just inexcusably sh*t about this movie - like the complete lack of logic (again, not necessarily a problem, if its backed up with other interesting elements), the barely above 0 acting performance (I am convinced that the movie was shot during a single night, without ANY of the scenes being shot twice to make them better), the nonexistent visual world.... or anything, really. But I think you're getting the idea already.

There was one joke I laughed out loud at. That is why the only imaginable category in which this movie gets 1/10 instead of 0/10 is humor.

And these all are why I felt it was my sworn duty to warn you not to go to this film. I can hardly think of worse things you could do with that time and money.

I warned you!

OK, footnote: Sorry for any grammar mistakes. Feel free to correct them, if you find any!

It was terrible... Why have we seen this movie ever? I was bored during the movie, nothing special was happening... Only obscene words and lame creators with last century's technologies. ***Spoiler*** Why did the guy go to the park only because of some foolish jocks, and why did the girl follow him? And when they heard the strange voices, and saw creators, why did they not leave the park?

This is one of the worst acting jobs I have ever seen. It's very hard to believe that big names like Tim Curry and Brad Dourif would be a part of something as nasty and cheesy as this. Everything from the over acting football jocks, the excessive and inappropriate use of profanity, to the unrealistic rubber puppets. This movie was a complete waste of time effort and money. Except for the big names, there actors and actresses need to go back to acting school. The dialogue was just stupid....my 10 year old could have done better writing. I feel ripped off for even paying to see this. Steer clear.

I don't know how they got these actors to sign on (Brad Dourif, Tim Curry). It starts out decent, creating a fun, B-grade horror movie atmosphere and then just turns into a total turd. The only reason I didn't turn it off was that we paid $2.99 to rent it. There are puppet effects for the creatures which start out fun but then turn into something reminiscent of a cheap haunted hayride. Look, I know that with a title like Gingerclown, I wasn't in for much but holy hell was this movie bad.It really had a lot of potential to start but just kept dragging on. I honestly felt that it would've been more successful as a short.

Honesty it should've be way better. All the teenagers should've went in just NOT three. Great plot. Remind of a book i once read about a amusement park feeding of the fears of people who enter it and if they couldn't overcome that fear they would be trap in the park forever.

I'm actually quite a fan of early horror movies and I'm all in for puppets and creature horror and of course: Trash. Sadly this movie has so many issues I couldn't enjoy it.

The none existing plot, the hilariously bad actors, the weird dialogues the bad effects - it's all here and at first the movie seems to be quite okay. But the further you advance, one can tell the creator tried to hard at producing trash without getting the essence. The puppets for example I really liked. They are weird, badly animated, talking nonsense at best and are quite original. But you see every puppet for just around 5 minutes in a small monologue, sometimes a small dialogue. Just when you get to understand the idea of the presented weird character, the scene is over without further interaction of the main characters with the creatures. One does wonder why all other creatures than the clown are in this movie when their only purpose is "to be there". Also, most puppets seem only to be built as head and hands/arms. When their bodies are shown, one can clearly see that there's a puppeteer under a black curtain moving the parts. Yeah, that's quite trash, but it feels like the creators didn't even try.

The worst part of this movie might be the missing horror aspects. Why bring like 10 different weird creatures that want too kill everybody, but only 3 main actors, of which only 1 gets killed? There are like 10 teens in m at the beginning of the movie! Why not integrate them in the movie?

The dialogues as said before are okay. To much insulting though, the 80s weren't that insulting imho. Also why are some creatures interacting with the main characters while others don't seem to even see them.

To sum it up: This movie tries to hard to be Trash. Actors seem to play their worst on purpose, not because they are bad actors. The puppets are half ar*ed, and they should've never shown them full size. There is no horror. There movie tries to be funny but isn't

I actually wish the movie was better, since there is not many puppet-horror-movies anymore.

Michael Winslow, Tim Curry, Lance Henriksen, Brad Dourif...these were the names that piqued my interests to watch this movie. This movie is just your typical teen boy and girl run-in with monsters, of course, with the stereotypical jock bullies. Though, while I didn't care for the human characters, the monsters were quite hilarious -- I found myself laughing hysterically at the monsters' interactions with one another. For example, when Braineater and Stomacherumble are arguing was beautiful -- the farting, belching, and back-n-forth profanity and insults was just golden icing on the cake!

I've read both the reviews and threads regarding "GingerClown," giving it low stars, and believing it's among the worst films watched. I have to simply disagree, for it's just a spoof the way I see it. I'm watching it for a second time on Xfinity Demand, and the similar movies are "Scary Movie" series, "This is the End," and "Chucky," movies that tend to bring much humor as opposed to horror. So if you're in for a good chuckle, I recommend this movie for you to watch. I've seen horrible movies, and this is not one of them.

I've only given "GingerClown" an 9 out 10 stars, the reason being I wished for more people to have been killed/eaten, and the blood/gore was minimal, though that's just a small nitpick.