Apocalypse Clown (2023): David Earl leads a circus at the end of the world (Review)

It’s been a rough decade for clowns, with everything from the re-emergence of Pennywise to the wave of 2016 real-life clown sightings tarnishing the image of these floppy-shoed circus mainstays. The nearest thing to a sympathetic clown in popular culture has been Joaquin Phoenix’s reading of The Joker, and yet the tide might be changing. To spend any time on social media is to see the word “clown” used in every context imaginable, not least a self-deprecating one. Meanwhile, the clowns in George Kane’s new science-fiction comedy Apocalypse Clown might be scuzzy, angry and unsuitable for children, but they’re our heroes nonetheless, so maybe it’s time to cheer for the people in grease paint and red noses?

In trying to make us care for clowns, Apocalypse Clown has a considerable ace up its sleeve in the form of David Earl – who last appeared in cinemas as the star and co-writer of the deeply endearing British indie Brian and Charles, where he played a lonely man who built a robot friend. Apocalypse Clown will surely benefit from this lead-in as it nudges audiences to associate him with witty, small-scale, proudly parochial science fiction. Apocalypse Clown is very different to his previous film though, and while Brian of Brian and Charles might have been a little anti-social, Earl’s Bobo is introduced ranting that modern kids prefer to “get hopped up on energy drinks and watch Serbian pornography” rather than watch clowns, before accidentally drinking a shot of morphine and passing out.

The clowns of Apocalypse Clown are, therefore, an unruly bunch, and the apocalypse is a rather subtle beast. Perhaps it’s purely a budgetary consideration, but there’s something interesting about how low-key the end of the world is in Kane’s film. Rather than the asteroid strikes or alien invasions of more mainstream Hollywood sci-fi, or even the nuclear armageddon of Threads or The War Game, Apocalypse Clown sees civilisation wrecked by nothing more extravagant than a massive power failure. It’s the kind of thing that solar scientists have been warning us about for a long time, and it does ground the rest of the film’s silliness in something unexpectedly chilling. Contemplating it for too long though, is likely to send you as mad as the ex-boy-band star turned conspiracy theorist the clowns run into along the way, who turns out to be a nicely observed modern type, of the kind that hasn’t made it into a film before now.

Elsewhere, the specificity of the humour might limit its market and God knows what overseas audiences will make of gags about Angus Deayton, Rolf Harris and Debbie McGee. Thankfully some satirical targets – like the Buzzfeed-alike corporation “Viral Load Media” which Amy De Bhrún’s character works for – are more universal. British and Irish cinemagoers might find something quite charming about Kane, who recently directed the first half of the last series of Inside No. 9, making a film so unapologetically targeted towards domestic audiences, but whether those very local jokes make them laugh or not will be another question.

Kane has talked wistfully about how he misses “the days of the out-there, joke-packed big screen comedy”, and so do I (and judging by the success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, so does everyone else too). There’s much to be said for the fact that Apocalypse Clown doesn’t feature any of the shapeless, easy-mode improv that’s defined Hollywood comedy for the last fifteen years or so. Nobody shuffles awkwardly for three minutes after a white guy quotes a rap song, nobody mistakes a brand name for a topical punchline, nobody says “well, that happened” after something does, indeed, happen. This type of comedy has proliferated because it’s embarrassingly easy to both perform and watch, and easing audiences back into actual scripted jokes could be a culture shock.

I’ve seen a minority of cinemagoers dismiss Barbie as “cringe”, which like “clown”, is used by the internet as a descriptor for ninety-eight per cent of human behaviour. This does suggest some people are actively alienated by the sight of people putting in an effort to make them laugh, but if they react that way to Barbie, how will they feel about comic leads who are literally clowns?

Your mileage may vary, and for my part I enjoyed Apocalypse Clown, but wished it went slightly further. Unlike Inside No. 9 it never goes full-bore into horror-comedy, which might have made it both more accessible and more funny. The last act is too excessive to mesh with the grotty comedy-of-underachievement it started as, but not excessive enough to get laughs from outrageousness. Its closest engagement with the horror genre is the character of Funzo, who is constantly aggrieved that her objectively hideous clown make-up and rasping voice keep scaring children. Funzo is played by Natalie Palamides in quite the most go-for-broke, turned-to-11 comedy performance I’ve seen in years, and sure enough it’s the performances that save the day when the script starts to falter. Like a clown car, Apocalypse Clown falls to pieces before it gets past the finished line, but you might be pleasantly surprised at how much fun stuff it can cram in before then.

Graham’s Archive – Apocalypse Clown