Occasionally a film comes along that is such an absolute stinker you have to start blogging about it before it's even finished. Welcome to Gingerclown! For a start, what a God-awful title for a movie ... but I was willing to over-look that with a cast list including Tim Curry (sounding like Pennywise the Clown), Lance Henrikson, Michael Winslow, Brad Douriff and Sean Young - I mean, that's one hell of an ensemble so it can't be all that bad right? So, so wrong.
In super-speedy summary style to not waste time, a group of jocks coerce a nerd into going into an abandoned theme park to win a kiss from the head jock's girl. Obviously the theme park isn't abandoned - it's full of creatures from the underworld. That's pretty much it. What sets this film aside form hundreds like it with very similar story-lines is just how mind-meltingly awful it is! As already mentioned, the story is terrible and frankly makes very little sense. The acting (from the unknowns in the cast who also happen to play the main characters) is beyond atrocious! I'd swear that most of them must have wandered up on the first day of shooting and been given the roles without anyone actually checking they can act. As for the script, I actually found myself rewinding some scenes to hear the dialogue again as I honestly couldn't believe it could be this bad - "This whole god-damned place is the brain child of your sick mind" ...
The 'special effects' and creatures are truly laughable, they look like they belong on the set of Sesame Street, not in a horror film (don't get me wrong, I much prefer reality to CGI any day but this film actually makes me wish it had been CGI'd!). As if all that wasn't enough, every aspect of this film seems to have been covered by complete amateurs. The cast move from scene to scene and get cuts and scars, despite having not actually been in any scrapes in the previous scene. The main actress turns slowly towards the camera in (I guess) what is meant to be a dramatic moment and she turns to the side opposite to which the light on her is shining, resulting in her arm and leg being lit and her face (which I can only assume was trying to express fear or pain or anger or the need to use the toilet) is in complete darkness and the moments falls flat. At one point the director actually tries to scare us by having the actress attacked by arms in rubber gloves ... that's it. Seriously.
But, I hear you cry, what about Tim and Sean and Brad and Michael and Lance? They must help drag this turd-fest back to life?? Nope. They each have about 30 seconds in the film and only their voices over the terrible rubber puppet monstrosities. This is as blatant an example of using a big star's name to boost a film (even if they're not actually in it) as you can get!
I could literally go on and on and on about how bad this film is but I think you get the picture. Please take this post as me begging and pleading with you not to waste your time even considering watching this film. Go do something more productive like sort out your sock draw or clean the oven instead. You'll be sorry if you don't take heed!
