The Ghoulish Plot: two regular 20-something women go out for Halloween, and at the end of the night encounter a sadistic evil clown who proceeds to brutally maim and murder everybody he comes across. Literally, that’s the WHOLE plot.

I’d seen and heard things about these movies, and the third one was just released so I figured I may as well check this out. I was big into horror movies from the late 90s into the 00s but dropped out of it when new movies began moving towards the “Saw” franchise, which was just gore and torture porn with some elements designed to make really, really dumb people feel smart while they mostly watched to see people get murdered in more and more ornate ways.

This has literally nothing in it attempting to be anything more than it is: gory murders by a clown for 90 minutes. And it accomplishes this remarkably well; the special effects and makeup and gore are top-notch. They spent so much money making these elements perfect that they clearly had to reduce their budget for “actors” who are good at “acting” but hey, you’re not watching for Shakespeare.

If you like horror that is mostly just gruesome kills one after the other with no rhyme or reason or logic or justification, and then at the end a twist which makes it all supernatural in order to ensure endless sequels, here you go! It’s a theme park ride made as a movie, and it knows exactly what it is and isn’t trying to be more than that. If you’re into it you’ll love it, but I will never watch another of these in my life.

The Scariest Part of the Movie: there’s a moment with a hacksaw that people who have seen the movie will certainly know very, very well that is beyond gruesome. It’s also a ringing endorsement of that hacksaw brand, ‘cuz that thing must be crazy sharp.

Spookiness Factor: it’s a clown killing people in a creepy old warehouse building, but I wasn’t really spooked out whatsoever.

Rating: 3 out of 10 Three Musketeers