‘How ’bout a little tongue?’
Gingerclown 3D – also known as Gingerclown – is a 2013 Hungarian horror comedy written and directed by Balázs Hatvani. The movie stars Ashley Lloyd, Erin Hayes, Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Stephen King’s IT), Lance Henriksen, Sean Young and Brad Dourif.
Plot:
1983: A group of high school students are having a great time near Hollywood Hills at the weekend when they bump into the Loser from their school, Sam, who’s just on his way home. Sam would do anything in order to get Jenny’s attention, one of the prettiest girls in school. Unfortunately, she’s also the girlfriend of the school’s bully, Biff, the quarterback of the football team.
Biff and his buddies are keen to take Sam to the old abandoned amusement park to make him prove his courage as part of their initiation ceremony. They involve Jenny in their cruel game as the grand prize of the competition. Sam accepts the challenge, but the girl wouldn’t let him go in by himself; she follows him into the amusement park and a night they’ll never forget.
Because in the old park, hidden in the darkness, are frightening and somewhat eccentric monsters who love to torture innocent human beings while intensively annoying each other.
Reviews:
“It’s a wafer-thin story […] That means that pretty much everything depends on the performances and the set pieces. The performances are unconvincing at best but frequently far worse than that, bordering on terrible. The genre pros who are cast as the denizens of the theme park are fine but they really only have supporting roles and their screen time doesn’t amount to a whole lot.” DVD Talk
“The film primarily takes place with the carnival itself with some interesting props and set pieces (even some of the lighting is akin to Dario Argento) and at night with some noticeable floodlights aimed at the actors to specifically separate them from the background. The film, on the whole, feels uninspired and a missed opportunity.” Fulvue Drive-In
“The negatives about his movie are horrible crappy boring dialogue/lines, loads of cursing/crude comments, terrible characters that appear to be created by a teenager, bad acting, plot holes, and major goofs that cannot be missed.” Hell Horror
“The sets are ambient enough, colourful and interesting but the lighting is super dark and muddy so it’s tough to tell what’s going on […] This was written and directed by a Hungarian dude and often when someone from a different country tries to do a genre throwback to an era of American movies it ends up horribly tone-deaf via the culture gap which is kinda the vibe here, the dialogue feels like it was fed through a short-circuited algorithm.” Podcasting them softly
“The narrative of Ginger Clown could pretty much be written on a napkin, as after the initial set up there’s sadly little exposition as we just get to observe Jenny and Sam wandering around this abandoned location and running across bizarre creations. Granted, the creatures that they stumble across are eyebrow-raisingly innovative, and at times it reaches the dizzying heights of a bastardised child of Charles Band.” The Schlock Pit
“A lot is accomplished with very little, here, through the use of faint light, shadows, gobos, and silhouettes. Whatever this claustrophobic set looks like fully lit, surely isn’t what we’re shown. Writer and director Balázs Hatvani was inexperienced, at the time, and yet he never ceases to impress. If you’re into B movies and able to forgive minor flaws, give this a shot.” Tales of Terror
Filming locations:
Hungary
