Clownhouse (1990) on Netflix
Casey's older brothers Geoffrey and Randy take him to a circus despite his fear of clowns. That night, three patients escape an asylum and take the costumes of three clowns.
- Netflix2.2/5
- IMDb5.4/105,696 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes33%
Trailer
Plot summary
Casey is an adolescent boy who is frightened of clowns, and his older brothers Geoffrey and Randy mostly ignore it. Left alone for the night, the three visit a local circus anyway, where a fortune teller reads Casey's palm and warns him that his years are numbered. In the same hours, three psychotic patients break out of an insane asylum and seize the makeup and costumes of three circus clowns. Back at the boys' isolated farmhouse, the power goes off and the brothers are locked inside. Casey reaches the police by phone, but the officer on the line takes the boy's account for a nightmare brought on by his fear of clowns.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Clownhouse (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Impressed by Victor Salva's short film Something in the Basement, Francis Ford Coppola gave him $250,000 to make Clownhouse and the same cameras George Lucas had used on American Graffiti. The film was shot in part at Coppola's home in Napa Valley.
- Director Victor Salva was convicted of sexually abusing Nathan Forrest Winters, the 12-year-old lead actor who played Casey, during production, including videotaping one of the assaults; child pornography was found at his home, and he served 15 months of a three-year term.
- Nathan Forrest Winters said that when Salva was arrested everything but the dubbing was complete, and that all the dialogue had to be added in post-production because the cameras were extremely loud.
- Winters said he spent eight to nine hours a day dubbing for a month at Francis Ford Coppola's home, was told he would never work in the industry again and never did, and that Coppola later tried to sue him for breach of contract.
- Because of the controversy surrounding the film, home media releases of Clownhouse were removed from distribution and are now out of print.
- Clownhouse gave Sam Rockwell his first film appearance, and was the second time Salva worked with Nathan Forrest Winters and Brian McHugh after the short Something in the Basement.
