Clown

When Eli Roth's name is attached to a project (even if he's only co-producing), it's likely it won't be a bloodless affair. Guts and gore will abound. However, director Jon Watts's demon-curse horror, in which a clown suit possesses an unfortunate dad (Andy Powers) after he entertains at his son's birthday party, is not on the splatter level of Roth's more excessive offerings (Hostel, The Green Inferno). Expanded from a fake trailer, it's efficiently put together if a little sedate in pace. Powers does prove a tragic figure, even after the suit transmogrifies him into a demonic jester driven to feast on children, and he gets solid support from Laura Allen as the wife desperately trying to save him and Peter Stormare as the know-it-all eccentric with a kill-and-cure solution. The scene where an increasingly ravenous Powers prowls a children's play area is creepy and disturbing but ultimately he's a bit too sympathetic, unlike the psycho pranksters from It and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Still, coulrophobes should beware.