Ever since I was little, clowns terrorize me and continue to freak me out. Most recently, I watched a horror short called Kal – The Clown and was bracing myself for the worse.
Distributed by Labyrinth Films (II), KAL – The Clown was directed, produced, and written by Carlos Omar de Leon. This short horror film has a run time of a little over 2 minutes and leaves you wanting more and hating clowns all over again. It was featured on Crypt TV last year and has received over 1.5 million views. If you don’t know what Crypt TV is yet, it is a huge horror community founded by Eli Roth that creates original and disturbing horror shorts. Their motto is “Weird is good.”
KAL – The Clown’s story revolves around a young woman, Noelle Hanson (Killer Date, Bonejangles), enjoying a night home alone until she hears the doorbell ring. When she opens the door, there is a priority mail package waiting for her with no name or address on it. When she opens the box, there’s a creepy clown puppet waiting inside with a note that says, “My Name is Kal.” She closes up the box and pushes it to the side, but shortly after, he starts showing up in random places, and she begins to fear for her life.
With a very short run time, this horror short is fun and suspenseful. It reminds me a tad bit of Child’s Play but with a puppet clown. It’s definitely one of those stories that leave the viewer wanting more and full of questions. Who sent the package? Has he tortured other people? Why is his name Kal? Does the package get sent again? All these questions run through your mind as you watch it, but the beauty of a short film is that it allows you to use your imagination and build on the story yourself.
KAL – The Clown is also a film where you find yourself yelling at the characters the whole time. Why are you doing that? Why didn’t you do something about it the first time? Come on now, it took you THREE times until you decided that grabbing a knife may be a good idea. Geesh. But we love to hate characters like that, and we wouldn’t have horror films without them.
This is a story that would benefit from a full-feature-length film. It would give more backstory and character build-up for fans to sink their teeth into. If you want to watch this creepy horror short you can in the YouTube clip above or on their Vimeo. After you do, let us know what you think!
Reminds me a bit of the Zuni doll from Trilogy of Terror. Which is definitely a good thing.