120) Wrinkles the Clown (2019)

"That's what's awesome. He's real!"

Director
Michael Beach Nichols

Cast

Benjamin Radford - himself
D.B. Lambert - himself
Unidentified - Wrinkles the Clown

I walked into this horror documentary thinking it was fictional. And I use the word "horror" in the loosest way I can. The term that's often used for fictional documentaries is "mockumentary." 

Evidently, this story is real. Or, I'm the most gullible movie viewer out there. 

The release of Stephen King's "It: Chapter One" in 2017, which centers around a group of kids taking on an otherworldly being that takes the form of a child-eating clown named "Pennywise" sparked this surge of interest and popularity in maniacal and frightening clowns. 

Morons across the nation started dressing in clown costumes to try and scare innocent people. 

Some of these idiots even brandished knives and such turning their pranks into matters of public safety. And yet, somehow, it's not as odd as it ought to be in today's society.

It reminds me of the time when Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" was released in 2003. Suddenly, everyone became fans of pirates. I'm not referring to the modern day Somali pirates. Rather, I mean the classic 16th and 17th century swashbuckling kind of pirates. It's a fad that lingered less and less as more pirate movies were released.

But scary clowns existed years before Wrinkles the Clown, and even Pennywise from 2017. Serial killer John Wayne Gacy turned out to be a true monster who liked to dress as a clown. The movie "Poltergeist" (1982) had that freaky clown doll scene. Musician Tiny Tim played a scary clown once in "Blood Harvest" (1988). Clowns even came from outer space to take us over in the legendary film masterpiece that is "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" (1988). And in 2003 the world was introduced to the loveable clown, Captain Spaulding, played by the late Sid Haig in "House of 1,000 Corpses." 

It seems the 1980s really introduced freaky clowns to the horror genre. 

The documentary "Wrinkles the Clown" dates the frightening clown motif as far back as the early Punch and Judy puppet shows which has roots in the 16th century. 

The film documents the story of a character performed by an unknown "artist" in Naples, Fla., whom parents can hire at a cost to potentially scare their unruly children into better behavior. 

Wrinkles first came on the scene through a YouTube video in 2015. 

In a video titled "Wrinkles The Clown Caught on CCTV" a young girl is seen sleeping as the drawer under her bed begins to open.

A clown - Wrinkles - soon climbs out and just before he scares the unaware child, he reaches for the camera and the video ends. 

This is where the documentary starts. Once Wrinkles is introduced to the audience, filmmakers interview a man living in a mobile home who claims to be the infamous clown. His identity is anonymous. 

This man is a 65-year old retired veteran, divorced, and is a Rhode Island native. 

Though he wears his costume to frighten misbehaving children, he otherwise seems like an average guy. He doesn't act macabre in the least outside of playing Wrinkles. Rather, he comes across as a guy who found a "creative" way to make a buck.  

Stickers appeared around Florida with the clown's name, face and phone number - (407) 734-0254. They were stuck on lamp posts, mail boxes, street signs, bathroom stalls, anywhere they'd fit. 

Though the clown was interviewed on local news channels, and even talked about on late night shows like "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon"  Wrinkles' true identity remained a mystery. 

Other YouTube videos of Wrinkles emerged on YouTube, including one with him hiding in someone's backyard to scare another child. In the video, the clown eventually enters the house before the video ends.

We soon find out midway through the documentary that this retired veteran living in the mobile home isn't really Wrinkles. Rather, his real name is D.B. Lambert who was hired by the real Wrinkles to be his alter-ego, who himself is an alter ego of another anonymous person. 

The real, real man behind the mask is interviewed in the darkness of anonymity. He admits that the YouTube videos, including the one with the clown hiding in the girls bed drawer, are staged productions. The entire Wrinkles act is one big art project concocted by a performance artist.

Calls flood Wrinkles' cell phone. Some are lucky enough to actually reach him. The rest just go to his eerie voicemail. 

I called the number myself and, sure enough, I got the voicemail of Wrinkles the Clown. I even typed his number into spydialer.com. The name Santiago Jadaly came back as the owner of the number.

By the end of the documentary, Wrinkles the Clown is like a local legend whom people might run into on Halloween night. Though he looks frightening with his dark eyes and rubber mask, his demeanor, New York accent, and his willingness to pose for pictures makes him anything but threatening. He's like a fun Halloween decoration.

One question that arises in the film is the ethics behind hiring someone to terrify your children, or threatening kids with a call to Wrinkles.

He doesn't physically harm them. It's all a scare.

Personally, I think it is cruel. There's surely other means to properly handle an unruly child than parents calling a stranger in a clown suit for the sake of making kids think he'll kill then if they don't shape up.

Anyways, this documentary is what it is. It certainly touches on the fear of clowns among children, and it ties in with what the horror genre is - entertainment with the intention to terrify. 

One person in this movie makes the comment that by calling Wrinkles, you're inviting him into your life. The question that the film poses is "why." 

What are Wrinkles' true motives. Money? Fame? Popularity? Thrills? Or does he really think he's performing a community service? 

In the end, Wrinkles says, "Our individual minds are such humongous places and the places that you can go can be some of the darkest deepest depths of just awful terribleness to some of the most enlightening beautiful places. It's just interesting to see where people decide to go in their mind because at the end of the day they're the ones taking this very small information about Wrinkles the Clown and deciding which way to take it." 

As the film suggests, maybe the negative parts of Wrinkles will die off over time, and maybe the fun parts of Wrinkles will live on.