This was a pretty boring documentary about a clown that can be called by parents to scare their kids if they don't behave. It all started when in 2015 a video was uploaded to YouTube where a clown was shown emerging from underneath a bed in a young girl's room. After the clip went viral, apparently lots of parents actually called The Clown by the name of Wrinkles and actually hired him to scare their kids for misbehaving. Four years later this documentary comes out showing the man living his simple life in his van talking to the camera about his experiences as Wrinkles the Clown.

Towards the end there's some sort of twist that tells us the whole truth and if you are generally interested in this whole story you might enjoy this but I was but throughout its rather short runtime. [3,9/10]

I thought the premise of this movie sounded like one of the most must-see documentaries I've ever come across. It starts out ok, as you learn about a mysterious clown who parents can call to scare their children if they misbehave. There are some very creepy shots of the clown appearing in random places. They interview a man who claims to be the performer and he tells us he doesn't really care what effect he has on kids, he is just providing the parents a service. Perhaps the most effective segment of the film is when we hear voices messages parents have left on his phone. Parents say things like, "I need you to come get these mother#%$@s" while the children howl with fear in the background. Eventually, we find out near the end that there isn't really a Wrinkles the Clown--someone just hired actors to make viral videos. The man they were interviewing for the first half of this documentary was also an actor and nothing he told us was real. They then interview a man who claims to have made it all up, but we don't see his face or hear his real voice. He describes how he made videos and set up the phone line to spread rumors about this character. He himself says that he thinks that parents telling their kids they will call a clown to get them is "messed up," and probably "psychologically damaging." His rationale is that Christianity is worse because it tells people they will go to Hell. I assume that the voice messages we heard earlier really were left on the phone number that was posted around the area. They movie has other interviews as well, many of them only tangentially connected to the main subject. They have some news footage of reports of Wrinkles sightings and they talk to some experts. They also interview some kids who don't have much to do with the topic. Going off on these tangents really takes away from the effectiveness of the documentary, but they clearly needed to fill time. I think this lack of focus, along with the misleading first half, are why some people rate this movie so low.

It's not a good sign when a film is only 78 minutes and it still feels extremely stretched out and long. Unfortunately that was the case with 'Wrinkles the Clown'. The funny thing is that I'm very glad this documentary brought the fact that this clown exists to my attention. But once I knew that, the film didn't really have any additional information to offer me that I was interested in. I kept hoping there would be a twist or a shocking addition to the story to come. It never did though and it made for a very dull ride.

While I was watching this I thought to myself that I'd actually enjoy doing this in my region. By the end of the documentary though it had convinced me that that would be a very bad idea. From that point of view I suppose it offered something. Otherwise though I found 'Wrinkles the Clown' very much lacking in justification for a documentary. Have a quick read up about this story instead would be my advice.