SALOUMEH FARHADIAN ARTNEWSPRESS: Wrinkles the Clown
PLOT: A documentary digs into the story of creepy clown sightings in Florida.
REVIEW: In 2015, a video was uploaded to a YouTube account called HvUSeenWrinkles that showed security cam footage of a creepy clown wearing a strange, wrinkled mask crawling out of a drawer beneath a little girl’s bed. You can understand how a video like that would get attention and freak people out. Wrinkles the Clown quickly became a viral sensation, and while further videos of Wrinkles sightings were more innocuous, showing the clown standing on a roadside or hanging out in a parking lot, the character still got enough attention that he was even mentioned by the likes of Jimmy Fallon and James Corden on their talk shows.
The legend of Wrinkles grew thanks to stickers that were placed around the Naples, Florida area with Wrinkles’ phone number on them – people now had the chance to call Wrinkles and possibly talk to the clown himself, or at least leave him a voicemail. The story spread that Wrinkles was actually a clown-for-hire, but he didn’t offer the usual lighthearted entertainment services. Wrinkles worked for parents who wanted to scare their children into improving their behavior.
Director Michael Beach Nichols’ documentary WRINKLES THE CLOWN explores the viral sensation of Wrinkles, which preceded the rash of creepy clown sightings that struck the United States and Canada in 2016. Disappointingly, much of this “documentary” is actually “mockumentary” that does nothing but perpetuate the Wrinkles myth. We’re introduced to the man behind the mask, a 65-year-old retiree who refuses to show his face and speaks only in the Wrinkles character voice, and his situation and behavior are exactly what you would expect from a man who has decided to make a career out of scaring small children. He lives in a van and doesn’t mind parking it on private property. He survives on microwave dinners and Natty Ice, hangs out in the strip club when he can afford it, and tells us he decided to become Wrinkles because he couldn’t make it as a regular clown.
But all isn’t as it seems. 50 minutes in, the documentary shifts gears and decides to be more straightforward with its audience, and when this “twist” came along I was left feeling that most of those first 50 minutes had been a waste of my time.
There are some things to be interested in within those first 50 minutes, though. Nichols doesn’t just focus on the life of that broken-down retiree, there are several other inteview subjects along the way. We’re introduced to a father who uses calls to the Wrinkles number as a way to discipline his young daughter. The documentary addresses the question of whether or not using such “psychological warfare” to make a kid behave should be considered child abuse. There’s a segment that explores how urban legends continue to be perpetuated in the digital age. And we see the impact watching the Wrinkles videos and calling his number has had on a few children.
The documentary drops in on a young creepy clown enthusiast who likes to draw pictures of Wrinkles threatening people’s lives, a child YouTuber who became convinced Wrinkles was going to come get him after he called his number, and a little girl who considers herself a comedian and made a taunting call to Wrinkles even though she fully believes he murders little kids.
Since the documentary isn’t always being honest about the truth behind the Wrinkles videos, it turns out to be most fascinating when we’re shown how people have reacted to those videos. Kids have turned Wrinkles into both a hero and a boogeyman. People have become obsessed with him. Adults have fallen for the idea that Wrinkles is out there stalking and threatening children, and many of the over 1 million voicemails the Wrinkles number has received have been death threats. It is amazing what people will wholeheartedly buy into. And when clips of voicemails are played, it’s also amazing to hear how many parents call their kids things like “motherf*ckers” right in front of them.
Other interview subjects include the author of the book Bad Clowns, which digs into the creepy clown phenomenon, and Funky the Clown, a guy trying to make a living as a fun-loving clown… a tough thing to do when so many people are now convinced that clowns are scary rather than silly. I felt kind of bad for Funky.
If you want to get a real peek behind the scenes of those Wrinkles videos, though, you’ll have to wait until the last 28 minutes of this thankfully short (78 minutes) documentary. That’s where all the real information is hidden – and even then, there are elements of the Wrinkles story that are left a mystery.
If you saw those early Wrinkles videos years ago and they have lingered in your mind ever since, WRINKLES THE CLOWN is just for you. I remember hearing about Wrinkles and the other clown sightings back in the day, but they haven’t been on my mind – it took this documentary to remind me they had happened at all. So I haven’t been anxious to learn more about Wrinkles, and I don’t feel like this documentary told me much that I really needed to know. It won’t stick with me, just like those Wrinkles videos and clown sighting reports didn’t stick with me.
WRINKLES THE CLOWN is a decent way to spend 78 minutes, but feels like it’s about three years too late.
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Cody Hamman
