Apocalypse Clown

In Dublin, Bobo refuses to accept that he has been fired from a clowning job at a hospital and continues to perform it to children, while two living statues come into conflict with Funzo, a clown who scares away children, and Pepe is lambasted by his idol Jean Ducocque after his mime act. After Ducocque dies, Jenny—a writer at a clickbait publication—is assigned to cover the funeral, after mockery from her office about a one-night stand with Bobo. Ducocque's funeral in Naherbawn is derailed: Jenny rejects Bobo's advances, a clown called The Great Alphonso announces his comeback television performance, and violence breaks out between the statues and Funzo. The attendees are jailed, but escape when a solar flare causes a widespread power outage.

Travelling by clown car, Alphonso mocks Bobo's childhood design of a dangerous three-person clown stunt. They reach a hot dog stand and learn about the chaos that has broken out from the outage. The group stays overnight with a commune in the forest until their disastrous clown show is interrupted by the statues' arrival. Alphonso kidnaps Jenny and takes her to a conspiratorial acquaintance, Tim, who claims to have predicted the flare. Jenny wants to use Tim's transmitter and Alphonso's circus tower mast to broadcast a news report. Meanwhile, the other clowns crash their car and trek across a barren wasteland. Low on morale, Funzo describes how she accidentally doused people in lighter fluid as a child. Funzo, Bobo and Pepe agree to stop dressing as clowns and use their real names: Janet, Ken and Dean, respectively. They burn their clothes.

Alphonso and Jenny arrive at the circus and Alphonso wins over child bullies to work for him. He imprisons Jenny unless she agrees to be his assistant. After recruiting Tim, Janet, Ken and Dean devise a plan to get past the children but are immediately captured when Janet releases a flare too early. Tim reveals that Alphonso drowned Tim's brother in gunge as revenge for insulting Alphonso's Fun Club.

During Alphonso's televised performance, Funzo, Bobo and Pepe adopt their clown characters again to perform the stunt Bobo designed as a child. The statues arrive and restrain Alphonso, Funzo attacks, and Bobo and Tim drown Alphonso in a pit of gunge. The clowns set up the transmitter for Jenny's news report, where she begins describing a grand conspiracy involving pedophile lizards selling harvested DNA to China. She is interrupted by electrical power returning. At the burial of Ducocque, after society has returned to normal, Jenny turns down Bobo again and Funzo, Bobo and Pepe agree to form a troupe.

• David Earl as Bobo, a former children's entertainer and depressed, homeless alcoholic^[2][4][5]
• Natalie Palamides as Funzo, a horror movie–style clown with an ambiguous European accent who unintentionally terrifies others with her "street clown" performances^[2][4][6]
• Ivan Kaye as The Great Alphonso, an egotistical circus performer and former television clown^[2]
• Fionn Foley as Pepe, an arrogant, classically trained but untalented mime artist^[2][4]
• Amy De Bhrún as Jenny Malone, a reporter with ambition beyond the clickbait outlet she works at^[4]

The film was written by members of the comedy troupe Dead Cat Bounce: Demian Fox, Shane O'Brien and James Walmsley.^[7][8] George Kane, whose previous work was in British television comedy, was the director and a co-writer.^[2] Dead Cat Bounce formed in Trinity College Dublin and had previously performed as a band.^[9] In 2012 they released a mockumentary, Discoverdale, which was shot within weeks of its conception.^[9][6] The mockumentary saw the band tour Europe to search for the rock band Whitesnake's lead singer David Coverdale, who Walmsley claimed was his father.^[9]

The story initially saw the main characters travel to Africa with Clowns without Borders, an idea suggested by Walmsley in the early 2010s, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to a change of ideas. Kane was inspired by the films of Roland Emmerich. He analysed that the characters "cannot let go of a profession" that becomes their identity, though they are "not necessarily born for it". He said the lack of film studio involvement allowed niche cultural references in the script, like a mention of the entertainer and child sex abuser Rolf Harris.^[2][10]

Filming took place on location for 23 days, across Dublin, Kildare and County Wicklow, Ireland.^[7][4][6] According to Kane, the budget was around $2 million.^[2] Despite this low budget, Kane aimed to create a "big, broad theatrical comedy" with action-adventure and "textured locations".^[6] Practical issues led to filming constraints. The scenes in Naherbawn required a town centre to be shut down, which the production could only do for one day. Forestry filming in a tent had to be completed within a day due to heavy rain. Earl contracted COVID-19 during the production, leading to use of a body double for circus scenes.^[6]

Apocalypse Clown was a co-production by Fastnet Films, Namesake Films and Umedia, with Morgan Bushe and James Dean as producers.^[7][4] It was funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Vertigo Films and Screen Ireland.^[7][11]

The film debuted at the Galway Film Fleadh on 14 July 2023, followed by an appearance at the Fantasia Festival, Montreal, and cinema release on 1 September 2023.^[2][12][8] The film was released by Vertigo Films and Wildcard Distribution in the UK and Ireland, with a 15A rating from the Irish Film Classification Office.^[4][13] Charades handled international licensing.^[14] It grossed $12,000 from 27 screens in its first week of release in the UK.^[15][3] In October 2023, it was made available on Netflix in the UK.^[16]