Panic Fest 2025 Coverage
Super Happy Fun Clown review
A quick descent into madness. Now in clown form.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Super Happy Fun Clown
Directed by Patrick Rea
Written by Eric Winkler
Starring Jennifer Seward, Nicole Hall, Matt Leisy, Deborah Madick, Tim Shelburne, Voilet Rea, Dan Daly and Matt McCann
Super Happy Fun Clown Review
And now for something completely different. If there was a theme throughout the virtual offerings of Panic Fest 2025 (there’s wasn’t) it would be a feeling. Creating a feeling is the intention of every movie…even the ones who manage to fail spectacularly to do so. Panic Fest 2025 featured a metric ton of movies that succeed at crafting and delivering on a feeling. That word came up a lot in our recent review of Lead Belly…but it’s far from the only film to resonate on a similar level. You’ll see it come up in future reviews for movies like Psyche, House of Ashes, Tomorrow I Die, Shadow Reaper, Old Wounds, Self Driver and more. Super Happy Fun Clown goes for a different feeling than the rest. It’s just kind of crazy. It’s a full-fledged ride along with a crazy person.
The crazy person in question is Jennifer (Jennifer Seward), or as she’d like to be known as…Jenn-o the clown. A woman whose life is every manner of terrible that you could devise. Work is horrible. Her mother is terrible. She’s estranged from her sister. Her marriage to her pedophile husband is, unsurprisingly, awful. The only enjoyment she gets out of life is being a clown in the town park. That is until she kills her husband and discovers a second thing that brings her immense joy.
Once Jenn-o begins killing…Super Happy Fun Clown occasionally divides our attention with an ongoing police investigation attempting to track her down. I wanted to get that into the review quickly so that I wouldn’t forget…because, honestly, all that matters is Jenn-o’s murder spree. It’s the most interesting part of Super Happy Fun Clown. It’s also the most entertaining part of Super Happy Fun Clown. In fact, the entire investigation really only amounts to a tease for a sequel that I very much hope we get one day. It’s setting up a relationship that feels like it will be explored much deeper in a future entry. You aren’t overly concerned that Jenn-o will be stopped. She drives the entire plot forward. Even opening the film with a standoff with the police can’t dull the feeling that this is Jenn-o’s movie from start to finish.
The movie does take some time to set up how miserable Jenn-o’s life is. This includes a fairly long opening set in her childhood. It makes sure to hit the necessary beats to explain why Jenn-o is going to kill the people she does. Well…some of them. That horrible husband is obviously the first to go. Strangled with a phone cord and left to rot face down in his dinner. That’s not enough, of course, so Jenn-o slices him open once he’s rotten through to munch on some of the maggots inside. That’s a good sign that Super Happy Fun Clown isn’t a simple revenge thriller…this woman is proper crazy. Which means that a lot more people are going to die. People who had no bearing on her life being so miserable in the first place.
This includes a coworker who invites her to a Halloween part, a random stranger as she drives around town…and, most notably, the workers at a local haunted house attraction. Jenn-o isn’t slashing her way through the people who she believes have held her down…she’s chasing the thrill and enjoyment of being a serial killer clown. And it’s awesome.
Super Happy Fun Clown is a funny movie (and a fun one) that provides an excellent showcase for star Jennifer Seward. Director Patrick Rea (The Night is Young) keeps things enjoyably light considering the content is so violently dark. The result is an entertaining trip of madness with a clown who is, in fact, super happy and having fun.
The credits end with a tease that Jenn-o will return. After watching Super Happy Fun Clown and seeing how it sets up an interesting tête-à-tête between Jenn-o and Detective Marshall (Nicole Hall) who spends the film tracking her down, it can’t arrive soon enough. Highlighted by Seward’s performance and a madcap night of serial killing clown fun…Super Happy Fun Clown is a winner.
Scare Value
Super Happy Fun Clown doesn’t follow a normal story arc. Once Jenn-O snaps…we’re riding shotgun for a night of bloody chaos. Sure, it includes an investigation that is hot on her trail…but the movie is less about stopping her bloodshed…and more about enjoying it. Super Happy Fun Clown provides a blank canvas for star Jennifer Seward to paint red. It’s a great performance that, hopefully, we will see more of in the future.
