Coulrophobia
While breaking the story of the 2016 ‘killer clown’ epidemic, a journalist with a childhood phobia is stalked by a sinister clown that may not be human.
-
Gary DaviesDirector
-
Gary DaviesWriter
-
Project Type:Screenplay
-
Number of Pages:100
-
Country of Origin:New Zealand
-
Language:English
-
First-time Screenwriter:No
-
Student Project:No
-
2020 Independent Horror Movie Awards (Spring Edition)
Winner Best Feature Script
GARY DAVIES – WRITER-DIRECTOR
Gary is an award-winning filmmaker who jumped in at the deep end - writing, funding, directing, shooting, producing and editing the horror-comedy feature, Flatmates Wanted which, despite having almost no budget, obtained NZ-wide DVD release via Vendetta Films in 2007. He has developed his original horror feature script, Psychomanteum with UK production company, Hummingbird Films, and more recently NZ’s Urgency Films, and was represented from 2015-2018 by LA based Atchity Entertainment International for his original horror-thriller feature script, In the Moonlight. This project has since received EDF funding and is being developed with NZ producer Simone Ashton. Gary has been short-listed for numerous NZFC funding schemes – including Headstrong, Escalator, and Fresh Shorts, and he and Simone were participants in Script to Screen’s prestigious Short Film Lab in March 2019. Gary’s short films have won awards and screened at festivals around the world, and his no-budget short, Whites Beach starring Dwayne Cameron was licensed to NZ Sky TV’s Rialto channel. Gary’s short doco, Raising the Peaceable Kingdom was a finalist out of hundreds of films in VOFF4, the 2nd Viewster Online Film Festival 100K competition, and his short fantasy film, Labyrinth Rocks was the only NZ representative amongst 400 films in VOFF3. Gary has numerous short and feature projects in development.
A combination of childhood fears, social media and psychology fuelled the ‘Great Clown Panic’ of both 2016 & 2017 – a craze that quickly became a worldwide phenomenon.
Coulrophobia is an atmospheric psychological horror film that explores this bizarre epidemic. With its themes of cultural fears and mass hysteria more relevant now than ever in the post-COVID zeitgeist, the film presents these themes via a creepy, compelling mystery that packs frightening twists and turns for a heroine who suffers from a childhood fear of clowns...
There are many clown horror films, but most of them are cheap, simplistic, crude affairs. COULROPHOBIA is a high-quality psychological horror film more akin to IT than your typical ‘killer clown’ movie.
COULROPHOBIA is a creepy, atmospheric mystery in the vein of IT FOLLOWS and THE RING, featuring likeable characters, humour and moments of levity with witty dialogue, alongside nuanced themes of repressed fear, scary cultural archetypes, and societal mass hysteria.
‘CAN’T SLEEP, CLOWNS WILL EAT ME...’ Alice Cooper
And people think COVID is scary...