Film Review: KILLJOY (2000)

Killjoy (2000) is one of many of the Full Moon Entertainment films that for some reason has many sequels (and they keep making more) despite the fact that the first film is not all that good of a film.  Written by Carl Washington and directed by Craig Ross, Jr. the story of Killjoy is nothing original.  Jamal (Lee Marks) is a misunderstood young man who is picked on and beat up by the neighborhood gangster Lorenzo (William L. Johnson) because he’s in love with his girlfriend.  Lorenzo isn’t one to sit back and let Jamal punk him out so one night he and his thugs decide to teach Jamal a lesion only the lesson is fatal for Jamal.  Unbeknownst to Lorenzo, Jamal will have the last laugh as he has conjured up the spirit of Killjoy who intends to enact revenge on everyone who has hurt Jamal. 

Now, this is a plot that’s been used more often in horror films than I can name - among them The Toxic Avenger (1984), Prom Night (1980), The Burning (1981), and many, many more.  So, in the year 2000 this is a tired old story.  The only saving grace for the film is that is an almost all African American cast (very rare for horror films).  Unfortunately, the cast is saddled with a very cliché script and very “domestic” direction.  There is no flare for the film.  This isn’t all that surprising as the ‘00s were not a good time for Full Moon as most of their output of films looked cheap with bad visual FX and little to no fight choreography.  This film is locked into very few locations which limits the amount of camera set ups which seem repetitive by the half-way mark.

There are a few moments that will appease fans of Full Moon’s “low expectation” audience which is the fact that the film is filled with bad jokes but at least they’re delivered with flare by the entertaining Killjoy which is probably what has allowed the franchise to live as long as it has.  I don’t really recommend this film unless you are a die-hard Full Moon fan then you might actually think it’s better than most of the films the company produced during the ‘00s.