Movie Spotlight: Clown Nightmare 2

The movie started as a feeling. Not a premise, not a pitch — a feeling, specifically the one you get eating Halloween candy at 10pm with something strange on TV. Mark Holmberg let that feeling lead. Clowns showed up. Then a witch. Then pirate treasure. Then a robot. None of it was planned in advance, but all of it felt like it belonged.

Clown Nightmare 2 follows two clown investigators and their robot sidekick as they chase a trail of madness through Halloween-soaked atmosphere. There’s pirate treasure at the center of things. Finding it doesn’t go well. Holmberg built the film as something that feels like a late-night video store rental from an alternate dimension, a dimension where Evil Dead-era 80s lenses, Don Dohler creature features, and handmade puppet shows from Goodwill VHS tapes all exist in the same unhinged neighborhood.

Everything was handmade

The props in Clown Nightmare 2 were not purchased. Holmberg made paper Halloween decorations by hand, built masks out of paper mache, and 3D-printed the pumpkin models. The visual language was deliberate: memorable and weird over polished and forgettable. He shot on an old lens from the Evil Dead era, which gives the film a texture modern horror typically goes out of its way to avoid.

The robot was a problem that got bigger

The robot character started as a practical solution. An actor wasn’t available, so Holmberg built something that didn’t need one. That something grew into a giant puppet. It became one of the film’s most distinct presences: a blunt, mechanical sidekick running alongside two investigators who are anything but. The investigators are eccentric and slightly off-kilter. The robot just does its job.

Horror and comedy want the same thing

Both rely on surprise. Holmberg leaned into that overlap. The film goes for creepy and weird in equal measure, and the humor doesn’t land by defusing the horror. It lands because the movie commits so completely to its own tone that you’re not sure which reaction is correct. The characters carry a nostalgic undertone, slightly sinister, slightly imperfect in ways that feel different from modern horror’s tendency toward clean, aspirational victims.

The best day on set involved a grocery bag

Holmberg’s favorite day of filming was a chase sequence: Jerry Williams chasing Kirsten Singer through an empty basement. The mask Williams wore was made from grocery bags and paint. Holmberg ran around with the camera himself. No lighting rig, no storyboard, just an empty basement, a homemade mask, and two people committed to the bit.

What to know before you press play

In Holmberg’s words: “Don’t expect a conventional modern horror movie. Expect a Halloween fever dream filled with clowns, mystery, monsters, and B-movie Madness.” That’s the whole pitch. If that sentence sounds like something you want to watch, you’re the audience this was made for.

Find Holmberg on TikTok at @creepyvhs, Instagram at @markholmberg3.99, and on YouTube as “Creepy VHS Tapes from Mark’s Basement.”

Horror

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Streaming now on Relay.