The Clown at Midnight(1998)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

Despite wearing the clown costume, Lorenzo Orsini (Jonathan Barrett) is not the one who has been stalking and murdering everyone in the theater, nor is he responsible for the murder of Kate’s (Sarah Lassez) mother, Lorraine (Vicki Marentette), both because they were engaged to be married at the time of her death and because he is Kate’s biological father (as Kate would learn through finding a bunch of old love letters in Lorraine’s dressing room). The real murderer is Caruthers (Christopher Plummer), the owner of the theater. He deeply desired Lorraine, but after she gave her heart to Orsini, he became so angry and jealous about it that he killed her. He then framed Orsini for her death, and when Orsini decided that he didn’t want to get put in prison, Caruthers hid him in the theater, where he has been living ever since.

After Caruthers has killed everyone but Kate and George (James Duval), he kills Orsini when Orsini finally stands up to him. He then captures and ties up Kate for a personal opera show, acting like she is Lorraine, with the corpses of Orsini, Ms. Gibby (Margot Kidder), and her classmates serving as the audience. When he goes backstage to turn the soundtrack on, he is surprised by George, who is dressed in the full clown costume after Orsini had earlier grabbed him and explained everything to him. They immediately get into a fight, and although George ends up getting knocked out, the fight buys Kate enough time to loosen her restraints. Sometime after Caruthers returns to her, she frees herself, and in the subsequent struggle that they have, she stabs him in the eye with a screwdriver. While he is distracted with the intense pain, she opens a trapdoor underneath him, and he falls onto a rack of prop weapons and gets fatally impaled.

George regains consciousness and walks up to Kate, and after he pulls off his clown mask, the two of them share a hug. He then tells Kate about his encounter with Orsini, along with informing her that Orsini had been trying to help them and the others ever since they first stepped foot in this place. He and Kate then waste little time in breaking out of the theater.