Paul Schrader is moving on from demon possession to something even more disturbing: Nazi-collaborating clowns.
According to Hollywood Reporter, Schrader has signed up to direct the film Adam Resurrected, based on a novel written by Yoram Kanjuk. The book is the story of a former circus clown named Adam Stein who dodged the gas chamber by entertaining Jews as they lined up for their deaths. Stein later ends up in an insane asylum populated by Holocaust survivors, where he becomes something of a ringleader for the patients.
The really weird thing here is that I think this movie has already been done… by Jerry Lewis of all people. Jerry made the now infamous pseudo-comedy Day the Clown Cried back in the 70’s. In that film he plays almost exactly the same role, that of a Nazi clown entertaining kids, making them giggle, and then gassing them. Day the Clown Cried is downright infamous as perhaps the most tasteless, wrong-headed, and plain crappy film ever created. Jerry Lewis does a damned good job of pretending it never existed. So what the heck is Schrader thinking?
Hopefully, he at least has the sense not to make it a comedy. And it seems as if his take may be focused more on what happens to the clown after his stint marching Jews to the gas chamber. A Day the Clown Cried sequel? Any way you stack it, the idea is pretty sick.
