88 Film's two-disc THE KILLJOY COLLECTION comprises the four direct-to-video features on the wise-cracking demon of vengeance, eons old but currently taking the form of a clown due to man's irrational fear of them. His vengeance always comes at a terrible price since he needs the souls of his victims to make himself stronger, and the one who summons him provides the most nourishment. In KILLJOY, nerdy high school student Michael (Jamal Grimes) has been pining for Jada (Vera Yell, STIGMATA). When Jada's abusive drug dealer boyfriend Lorenzo (William L. Johnson, CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE) and his crew – T-Bone (Corey Hampton) and Baby Boy (Rani Goulant) – beat him up, Michael attempts to conjure up Killjoy using an incantation and a clown doll to remove all obstacles between him and Jada; but Lorenzo accidentally shoots Michael while teaching him a lesson. One year later, Killjoy (Ángel Vargas, STREET KNIGHT) turns up in his ice cream truck and whisks Lorenzo, T-Bone, and Baby Boy away to his dimension and makes short work of them. Jada, who is in college and moving on with her life with Jamal (Lee Marks, HALF-LIFE), gets a call from old friend Monique (Dee Dee Austin) who has been warned by a mystical homeless man (Arthur Burghardt, NETWORK) that Killjoy is coming after Jada next. He explains that Jada, as the object of Michael's affection, is capable of sending the demon back to hell and that the friends must enter Killjoy's dimension to find him.

The first film in the series was an independent production from African American filmmaker Craig Ross – who made his debut two years before with the black film noir CAPPUCCINO and followed it with a couple more direct-to-video productions before moving on to a steady career of directing episodic television with episodes of COLD CASE, BONES, and NCIS among others – and could even be interpreted as a response to the CANDYMAN series with black characters confronting an urban legend without the need of a white audience identification figure. It's watchable and interesting enough, but being released under the Full Moon banner - who handled the post-production and distribution - makes it seem doubly formulaic. Visual effects are basic, but elaborate for a shot-on-video effort of this budget level. The image was processed in Filmlook (the original process, not one of the many knockoffs and improved variations since then), and looks softish and grainy with movement that has filmic judder in some shots and smoother video in others.

The sequel KILLJOY 2: DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL was a production from Tempe Video, an indie studio that had also served as post-production house for many of Full Moon's late nineties and early 2000's productions and the directorial debut of Tempe's regular production designer Tammi Sutton (WITCHOUSE 3). This time around, Sgt. Denise Martinez (Debbie Rochon, AS NIGHT FALLS) and Lt. Harris Redding (Logan Alexander, DOUGLASS U) are transporting five troubled youths – troublemakers Nick (Charles Austin) and his buddy Ray Ray (Choice Skinner, ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL), activist Eddie (Jermaine Jevon), icy Ce Ce (Nicole Pulliam, INCEPTION), and "princess"/accidental arsonist Charlotte (Olimpia Fernandez, HELL ASYLUM) – to a summer camp in need of renovation. When they break down along an isolated country road, Redding and the boys seek help in a seemingly derelict trailer park where Ray Ray is shot by a gun-toting redneck. While Redding goes in search of help, Denise and the others flee the broken down van and take shelter in the home of witch Kadja Boszo (Rhonda Claerbaut, THE HORRIBLE DR. BONES) who tries to use magic to heal Ray Ray. Ce Ce is wary of black magic and tells the others the story of Killjoy, and Nick implores her to call him forth if he can help Ray Ray and protect them. As expected, Killjoy (Trent Haaga, Troma's TERROR FIRMER) is more interested in harvesting souls and the survivors must depend on Kadja to protect them with her own magic.

KILLJOY 2 takes its time to bring the killer clown around, but the tense backwoods survival situation is just entertaining enough to make the clown's reign of terror and death seem more generic and even obligatory. The production is a bit slicker with decent photography (although still underlit and noisy), some creative lighting and production design, and improved gore. KILLJOY 3 came along eight years later as part of a renewed Full Moon's more recent crop of direct-to-DVD projects, and it's a quantum leap in terms of photography, production value, and visual and make-up effects even if the story is more of the same. Sandie (Jessica Whitaker) gets away from the dorms during spring break by housesitting for one of her professors (Darrow Igus, THE FOG) and invites her boyfriend Roger (Michael Rupnow, DEAD STOP) and his football buddy Zilla (Spiral Jackson), and her friend Erica (Olivia Dawn York, ELSEWHERE) over for a couple days of partying (which includes watching PUPPET MASTER III on television). When they find an ornate mirror on the doorstep with the morning paper, they are unaware that it provides the doorway to Killjoy's (Haaga again) world where he is waiting with his posse – succubus Batty Boop (Victoria De Mare, DINOCROC), strongman Punchy (wrestler Al Burke), and mime Freakshow (Tai Chan Ngo, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS) – to lure them in and take their souls. Before he can kill them, Killjoy needs them in order to also bring him the professor who summoned him and then cheated him by sending him back.

The plot of the fourth installment KILLJOY GOES TO HELL seems like it would turn into a framing device – in which Killjoy (Haaga again) goes on trial in hell for the charge of not being evil enough and must prove his misdeeds – seems at first as though it's going to be a clip-show of the previous films; and that would have been preferable. Instead, we get a broadly-played, not particularly funny or gory quickie that feels more like a place-keeper of a film rather than the culmination of a franchise series (like what JASON GOES TO HELL was meant to be). The court – overseen by Beelzebub himself (Stephen F. Cardwell) – charges Killjoy with "incompetence, ineptitude, inadequacy, and a general lack of evilness"; charges brought upon him by D.A. (that is, "Devil's Advocate") Jezabeth (Aqueela Zoll). Killjoy's counsel, on the other hand, is the rather underwhelming Skid Mark (John Karyus, V/H/S/2) who has an otherwise power-stripped Killjoy summon up his posse of demons Punchy, Freakshow, and Batty Boop back from oblivion to testify to his evil character. Things do not go as planned since Punchy only speaks Carny, Freakshow can only mime, and Batty Boop is still holding a grudge about Killjoy killing her off in favor of the previous film's final girl. It also seems that Skid Mark (groan) is not all he seems and is intentionally dropping the ball, and Killjoy's only hope may be "the one that got away" Sandie (Whitaker again) who is institutionalized up on the surface and suspected of murdering her friends. Killjoy sprints Sandie and drags her down to hell where he makes her a deal to testify to the tortures he inflicted upon her and her friends in order for freedom, but how likely is it that Killjoy will keep his word? Taken separately, any one of these films would be a thorough dud that would not make one want to seek out the others; but together, THE KILLJOY COLLECTION is painless and relatively entertaining DTV fodder.