'Klown Forever' Trailer: One Of The Great Modern Comedies Gets A Sequel

There are certain film screenings that brand themselves upon the brain, never to be forgotten. I still remember every detail of seeing Klown, director Mikkel Nørgaard's big screen adaptation of the Danish sitcom of the same name, and even if I wanted to scrub it from my brain, I could not. It's there. It's there forever. Every mortifying, vile, evil, brilliant, hilarious, unapologetic second of it. Klown belongs on the short list of the funniest movies I've seen in the past decade, right up there with In the Loop as a movie I giggle about often despite feeling very guilty over what I'm giggling about.

But with the sequel arriving soon, this is the part where I say "Go see Klown – it's offensive and humiliating and brilliant." In the meantime, here's the trailer for Klown Forever.

The trailer is essentially a shortened version of one of the film's most deeply uncomfortable sequences, which is saying a lot for a movie that is already a minefield of think pieces waiting to happen. And to be honest, it doesn't do the best job of selling what makes Klown work. It's not just that offensive things happen to comedians Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen (who play fictionalized versions of themselves) – it's that they happen slowly and painfully, with every awkward moment feeling like an eternity and every poor decision lingered upon until every drop of humiliation can be squeezed from the characters on screen. No trailer can sell that.

I saw Klown Forever at Fantastic Fest last year and I liked it! It doesn't meet the dizzying, what-the-hell-did-I-just-witness? heights of the first film and it's not as consistently hilarious, but it's a very funny, very mean follow-up that goes out of its way to push certain buttons with the kind of mean glee you rarely see in American comedy. The official description of the film called it "Curb Your Enthusiasm as directed by Lars von Trier" and that's not inaccurate.

Here's the official synopsis for the film:

KLOWN FOREVER follows estranged best friends Casper Christensen and Frank Hvam as they travel to the States seeking fame, fortune and friendship, only to immediately dive head-first into an impressive array of wildly inappropriate misadventures and unforgettably mortifying social situations.

When Casper attempts to break into Hollywood, Frank follows him to Los Angeles, seeing an opportunity to salvage their strained relationship. As the guys come face-to-face with a number of LA's denizens—including Isla Fisher, Adam Levine and "Game of Thrones'" star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau—it's clear that they're equally ready and willing to take on Hollywood...but is Hollywood prepared for Casper and Frank?

Klown Forever is set to open in limited release and arrive on VOD on September 2, 2016.