I recently watched the movie for the first time and tried to watch it with my 'film buff' face on, rather than my tickle fan face. I wasn't blown any by it from either perspective, but I enjoyed it - some scenes were silly, others came across as quite disturbing and therefore were effective.
Thanks for posting the review, it was interesting to hear her thoughts on the film and her referencing of the forum and its related fetishes, without being prejudice. I think despite her awareness of the fetishism that could be gleamed from the film, I think after watching it she would have still placed the film in a genre that was not exclusively fetish material
I agree with her assessment of the actress that plays the counsellor - I actually looked her up afterwards as I could easily have imagined her having a respectable filmography. Equally, the actor playing the old man Christopher.
To hear that it's impressed at film festivals is also interesting - I suppose fans of the horror genre would find the concept very credible, the notion of an evil clown is not at all surprising as it features in many peoples genuine nightmares and is often a figure of horror and/or sadness (Krusty the Clown in The Simpsons, the sub-character clown played by Stephen Tompkinson in Brassed Off, Clown Doll in Poltergeist etc). The fact his weapon is tickling is a tragic irony.