The most shocking thing about “Vulgar,” presumably, is the clown rape sequence.

The second-most shocking thing is that a film with a clown rape sequence actually found a distributor.

It all happened pretty quickly for a movie that took five years to complete — including two and a half years of post-production since shooting wrapped in 1997.

If you haven’t heard about “Vulgar” — and you will — it’s the newest film from View Askew Productions, the Red Bank-based company of writer-director Kevin Smith of “Dogma” fame . . . or should we say infamy.

But Smith, 30, didn’t write and direct “Vulgar”; that was done by his friend, first-time director (and comic-shop clerk) Bryan Johnson, 32.

Smith, who served as executive producer of the film, was as surprised as anyone when Lions Gate Films, distributors of the controversial “Dogma,” bought the film after it was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last week.

“I’m definitely kind of blown away,” Smith says.

“And it’s not by virtue of the fact that the movie is an utter piece of ——, and so it’s shocking because of that. It’s because the movie is so bracing, so challenging. I haven’t seen anything like it theatrically in I don’t know how long.”

Johnson reports that “Vulgar,” which was shot exclusively in Monmouth County, has been guaranteed release in 12 major American cities, including Red Bank. Summer 2001 is the hoped-for release time.

The low-budget, 16mm film — which was inspired by View Askew’s logo, an ugly clown in fishnet stockings — stars Brian O’Halloran of Smith’s 1994 debut “Clerks.”

O’Halloran plays Will, a kiddie-party clown whose mom is in a nursing home. Will is having a hard time making ends meet, and decides to broaden his clientele by playing stag parties as Vulgar, a transvestite clown. But at his first such gig, Will is sexually assaulted by three men — a father and two sons, no less — who videotape the attack.

The assailants reappear later, after Will defuses a hostage situation (while in his clown getup) and is trumpeted as a “hero clown” by the media. After Will gets his own TV show, his attackers blackmail him. It all leads to a standoff in the final act.

“I don’t believe the same person who walks into ‘Forrest Gump’ and walks out with a smile is going to want to see this movie,” Johnson says with understatement.

‘A really dark place’

O’Halloran, of Old Bridge, is a familiar face in regional theater. He’s appeared in “Translations” at Monmouth University; “A World I Never Made” at the New Jersey Repertory Theater; and played the vampire slave Renfield in three productions based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.”

What’s with O’Halloran and Renfield?

“I dunno,” he says, “I enjoy that role a lot. Just the fact that he’s a sympathetic character. . . . In my stage work, I’m usually either the comic relief or the actual killer.”

The actor took special steps to play the disturbing sexual-assault sequence in “Vulgar.”

“First off, one of the first scenes we shot was the whole assault, which was kind of weird,” O’Halloran, 30, says.

“But you try to just get yourself — it’s just a really dark place. I mean, I was left alone for two days prior. I wasn’t talking to many people. And even during the filming of it, I asked for quiet on set.

“It was tough, you know? I can’t even describe how I approached it. It’s just really, really dark. I was just thinking of horrible, horrible things.”

But O’Halloran says the sequence sounds worse on paper than it plays out in the finished film.

“We didn’t shoot it to be really graphic,” he says. “The situation just unhooks your mind, so to speak. The anticipation of what’s coming up is more the problem than anything being graphic.

“It’s what your mind thinks is going to happen next. That just makes it crazy.”

Adds Johnson: “If you can get beyond the incident that takes place in the movie, I think you’ll be OK with it. You just have to know what you’re in for when you’re buying that ticket.

“At the heart of it is kind of a sweet story.”

Long post-production

Like other View Askew films, “Vulgar” was lensed at many Shore-area locations, such as the Pan American Motel in Eatontown; the White Crystal Diner in Atlantic Highlands; the former Ritz Bakery and Deli in Ocean Township; outside Riverview Medical Center and No Ordinary Joe in Red Bank; a junkyard in Morganville; a nursing home in Holmdel and an old waterpark in Long Branch (”That’s actually where the grand finale stages”).

“We tried to keep it as closely spaced together as we could,” says Johnson, who also plays Will’s pal, Syd. (Smith and co-executive producer Scott Mosier also have roles.)

Shooting commenced in August 1997. Johnson says the “latest tweaks” were completed about six months ago. Why the long gap in between?

“I mean, the flick had to wait through two movies,” says Smith.

“The genesis was back in ‘95, and we said, ‘Well, why don’t you wait until we finish (Smith’s 1997 film) “Chasing Amy”?’ And then after ‘Chasing Amy,’ they shot ‘Vulgar’ in the summer of ‘97. And then we headed off to do ‘Dogma’ in ‘98. We said, ‘Well, why don’t you wait until we finish “Dogma” so we can concentrate on it seriously?’ So its post-production was very long.

“But it was always something that we intended to finish and get out there and have people see. It just had to wait for a while, and thankfully, Bryan was really patient about that. It paid off.”

Upon completion, View Askew eyed a spot in the Sundance Film Festival.

“We missed it the first year, because we just didn’t have enough time,” says Johnson. “We skipped the second year because of ‘Dogma,’ because it wasn’t at a place where we felt comfortable sending it out. And this year, we actually did send it.

“It got shot down, incidentally,” Johnson laughs.

Undaunted, View Askew submitted “Vulgar” to the Toronto festival, and learned in August that the film was accepted under the festival’s program for novice directors.

‘Shocking our senses’

But Lions Gate may have another controversial property on its hands with “Vulgar.”

“I haven’t seen this film, but from what I’ve read, it has an incredibly violent rape scene,” says Patrick Scully, director of communications for the Catholic League For Religious and Civil Rights in New York, the outspoken group which mounted protests against “Dogma” due to that film’s theme of Catholicism.

“It’s pretty clear that Kevin Smith and his company have to do something completely outrageous to get noticed,” Scully says. “The last time, the target they attacked and ridiculed and trampled happened to have been the Catholic church. Now they’re shocking our senses with a violent rape scene.

“One review I read said 50 people walked out of the Toronto film festival. That doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

“There were some people who walked out,” concedes “Vulgar” producer Monica Hampton, who attended the Toronto screening. “But as Scott and Kevin assured us, people even walked out on ‘Clerks.’ You can’t please everybody.”

Films that take a skewed view of the clowning profession are nothing new to real-life clowns.

“They come and they go,” says Vincent Pagliano, a full-time clown and chairman of the Colts Neck-based National Clown Arts Project.

“There’s the movie ‘It,’ and (clown-turned-murderer) John Wayne Gacy’s name always comes up. People dwell on it. There are whole Web sites devoted to clown-bashing. It’s so weird.

“We’ve become a very good target for sensationalism. But really, a clown’s life is so boring, it probably wouldn’t make a good movie.

“These kind of movies come and go, but the clowns live on for hundreds of years. We’ll survive.”

Lynchian influences

Johnson, who works in Smith’s Red Bank comic-book store, Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, compares “Vulgar” to David Lynch’s 1986 psychosexual romp, “Blue Velvet.”

“It has Lynchian influences,” he says. “There’s a bit of the quirky, weird humor that you might find in, like, a Coen brothers movie. Some straight up comedy you might see in a Kevin Smith flick.

“We made a very conscious effort to make it look independent and give it kind of a ’70s groove. And every once in a while, just for the hell of it, we’d throw in a Michael Bay (director of ‘Armageddon’) 360 dolly shot or something, kind of poking fun at ourselves.”

Johnson is asked if he would classify “Vulgar” as a dark comedy.

“It’s the darkest comedy you can imagine,” he says. “There are definitely comedic elements, and some of them very dark, but to just call it a dark comedy across the board — I don’t think that’s really accurate. But you sure as hell can’t call it a drama, either.”

Then, what is “Vulgar”?

“That’s something I have not been able to figure out,” Johnson says, “and so far, neither has anyone else.”

TORONTO (The Hollywood Reporter) — Kevin Smith acolyte Bryan Johnson tries to attract attention with his directorial debut, “Vulgar,” a gleefully nasty bit of business that occasionally manages to live up to its title.

Recalling vintage exploitation movies and early John Waters — in tone and murky production values — this demented tale about an abused clown who gets his shot at redemption is, at best, a slacker shocker. The film goes out of its way to be outrageous, but it isn’t prepared to follow through on the courage of its twisted convictions to emerge as an original.

But with dialogue pushing NC-17 status and the Smith connection, this Lions Gate release could gain a cult following.

Born out of the drawing — that of a chubby clown dressed in drag — that has become the official logo of Smith’s production company, View Askew (which made “Vulgar”), the film concerns the hard-knock life of struggling clown Will (Brian Christopher O’Halloran).

Tired of getting no respect from the kiddies he entertains and inspired by the adult want ads in a newspaper, Will decides to reinvent himself as Vulgar, a crude transvestite clown who makes surprise appearances at bachelor parties. The revelers expect strippers, but they are instead insulted by a Bozo in a garter belt.

To say the venture gets off to a bad start is a serious understatement. Showing up at the apartment of a depraved father (Jerry Lewkowitz) and his two grown sons (Ethan Suplee and Matt Maher) who make the “Deliverance” degenerates look like Teletubbies, Vulgar is the victim of a violent sexual assault, which is the picture’s most unsettling sequence.

Fate soon intervenes, and Will, having reverted back to his old identity, becomes a huge kiddie star. But just when everything seems to be going his way, he’s blackmailed by his former attackers. With a little help from his buddy Syd (Johnson), Will decides he’s a clown on a scum-busting mission.

Deliberately underlit and shot guerilla-style by “Chasing Amy” cinematographer David Klein, “Vulgar” has the look and feel of an early 1970’s B-thriller. Despite the Johnson screenplay credit, the familiar sound of Kevin Smith-style banter rings out.

Johnson is obviously the kind of person who doesn’t mind advertising his many influences. But after that squirmingly lurid assault sequence, the picture is content to go along a rather benign, unsurprising path, tossing out dark and satirical possibilities along the way without really committing to any of them.

After all is said and done, “Vulgar” is more bark than bite.