Clown comedy is no laughing matter.

Running time: 92 minutes. Not rated (rape, violence, profanity). At the Angelika, Houston and Mercer streets.

TO say that “Vulgar” is not for all tastes might be the understatement of the year. For starters, this black comedy has a male rape scene that makes the one in “Deliverance” seem mild by comparison.

“Vulgar” is the first of several micro-budgeted features from Kevin Smith’s View Askew production company to reach the market, and writer-director Bryan Johnson has a much darker taste in humor than his patron.

Brian O’Halloran, best known as a hangdog convenience-store habitué in Smith’s “Clerks,” gives an extraordinarily brave and moving performance as Flappy, whose work as a clown at children’s parties in central New Jersey doesn’t quite cover the bills at his monstrous mother’s nursing home.

So Flappy invents the alter-ego of Vulgar and places an advertisement offering to appear at bachelor parties in a different kind of clown drag – complete with bustier and fishnet stockings.

But Vulgar’s first gig ends with him being sexually assaulted at knifepoint and gunpoint by a leering redneck (the truly frightening Jerry Lewkowitz) and his two twisted sons (Matthew Maher and Ethan Suplee).

A traumatized Flappy makes it back to the kiddie circuit, only to become a media celebrity when he bravely intervenes in a hostage-taking at a party.

A TV producer (a very funny Smith in a very un-Silent Bob-like turn) signs him up for a TV show, and the ratings soon soar. But then Flappy starts getting blackmail demands from his assailants, who threaten to release a videotape of the gang rape.

Thematically similar to the recent “Death to Smoochy,” “Vulgar” is a more interesting, if less polished, movie.

Johnson, who also appears as Flappy’s confidant, is a veteran video-store clerk who packs his film with references to little-known films – Flappy’s bathtub scene after the assault is an homage to “Something Wild” (1961), a groundbreaking rape drama that starred Carroll Baker.

“Vulgar” prompted a mass walkout when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival a year and a half ago. But for those willing to risk being made very uncomfortable, this instant cult classic announces the arrival of a distinctive new talent behind the camera.

Ben Affleck’s Changing Lanes enjoyed a box office bump in Lexinton, KY., on April 16, thanks to the star’s friend and Dogma director, Kevin Smith. Speaking to a large crowd at the University of Kentucky the night before, Smith offered to pick up the tab for a matinee the next day. “Three hundred people showed up,” says the auteur. “Me and my big f- – -ing mouth.” Especially since the theater wouldn’t let him put the $1,000 bill on plastic. (He was allowed to FedEx a check to them the following day.) “‘Twas like a bad Visa CheckCard commercial,” says Smith, who recently shot a cameo as a loose-lipped forensics assistant in Affleck’s now-lensing superhero flick Daredevil. Can starving students expect similar generosity when Smith speaks at their school? “Only if there’s a new Ben Affleck movie opening that week.” Now, that’s what friends are for. -Jeff Jensen