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Movie Review – Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Killer Klowns From Outer Space is the sort of movie that lets you know exactly what you're getting before you ever take the DVD out of the case.

Made in 1988 and "starring" Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson, John Vernon, and a troupe of alien clowns, Killer Klowns From Outer Space answers the question "what if a bunch of aliens that looked like clowns descended on a small American town and captured all the citizens in cocoons made of cotton candy?"¹

After a brief montage at Big Top Burger, introducing us to jaded cop Curt Mooney (Vernon), we head to The Top of The World - the local make-out retreat for the town of Crescent Cove.  We're introduced to the Terenzi brothers, who cruise their ice cream truck to The Top of The World, apparently clueless that the couples up there probably aren't interested in cooling off.  We also meet Mike and Debbie, who are enjoying each other's company in an inflatable raft in the back of Mike's 4x4.   That thing on Debbie's head isn't a rabid muskrat - it's the phenomenon known as "80's Hair".  The period from around 1984 to 1989 is legendary in the hair spray industry.  A fashionable woman could go through fifteen cans of AquaNet in under a week.  Debbie is clearly a fashionable woman.  My high school yearbooks are filled with variations of Debbie.

Mike and Debbie are startled by a bright light in the sky and decide that investigating it is a smart thing to do.   They aren't the only ones - farmer Gene Greene (no kidding) and his dog, Pooh Bear, see the light and decide to go retrieve what he thinks is Haley's Comet.

Gene arrives first, finding a bright yellow and red circus tent in the middle of the woods.    In short order, Gene and Pooh Bear run afoul of the occupants of the tent - the titular Killer Klowns!  Oh, the horror!²

Mike and Debbie show up a little later and find the tent (no sign of Farmer Gene...), and make their way to the entrance.  Inside, the tent looks more like a funhouse - "the new European Circus Fantastique", according to Mike.  The couple snoops around, finding their way into a strange room with what look to be a few large bundles of cotton candy.   They see a klown bringing in another bundle, and accidentally pull some cotton candy off of a bundle near them.  Inside they discover the melting remains of someone (not the farmer³), and in their terror alert the klown to their presence.  The klown chases them out of the ship with a huge, colorful gun that shoots what appears to be popcorn.  (Debbie gets some stuck to her hair.  Not in her hair.  To her hair, a testament to the bonding strength of Aqua Net circa 1988.)  Our intrepid couple makes it to their 4x4, with a trio of klowns in hot pursuit (using a balloon dog to track them...).   Debbie says they need to tell the cops, even though nobody will possibly believe them.

Their quarry having eluded them, the klowns begin their descent to Crescent Cove.  The tension builds...

At the police station, Debbie and Mike tell their story to Debbie's friend, Dave.  Dave takes the two and heads back out to the Top of The World, leaving the cranky and paranoid Officer Mooney to man the station.  (As an aside, there appear to be a grand total of two police in Crescent Cove.  That seems low for such a burgeoning metropolis...)

We're treated to a montage of the klowns running amok in town - luring their victims with such whimsical traps as a puppet show, a pizza delivery, and a box of valentine candy.   Each time, the result is the same - cocooning in cotton candy (which in my notes I started to abbreviate CCC after about the fourth time I had to write it...).

We also discover that Debbie and Dave used to be an item, and Dave hasn't really gotten over the breakup.  Consequently, Dave really doesn't much care for Mike.  They drop Debbie off at her house on the way to investigate the Top of The World, telling her to stay locked inside.

When Mike and Dave reach the site of the tent, they find nothing but a big hole in the ground.  Dave, thinking he's been tricked, handcuffs Mike and heads over to the parking area.  There they find a bunch of empty cars.  As Dave investigates, he discovers one car covered in cotton candy, and realizes that there's something to Mike's story after all.

More klown mayhem - a short klown on a bicycle encounters a motorcycle gang, which ends with one of the bikers losing his head over the situation.  A klown tries to lure diners out of Big Top Burgers. A klown in an invisible car runs a driver off the road.

Officer Mooney is being swamped with phone calls from people reporting klown activity.  He's convinced that everyone in town is conspiring to run him off the force.  Mooney is clearly a nutcase.

Back to Debbie.  She gets ready to climb in the shower, and some of the popcorn falls off of her clothing.  She doesn't notice that the popcorn begins to crawl across the floor.

Mike and Dave, returning to town, happen across a klown performing shadow puppets for a group of people - a bunny, an elephant, George Washington crossing the Delaware River, and finally a Tyrannosaur, which eats the onlookers.  Dave, appropriately astonished, attempts to run the klown down with his car, but the klown leaps out of the way.  He calls Mooney, who ignores him.  Mike and Dave split up, with Mike seeking the help of his friends, the Terenzi brothers and their clown-headed ice cream truck.

Mike and the brothers rush to pick up Debbie, while back at the police station, Officer Mooney finally comes face to face with one of the klowns who dispatches him with a party noisemaker.

Dave returns to the station to find mysterious klown footprints all over the place, and several cocoons in the holding cells.  He finds the klown sitting at Mooney's desk, wielding the now-defunct Officer Mooney like a ventriloquist's dummy.  Dave draws his weapon and takes some shots at the klown.  Body shots prove ineffective, but by lucky break one shot hits the klown in the nose.  This proves to be the weak spot.  When shot in the nose, klowns spin around in a cloud of green light and explode in a shower of confetti.  That seems perversely reasonable, actually...

Mike and the Terenzi brothers, on the way to Debbie's, run into a klown parade, where they're marching up the main street of town collecting the cocooned citizens of Crescent Cove.  With a giant klowny vacuum.  Again, this seems perversely reasonable...

Debbie exits the shower, and before she can fix her hair is attacked by her clothes hamper.  Or more precisely, by little klown jack-in-the-box creatures that have grown from the popcorn.  They come at her from the medicine cabinet and toilet as well.  Ugly little suckers.  She escapes from them and hears Mike at the door.  Only it isn't Mike - it's a klown doing its best Mike impersonation.  She goes for the window, but is trapped by several klowns on the ground.  With nowhere to run, the klowns capture her, but not with the cotton candy.  For Debbie (and apparently other attractive young women), the klowns use a balloon gun.  Mike and the Terenzis show up as the klowns hitch Debbie's balloon to the back of a klown car.

The ice cream truck gives chase, and is joined by Dave in his Crescent Cove police cruiser.  After a minor accident, Dave joins the others in the ice cream truck, and they head for the coastal amusement park.  (No, you didn't miss it.  They didn't mention a coastal amusement park until just now. )

The klowns arrive first, piling out of their car and plastering the feckless night watchman with cream pies.  That melt him.  There goes my appetite.

Our heroes show up, too late to save the watchman, and follow the klowns into their lair.   They ruminate about the origins of the klowns, postulating that perhaps they're refugees from a dying planet, or perhaps ancient astronauts who gave early humans their first images of the archetypal clown.  It's an oddly philosophical exchange - evidence of script doctoring, I suppose.  The group gets separated, the Terenzi brothers getting trapped in a ball pit with 2 amourous female klowns.  (These are the only female klowns we see in the film.  Hold on to that thought.)

Mike recognizes the layout of the ship, and he and Dave make their way to the cotton candy room, now full to the rafters with the packaged citizens of Crescent Cove.  A klown strolls in, and reveals the gruesome fate of the unfortunate confectionized victims when he stabs a cocoon with a bendy straw and drinks the dissolved remains of somebody.   Not looking good for the home team here.

They also discover the balloon containing Debbie, which Dave opens with a well-placed shot.  They've rescued Debbie, but the noise has attracted the entire troupe of klowns, who chase Mike, Dave, and Debbie through the ship.  Dave takes out a few with well-place shots to the nose, but they end up trapped in a large room, surrounded by murderous klowns.

The attack is disrupted by the arrival of the Terenzi brothers, in their truck.  The giant clown head on top briefly confuses the klowns, giving Mike, Dave, and Debbie time to run to the truck.  This sets up for the final battle, as the klown leader, a 20 foot tall klownzilla, appears.  He smashes the ice cream truck, and it burst into flames before the brothers can escape.  Dave tells the others to escape, and starts shooting at klownzilla.

Dave runs out of bullets as the tent begins to lift off.  Klownzilla picks Dave up, preparing to eat him, when Dave, in a last ditch effort, stabs its nose with the pin on his badge. Klownzilla blows up.  Ship blows up.  Mike and Debbie watch the entire population of Crescent Cove go up in a burst of confetti.  Except for the brothers (who hid in the ice cream freezer) and Dave, who managed to get into the klown car.

The end.

Now, Killer Klowns from Outer Space is really an oddly entertaining film.  It's clear that everyone involved in the film was quite aware of what they were making, and seemed to be having a pretty good time doing it.   If you're old enough to remember the late 1980's, you'll find a possibly unsettling familiar feeling settling in when you see the big hair, the leg warmers, the mullets.  If you're not old enough to remember the late 1980's, you can probably look at photos of your parents and get the same feeling.  It's a pretty fun film to watch, especially with a few like-minded friends and some cold beer.

Recommended.

Jay

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¹I'm not certain anyone ever actually asked that question, but the writing/directing/producing team of Charles, Edward, and Stephen Chiodo answered it anyway.

²In the interest of full disclosure, this is pretty much how I see all clowns.  Ever since the incident when I was about six and my mom (at the doctor's suggestion) gave me a dose of NyQuil to settle down a particularly nasty cough.  NyQuil, as I've mentioned, is potent stuff, particularly to a six year old.  It demonstrated its potency by causing me to hallucinate clown faces floating around the room.  To this day, clowns give me the shivers.

³According to IMDB, the victim they find was supposed to have been captured in what was originally intended to be the opening scene of the movie, where he was run off the road by a klown in an invisible car, so he would have already been there when Mike and Debbie find the ship. In the released version, his presence isn't really explained, since so far as we know the farmer was the first victim, and the bit with the invisible car shows up later. Pesky continuity errors.