Killer Klowns from Outer Space

"Killer Klowns from Outer Space" is a 1988 horror comedy film brought to us by The Chiodo brothers Charles and Stephen Chiodo. It follows the lives of several teens who live in a small town that finds itself under attack by an army of alien Klowns hell bent on destruction! The film centers around a young couple, Mike and Debbie, and how their friends try to stop this grease painted threat.

"Killer Klowns from Outer Space" is one of my all time favorite movies and to this day the Klowns in it stand as my absolute favorite creatures from any movie I have ever seen. One of the great things about this movie is how creative every aspect of it is. The premise and title are so outlandish but you get exactly what youd expect from it, and it ends up being one of the most fun movies that I truly enjoy revisiting every single time I watch it. Unlike the manufactured B-Movies we get today, this one truly doesn't try too hard to be funny and never takes itself too seriously and it becomes an absolute treasure to the genre.



The Klowns and the rest of the special effects are fantastic and just a ton of fun. I'm one of those nerds who knows each Klown by name, but for the sake of not writing a novel I try to focus on the main Klowns we see prominently in the film, but first

SPOILER ALERT

The movie starts off with various shots throughout the city. As we see various people go about their lives we are led to a farmer who sees a shooting star he believes to be Hailey's comet, so he takes his dog poohbear to go try to dig it up. He goes to investigate and finds a giant circus tent that he excitedly goes to examine. While looking he notices that poohbear is nowhere to be found  and after being shocked by a chord coming out of the tent he is attacked by the first clown we see in the film. Jumbo!

Jumbo is probably the most active of all the clowns in this movie, he honestly has some of the creepiest moments throughout the film. He later tries to lurer a small child out of a family pizza restaurant so that he can presumably kill her with a giant mallet. He also has arguably the best kill of this entire movie where he takes out the town sheriff, Mooney, and turns him into a puppet. This scene really freaked me out as a kid, especially how he mimics Mooney's voice and the gross wet sound that comes from his hand as he takes it out of Mooney's back.

After seeing Jumbo the next clown we see is Rudy, when the main couple of Mike and Debbie head into the circus tent space ship the see him fiddling with the controls. and narrowly escape him when he chases them with a popcorn gun. Rudy is a fun clown and we see his various antics throughout the movie including hiding in plain site in front of a drug store, posing as an animatronic figure. He also later loots that same drugstore with my favorite Klown, Shorty.

Assisting Rudy in trying to catch both Mike and Debbie as they flee the ship is Spikey. His first moment in the movie is where he tries to help Rudy track down the couple by making a balloon animal dog that comes to life and acts as a bloodhound, trying to trace the scent of the two teens. Later we get a great scene where Spikey puts on a puppet show in the town, using it as a ruse to bait a young man and zap him with the cotton candy cocoon ray gun.

After Mike and Debbie escape into town we see some other Klowns such as Bibbo, Rudy, Jumbo, and Shorty all head into town as we get the awesome Killer Klowns March playing in the background and then a montage with all the various clowns abducting different people.

The next Klown we see is my all time favorite, Shorty. Shorty is the smallest of the Killer Klowns and is absolutely adorable! They also have some of the best moments throughout the film including robbing the drug store with Rudy, popping out of a pizza box to zap someone, and my favorite knocking a biker's head off with an uppercut. Shorty is easily the fan favorite of many people who adore this movie as much as I do.

Next in the invasion we see Slim attack a driver on the highway by ramming into him with his invisible car. This scene is a lot of fun because we see Slim literally sitting in midair pretending to drive a car repeatedly ramming into another car until it veers off the road. Slim also disposes of a group waiting by a bus stop by means of a killer shadow puppet. Legit this Klown kills a bunch of people by eating them with a T-Rex shadow puppet, its fantastic!

Throughout this invasion there is a really fun Klown car gag where 5 of the Klowns come out of a tiny car and throw acid pies that end up melting a security guard, as well as some of the Killer Klown popcorn that sprouts clown heads and attacks various people. Debbie also gets captured by Slim during the chaos and our heroes end up infiltrating the Klown spaceship to save her. 

This is where we see the two Klown ladies: Rosebud (pictured left) and Daisy (pictured right) Their appearance is brief, but they make for a really funny gag when the Terenzi brothers, who throughout the movie have been trying to pick up women with an ice cream truck, find themselves locked in a room with them, only to return later covered in kisses and ripped clothing.

This brings us to the final Klown I will be talking about here, JoJo or as most people know him Klownzilla. After rescuing Debbie, the rest of the crew finds themselves surrounded by Klowns, as the Terenzi brothers burst into the room using the mic from their ice cream truck to scare the Klowns into leaving their friends alone. This seems to work, until we see the massive Jojo Klown pop down from the ceiling and start attacking them. This Klown was also played by Charles Chiodo, making for a nice little Easter egg. Sadly Jojo meets his demise while attacking officer Dave Hansen and getting his nose popped by his badge.

"Killer Klowns from Outer Space" remains to this day be one of my all time favorite movies. I always find myself re-watching this one and loving it just as much as the first time I bought this at the local drugstore when I was about 10.  This movie is just such a great exploration in how much fun filmmaking can be. The Chiodo brothers always make light and fun horror content and you can tell how much they truly love their craft in each frame of the film. "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" earns a solid 5/5 on the Patented Monster Meter! 

Just remember friends:

In space, no one can eat Ice Cream!