Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Tagline: It’s craazzy!

Curiosity: When I see clowns killing old people with shadow puppets, I tend to pay attention.

Plot: Crescent Cove is but a simple town, where the youths make out 24/7 and the cops are dicks for no particular reason. But life there is soon changed when man-eating aliens who just so happen to look like clowns show up in a spaceship that just so happens to look like a circus tent with a plan that just so happens to look like genocide. These “Killer Klowns,” if you will, are hell bent on capturing the populace so they can drink their blood. Or something. I’m not totally sure how the process works, but it involves coating people in cotton candy. Deadly cotton candy. Also in the clowns’ arsenal: deadly pies, deadly popcorn, deadly blowouts, and inconvenient balloons (They’re inconvenient because they trap you, ya see). Standing in their way are police officer Dave, his ex-girlfriend Debbie, and her fairly useless new boyfriend Mike… also two ice cream salesmen who like to boff clowns. They try to warn as many of the locals as they can of Killer Klowns, but few heed their words. Apparently no one in Crescent Cove has heard of John Wayne Gacy Jr.

Thoughts: I think the film is perhaps best summed up by this bit of dialogue, in which Debbie asks Mike why the Klowns shoot popcorn out of their guns:

Debbie: Why popcorn?

Mike: Because they’re clowns!

If you can’t get behind that explanation, you’ll never understand the deranged beauty of this movie. While the premise wears a little thin by the end, Killer Klowns is a hilarious sci-fi/horror/comedy mash-up, filled with bizarre clown jokes a-plenty.

The best character from the movie isn’t a clown, though. It’s Officer Mooney (John Vernon. You might know him from Acapulco H.E.A.T….or Animal House, I guess). Mooney is irrationally angry all the time. He arrests college students for no reason. He drinks on the job. And he refuses to help anyone, including his partner Dave, because he thinks they’re conspiring to drive him craazzy with their speak of Killer Klowns. From Outer Space. And he’s got a line that’s the best example of foreshadowing I can think of. Go Mooney, you intolerant bastard.

Killer Klowns is surprisingly faithful to its premise, creating new gags about murderous clowns throughout. It’s one of those flicks that just seems to have always been meant to be a cult film. I think catching it on cable by accident is the perfect way to experience the movie for the first time, as it is a mighty 90-minute collection of WTF moments.

Reflection: I can’t believe the Dickies wrote the theme song. And I can’t believe the theme song even exists. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure the ice cream guys had sex with female alien clowns. WTFs and commendations all around.