Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988) Reviewed By Anubis Cast & Crew credits Coulrophobia will always find its way into any "Top Ten Phobias" list. A lot of people think that clowns are freaky, terrifying creatures for whatever reason and face painted entertainers in floppy shoes strike more fear into them than even yours truly, the grim specter of death. I picture John Rambo, polishing up his Bowie (not an innuendo, oddly enough) while staring down the barrel of an M-16, his steely gaze making his captor's knees knock as the Green Beret seems unphased by the concept of his own mortality... only to scream like a woman and cower in the fetal position when Richard Crenna descends from the trees to save him, decked out from head to toe like G.I. Bozo. Clowns as a general statement are the stuff of nightmares, but when they get the horror treatment, you might wanna make sure you have a package of Depends on hand for your friends so they don't besmirch your new sofa when you put on It, Clownhouse or today's movie, the classic '80s horror-comedy Killer Klowns From Outer Space. After doin' it in a rubber raft in the back of his station wagon, our hero Mark Tobacco (who stole his hair and sweater from Jeffrey Combs circa From Beyond) and his main squeeze Debbie Stone (she’s uhm, blond like Barbara Crampton in From Beyond…) are in for the adventure of a lifetime... and I don't mean unplanned parenthood. The duo witnesses some type of spacecraft crash landing not far from the local make out spot. The first to find the crash site is goofy old farmer Gene Green (Royal Dano!) and his faithful bloodhound Pooh Bear, but instead of a downed alien lander they find an eerily glowing circus tent! Sure enough, the aliens have landed... and they're big twisted space mutant clowns with carnival themed weaponry! Obviously PT Barnum wasn't the marketing genius everybody thought he was and he apparently stole his beloved money making circus ideas from extra-terrestrials who took a wrong turn at Albuquerque... also know as the Crab Nebula. Mike and Deb are the next to investigate the Klowns lair, and so begins a wacky modern day (as in twenty years ago) incarnation of those classically wacky "teens vs. alien monsters" sci-fi comedy genre flicks from the far gone '50s and '60s, as college students (in their thirties) are expected to halt planetary conquest by galactic jesters because the local constabulary won't believe a word their teen-addled brains think up. The crazy Technicolor demons hassle the local populace, trapping them in giant cotton candy cocoons, hunting them down with balloon born tracking dogs, punching the heads of off ruffians, tryin' to get their Gacey on with members of the town grade school crowd, getting into non-car car wrecks, feeding people to the carnivorous clown snakes hatched from popcorn "eggs", swallowing crowds whole with shadow puppet dinosaurs, strangling people with party favors, turning folks into zombie ventriloquist dummies, occasionally snatching people in giant balloons, melting innocent security guards into primordial ooze with flesh-eating custard pies, all the while cackling like hyena demons spawned of Satan's unholy butthole ("unbuttholy"?) caught in a feedback loop, and generally pissing off the local hothead cop Officer Mooney, played to perfection by the always grumpy and sinister John "Animal House" Vernon! Will our heroes be able to prevent grease paint Armageddon, or should the rest of us enroll for the next semester of clown college? Insert calliope music here. There's really no story here and the human characters are all very generic, but it's the execution of the movie that makes it what it is. The special effects and gore effort are well done like a Double Whopper and the design of the Klowns is the stuff of bad movie legend! If you've seen the movie or you've at least come across a few stills or clips of the merry-makers in question, you'll never forget where they came from. I'd like to hear horror stories about stupid parents who rented this for their kids without check the 'R' rating first, thinking that their loin fruit would love the silly clowns only to traumatize them for life when it’s all over. Actually, if I ever reproduce in this lifetime, I'm going to put together a version of this movie with the curse words replaced with Dr. Forester approved language like "poopy" and "knucklehead" and bombard my brats with it at an early age. It's too cool to lose more potential viewers to something stupid like Coulrophobia, especially when there are so many more realistic terrors out there, like centipedes, nuclear war, dwarf porn, and shoe polish... don't ask. The saddest part about Killer Klowns is watching it and realizing that the Chiodo brothers (pronounced "Key-o-doh") would go on to do NOTHING EVER AGAIN... well, that's not entirely true. Sure, they did puppeteering work and a little makeup FX work here and there, but it's disappointing to see the creators of a 1980s b-horror staple never successfully take up the pen and camera again. If Charles Band is reading this (and not hiding out from his creditors yet again), halt production on your next 7 or 8 crappy ideas and put that money toward hiring Chuck, Ed and Stephen Chiodo to get back together and make another movie! Fans would flock to buy another Chiodo flick and it'd dig Full Moon out of the crap vortex you've buried it in over the last decade. I'd start a petition, but I'm really fucking lazy and would rather waste my time making bad jokes at the expense of Steven Seagal's career (yes, before you ask, I am indeed in cahoots with the CIA). Should anybody else out there would like to start up a petition though, you can count on Ivana Tinkle's signature! The Moral of the Story: Just because you promise a couple of fat chicks all the ice cream they can eat, it doesn't mean they'll be sampling your "Lick a Stick". Now dipping your dick in milk chocolate and sprinkles, that's another thing... Oh, and always remember that when you're in Mooney's jail, you ain't got no rights.