In his first inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke the immortal words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." It was an inspiring message for a country going through tough times. Unfortunately, it is also complete bullshit. There are plenty things to fear aside from fear itself: brain cancer, suicide bombers, complete economic collapse, nuclear holocaust, poisonous snakes, the depletion of the ozone layer, Bigfoot attacks, death. You name it, someone is probably afraid of it. Former model and chat show host Tyra Banks is afraid of dolphins, for God's sake. She once told People magazine, "I've been afraid of [dolphins] ever since I was 8 or 9. I have dreams that I am in a pool and there are dolphins bumping me and I'm frightened." A week ago I admitted to having an irrational fear of ventriloquist dummies. I don't know if it's their creepy humanish eyes or their sassy rhetoric, but I just don't trust them.When you think about it though, FDR was right, I mean, if we spent our lives in constant fear we wouldn't get out of bed or leave the house or get together with our friends at Applebee's for neon-colored cocktails and fried cheese sticks. We'd be a nation full of sissies hiding under our beds, whimpering and inhaling dust bunnies. You can't let fear stop you from getting out there and mixing it up, grabbing life by it's tanuki-sized balls and shooting for the stars. C'mon, citizens of Earth, let's grab fear by its lapels and tell it where to go. I declare an end to all irrational fears! Get your ass to Sea World, Tyra! You really are missing out. They put on some wonderful shows.
You know what? I will allow one irrational fear to remain in the hearts and minds of the human race: the fear of clowns. What drives a man to paint his face white, affix a red rubber nose to his fleshy human one, put on canoe-sized loafers, and prance around comically for the so-called amusement of others? There is something lacking in the soul of a clown, something broken. I myself am not afraid of clowns, but I know plenty of people who are, and I understand why. Clowns seem unstable, both mentally and in their personal lives. They always have a sinister grin stretched across their face no matter what. And what does it say about a man or woman who decides to make clowning his/her profession, his/her life? That he/she loves children? No. Enjoys making people happy? Not really, because has a clown ever made you feel happy really? Think back to your childhood. Do you have a lot of clown stories? Joyous clown memories? Do you keep a scrapbook of great clowning moments you've experienced throughout your life? I'm guessing no.
You want to hear my clown memories? 1) The movie version of Stephen King's IT. Remember Pennywise? There's a fun clown. 2) The demonic clown decal I once saw spanning the entire rear window of a young Hispanic man's car. I don't know how he slept at night knowing that thing was waiting in the garage. 3) That episode of Mtv's True Life where the poor girl has to live in a house with two parents who force their clown lifestyle on her friends. Those two have got to be the worst parents in America. Stupid clowns!
All I'm trying to say is that I fully understand why some people are terrified of clowns. Is there a way to cure oneself of this fear though? After all, Tyra faced her fears by swimming with dolphins and I've confronted my fear of ventriloquist dummies by becoming inexplicably obsessed with movies and stories about killer puppets. What can the victim of clown trauma do to purge his soul?How about a viewing of Killer Klowns from Outer Space? It does feature some of the most hideous clowns ever committed to film. If you can withstand 88 minutes of mutant space clowns, you can handle any clown that crosses your path guaranteed. Allow me to describe the plot in way more detail than the film deserves.
Like every good sci-fi horror film, our story starts at Make Out Point (referred to as Top of the World in Klowns). Mike Tobacco (?) and Debbie Stone are preparing to make out in the raft (?) Mike keeps inflated in the back of his SUV, when something that resembles a comet flashes overhead. Debbie suggests they drive over the hill and find the shooting star and Mike reluctantly agrees. Instead of finding a crater, the lovebirds discover a circus tent in the middle of the forest. Mike, being the adventuresome douche that he is, suggests they go inside and take a look around. The circus tent turns out to be a UFO filled with rotating doors, buttons that make goofy noises, and an entire room lined with cotton candy cocoons containing the withered corpses of Mike's and Debbie's friends and neighbors.
And who is behind this frightful plot to turn the citizens of Earth into cotton candy cocooned carcasses? Clowns, or rather Klowns, a race of alien beings whose appearance is that of your common Earth clown. It's not enough that these aliens look like clowns however. No, the Klowns have adopted all sorts of pointless Earth-clown accoutrement for their sinister purposes. Along with Cotton Candy Cocoon Guns, the Klowns also wield Popcorn Guns, weapons that pretty much just shoot popcorn everywhere. It gets in your hair and sticks to your sweater. It's annoying rather than deadly. The Klowns also use the delicate art of balloon animal building and shadow puppetry to track and murder their victims. After they are discovered by Mike and Debbie, the Klowns spend the middle portion of the film causing comical havoc, like this:
And this:
Meanwhile, Mike and Debbie ask Dave Hanson, a local police officer and Debbie's ex-boyfriend, and surly Officer Mooney for help. Mooney believes the whole space clown invasion story is an elaborate prank hatched by the Terenzi brothers to sell more ice cream. Dave takes some convincing, but after finding a car at Top of the World covered in cotton candy, he joins Mike in his crusade to stop the clowns. Klowns, dammit! Sorry.
Debbie, who Dave has forced to stay home while the men go clown hunting, discovers the true nature of the popcorn fired at her in the Klown's spaceship when the kernals from her hair come to life, chow down on her dirty laundry, and turn into Klown snakes. More Klown invaders show up at her house, encase her in a balloon, which unlike the cotton candy cocoons keeps vicitims alive, and high tail it to the local amusement park. Dave, Mike, and those wacky Terenzi brothers join forces to save Debbie and defeat the Klowns.Just as before it is easy to infiltrate the Klowns spacecraft and Dave and Mike go about the task of saving their mutual beloved while the Terenzi brothers make-out with two female Klowns, one of which has inflatable breasts that grow right before our eyes. It is strangely erotic and I found myself aroused against my better judgement. I've showered since viewing Killer Klowns and I still feel dirty.
Anyway, our heroes are chased through the State Fair style funhouse that is the Klown's spaceship and eventually come face to face with a giant Klown I'm going to call Klownzilla. Klownzilla tosses the Terenzi brother's rented ice cream van (with the Terenzi brothers aboard, I might add) as if it were a garbage bag full of Kleenex across the room and it explodes, (possibly) instantly killing both Richie and Paul. Klownzilla stomps around and snatches Dave up King Kong-style and Debbie and Mike escape, meeting the state police in the amusement park parking lot as the circus tent UFO takes off for home/another planet to terrorize. Inside, Dave stabs Klownzilla in the nose (the Klown's and the movie's weak spot) and he explodes, taking the ship and every Klown in it with him. Dave miraculously survives however, as do the Terenzi brothers (ugh), and everyone embraces lovingly. Then for some reason the three leads get covered in pie goo and The Dickies terrible "Killer Klowns (from Outer Space)" song plays over the end credits.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space is pure, undiluted, over-the-top, B-grade schlock and, therefore, has earned it's rightful place as one of moviedom's most enduring cult classics. There is nothing about this movie that makes sense or even tries to and that is what makes the whole endeavor glorious. There is a terrific scene in which Dave, Mike, and the Terenzi brothers discuss the possible motivations behind the Klowns' invasion of Earth. A concrete decision is never reached during this conversation or during the movie. And the reason why these alien clowns are wrapping us in cotton candy and sucking our blood is not important. What matters is that there is a character named Mike Tobacco. What matters is that two clowns trash an area drugstore and find themselves confused by simple Earth products such as shaving cream. What matters is that there is a giant Klownzilla! This movie delivers crazy after crazy on top of crazy and never lets up. And unlike other run-of-the-mill alien invasion pictures, Killer Klowns doesn't make you wait forty-five mintues to catch your first glimpse of the alien. We get Killer Klowns about ten minutes in followed by wall-to-wall killer Klown hijinks until the very end. Killer Klowns is dumb, but it's fun and all the Klowns blow up at the end, and that's all people really want from their clown-themed horror films: hundreds of dead clowns.
