By contributor Patrick Zabriskie
Stars: ★★☆☆
Summary: Quite frankly, ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’, sounds like an idea that would look good on paper, a nice little parody of classic 50’s B horror movies. But to be honest, it’s just kind of weird.
Patrick thinks this movie is weird. So do I.
Review: The plot, or some semblance their of, consists of aliens resembling clowns (or “Klowns” as the title calls them) flying to earth in a giant circus tent with the sole purpose of terrorizing the inhabitants of a small town. Anyways, all kinds of crazy antics goes down, as the Klowns have the ability to comically manipulate the laws of physics to their whim, but, like many horror movies, these deadly foes are powerless against the might of quick thinking teenagers. How does one kill a Klown? Why, just pop his nose of course, and he dies.
Weird—yes. Funny and/or Scary—Not really.
In fact, that’s the real problem with this movie is its not really very comical or scary. Given that it’s a movie about Killer Klowns, it sort of has to be one or the other if not both; but no, its not. All the dialogue is usually either really boring or some awful pun.The only thing really laughable about this movie is how bad it is, but even then you sort of have to appreciate the art of 50’s B movies in order to understand where this movie draws its influence. However, I don’t think a whole lot of people, especially now, will appreciate that. The Klowns also don’t look scary– they look clowns– and I never bought into the Stephen King idea of using them as a horror device in modern literature.
One note though about the music; it’s unusually good for a movie of this style. A nice 80’s guitar mimics a classic circus diddy, and it sounds quite pleasing.
In the years since the internet, this movie has developed quite a cult following, but personally, I won’t have this flick make a dummy out of me.
The Silver Mirror 