Klowns From Space!

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is (as the poster suggests) a "craazzy" movie -- not always a good one, but certainly diverting.

Foisted upon the world in 1988, this sci-fi spoof begins in the obligatory American small town which exists in the cinema if nowhere else as the usual gang of teenagers (as usual played by actors much too old) snog and grope until an interstellar threat drops in and begins to mangle, molest, and murder them.

The first part of the movie seems clearly intent on evoking The Blob, the classic 50's monster classic starring Steve McQueen. Teens spot a meteor land which is first found by an old man (the masterful Royal Dano who is largely wasted here) and his dog and they find a weird circus tent in the middle of the woods. Soon enough deadly clown-looking aliens emerge and begin to use a host of clownish gimmicks to kidnap and kill and store the locals. It appears the alien "Klowns" consume humans, at least once said humans have been brewed up properly inside pods that resemble cotton candy. We see a ton of twists on clown tricks and that's the core of the movie.

Where it falls down is in giving us anyone to root for. The "hero" is such a bore that I didn't care for a second what happened to him, and his best girl, who also dated the local sheriff it seemed, was only slightly more sympathetic. No human in this movie is given an ounce of time to become sufficiently developed to allow anything approximating empathy to well up in the audience. They are all of them, each and everyone, merely fodder for the death-dealing gimmicks of the "Klowns.

So it's funny at times, even mildly ironic, but the movie could've been really a bit scary if the directors had given even a few seconds over to true character development.

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