Killer Klowns from Outer Space

What in blue blazes? A streaking comet flashes across the sky and lands in the nearby woods, attracting a hick farmer, his dog Pooh-Bear and the attention of aging college students at Make Out Point, known here as Top of the World.

Amorous co-eds Mike and Deb, who’d been downing champagne in an inflatable dinghy in the backseat, decide to go off and investigate and ask the inevitable question, “what’s a circus tent doing way out here?”

Killer Kowns from Outer Space; a great title that delivers everything it promises.

Anyway, the big-top is not some kind of “new wave European fantastique” as Mike puts it. Nor is it Cirque Du Soleil even if it came from our solar system or beyond.

They investigate inside and meander about this M.C. Escher-esque Barnum and Bailey tent, stumbling upon poor Joe Lombardo, who’s dead and spun into a cotton candy cocoon of sugary death.
(Editor’s note: this is the second best use of a Really Awful Movies critic’s surname in popular culture after Professor Lombardo, Marge’s art teacher with impossibly low standards on The Simpsons).

Sheriff Curtis Mooney of nearby Crescent Cove California, (John Vernon) a gruff Gene Hackman type is just sick and tired of all these college kids partying it up in his town and he mocks colleague Officer Dave Hanson hen the duo run into the police station trying to explain what they just saw.

Of course, they’re paid no heed.

Meanwhile the giant Killer Klowns are venturing outside of their big-top and shooting the townsfolk with giant cotton candy laser guns before taking Deb captive in a balloon.

We half-recognized Mike (Grant Cramer) from his role as Derek in New Year’s Evil. Killer Klowns is a pretty fun flick with a truly catchy killer soundtrack. There’s also one of the best decapitation scenes in film history.

***1/2 (out of 5)

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