A Real Pie to the Face

1950s horror is, by most standards now, pretty darn cheesy. Even if the stories are still good (and with the way Hollywood writers understood the science of the era and what to expect of the future, they generally aren’t now) the special effects and general design can’t usually keep up with the sci-fi needs of the story. A lot of films of the era suffer, and seem nearly unwatchable, simply due to the fact that, now, their simple, often blunt special effects can’t hold a candle to what modern audiences are used to.

At the same time, though, it does make these films perfect for a kind of throwback genre all their own. Think of it as a kind of 1950s revival, not in setting but content, where characters in a modern (at least for the era of the new film) world are forced to confront a cheesy and corny monster from outer space (because all the threats of the world were coming to Earth from space, whether aliens or atomic bombs). It’s normal people thrown into an abnormal situation that would be far more at home at a Drive-In back in 1858 than on the silver screens of 1988.

That’s the setup, in effect, for Killer Klowns from Outer Space, a purposeful send-up of classic horror films of the 1950s, designed, written, and directed by a trio of siblings, the Chiodo brothers, all to have a great time with a cheesy concept. And you can understand the thought process behind it: 1950s horror was cheesy, but still had some scares to it. Clowns are cheesy, but can also be scary. So what if you mash both of them together for a silly and frightful experience? It’s a good idea in concept, and the film sometimes even achieves a certain level of ghoulish horror from its Killer Klowns. Unfortunately, as fun as the idea is, the movie can’t quite find the right tone to be a truly great horror-comedy smash.

Mike Tobacco (Grant Cramer) and Debbie Stone (Suzanne Snyder) are on a date up at the Top of the World (their town’s version of Lover’s Lane), they spot a shooting star that lands out in the fields of Farmer Gene Green (Royal Dano), so they go to investigate. The farmer also sees it, and goes with his dog to find out what happened. He finds a circus tent with no entrance, and then his dog disappears before he, too, disappears. Mike and Debbie get there and find a way inside the tent, which Mike wants to investigate. But once they’re in it’s revealed that this isn’t a circus and they really shouldn’t be in there. The tent is really a spaceship, and it’s populated by Killer Klowns who want to murder and cause chaos in their quiet little town.

At Debbie’s suggestion they go to see Dave Hansen (John Allen Nelson), a beat cop working at the local P.D. who is also Debbie’s ex-boyfriend. They tell him about the space tent and the killer klowns and everything they saw but, as you would expect, Dave doesn’t believe them. He sends Debbie home while taking Mike out to the farmer’s land to verify everything and, when nothing is there, he arrests Mike for making the whole thing up. Soon, though, people start dying and the evidence of killer klowns really begins to build up, eventually forcing Dave to acknowledge Mike was right… but only after Debbie gets captured by the klowns. Now the guys are going to have to work together to defeat the klowns before everyone, Debbie included, ends up dead.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a complete throwback kind of film. It apes the style of so many other 1950s and 1960s sci-fi stories, with some existential threat from above coming to a little town in the middle of nowhere before causing all kinds of chaos. We’re talking films like The Blob, The Giant Gila Monster, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and more. And, really, the threat here isn’t any more or less silly (at least in concept) than many of those other films. How much scarier are clowns in comparison to, say, a giant killer lizard? I’d argue the clowns have the edge on that one.

The thing with Killer Klowns from Outer Space, though, is that the film invests very heavily on the silliness of the clowns to the detriment of the scares. Clowns, by default, are scary. Even though they’re meant to be fun and silly, comedy for kids, there’s something off-putting and weird about clowns. If you put them in a horror movie (like, say, It), the creepiness of these performers pays off. But instead of really using that inherent creepiness of clowns to the benefit of the film, the movie goes hard on making the clowns silly and it ruins the horror that could come.

There are a number of sequences where the clowns just act funny and not scary. They go around performing tricks, like using a balloon dog to sniff out prey, or creating shadow puppets to gobble up people, or having eight clown aliens come out of a single tiny car, and it’s not scary at all. These are moments where the creators clearly said, “what do clowns do,” and so they had them perform these gags. You aren’t frightened, but the bits also aren’t funny enough to really make you laugh. It all lands right in the middle in that zone that’s not interesting at all.

This stands in contrast to the few moments that actually are scary and show how the film could have worked. The clowns capture people and turn them into cotton candy, and when the candy is torn away it reveals the dissolved bodies within. There’s a sequence where the clowns throw pies at a security guard, and the pies are made with acidic foam, melting the guy. Plus, the general makeup of the clowns (which is really quite good) is scary. There’s horror that could have been had in this movie if the creators had pushed for it a little more. The Chiodo Brothers are special effects professionals. They knew what they were doing. They went for cheese.

Look, I get the movie. I think it does have its charms. It’s an amusing little lark of the film that works mostly on vibes for its throwback style. As someone that has watched a lot of horror from across the various eras, I can respect the dedication the Chiodo Brothers put into this work, really making a proper homage to the sci-fi horror films of old. It hits that same mark, with the same kind of horror, in the same ways, in that blend of goofy and cheesy that marked the films of that bygone era. That was their goal, I assume, and they succeeded at it.

But, at the same time, modern audiences aren’t going back to watch The Blob or The Giant Gila Monster or even Invasions of the Body Snatchers from the 1950s and 1960s. Those films feel old and aged and just aren’t as fun to watch anymore. But Killer Klowns from Outer Space has style to spare and it really could have found its mark perfectly with just a slight change in tone. Right now it operates like a 1950s horror film with that bit of corniness, but it doesn’t provide much reason to revisit. With a little tweak to tone, and a bit more in the way of horror, though, this film really could have nailed it as both a throwback and a real horror film. It hits one mark but not the other, and that’s what keeps it from true greatness.