Search - Killer Klowns from Outer Space (Special Edition) [Blu-ray] on Blu-ray

B.J. W. (analogkid01) from CHICAGO, IL
Reviewed on 7/5/2025...

In 2004, the Chiodo Brothers (Stephen, Charles, and Edward) contributed their puppetry skills to Trey Parker's "Team America: World Police," a film which ranks in the upper-echelon of all-time comedy greats, alongside Airplane!, A Fish Called Wanda, The Big Lebowski, Superbad, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Walk Hard, and Blazing Saddles.

Why then am I reviewing a 1988 film called "Killer Klowns from Outer Space"?

Variety, I suppose. Gimme a break, even I have my limits when it comes to weepy family melodramas!

Killer Klowns is the Chiodo Brothers' first feature-length film, having cut their teeth on the first two "Critters" movies and numerous short films in the late 60s/early 70s. And it's really...quite bad. Shocker, I know.

You can forgive a silly premise and campy execution - Rocky Horror is a cult classic despite these elements (or maybe because of them). Killer Klowns is also a cult film but not nearly to the same degree of popularity or enjoyment - theater companies don't put on revivals of Killer Klowns. People don't don rubber noses and go to midnight screenings of Killer Klowns.

What separates Killer Klowns from Rocky Horror is poor pacing and clunky editing. It commits three fundamental errors:

1) Too much "air" between lines of dialogue. It's a tightrope walk, admittedly - you don't want actors stepping on each others' lines, but you also don't want to make it sound like the actor can't remember their next line and it take them a second to recall it. Killer Klowns falls into this latter trap.

2) Leaving too many frames at the start or end of a scene. Again, another tightrope walk - you want scenes to breathe and you don't want to rush from one scene to the next (looking at you, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet), but the editing in Killer Klowns feels like they knew the movie was too short and needed to pad it out a bit. Every frame helps!

3) Lack of variety in framing of shots. This is an easy trap to fall into when making an effects-heavy but low-budget film - they couldn't afford to build huge Tim Burton-esque sets, so every shot is a close-up or medium showing just enough set decoration to *imply* a huge Tim Burton-esque set without actually showing it. There are a couple of wides, but they're too few and far between.

And then of course there's a patina of 80s humor - racial stereotypes, boob jokes, etc. Pretty low-brow stuff that didn't help the situation at all.

There's also the question of what these killer clowns from outer space want. And why are they even clowns in the first place? Like maybe the humans could've used some creative circus-based defense against the cl--oh, whatever.

All the creativity is wrapped up in the clown costumes, but there wasn't enough left over to make a good movie.

Grade: straight D

Oh, P.S. - I would be remiss to not mention the presence of John Vernon, better known as Dean Wormer from Animal House. Due to his performance in this film I'm putting him on double-secret probation. Acting in 80s B movies is no way to go through life, son.

P.P.S. - I'm reading that the Chiodos are hard at work on "The Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3D." We'll see what filmmaking lessons they've learned in the last 30 years.

Samuel K. (Solvanda)
Reviewed on 11/25/2018...

Know any kids who deserve sleeping with the lights on?

This original film is getting a new sound track for it's 30th anniversary...and possibly what is being termed: a 'requel'.