killer klowns from outer space [1988]

after a long soul-sucking day at work with the heat outside hovering around 100 F with my walk home exhausting the hell outta me i decided to unwind by watching this flick.  i've seen this movie about a 1000 times & i thought one more viewing won't kill me, right?

the premise is preposterous.  teenagers parked at lover's lane in a beachside CA hamlet [watsonville & santa cruz] gaze out into the starry skies to see a meteor land in the nearby woods.  our brave young lovers dare to find the space rock but instead they chance upon a glowing circus tent.  holy cow!  the circus is in town!  who doesn't love a clown?

yet, these klowns come from another planet.  dressed in the silly garb, large shoes, & props like balloon animals - which they use to make a balloon bloodhound to hunt for prey - these aliens are lethal.  they've come to earth to munch on humans after wrapping them up in a cotton candy cocoon. 

& they would've gotten away with it if it weren't for, you got it, those meddling kids.  how the hell did this movie get financing.  produced, written & directed by the chiodo bros for around two million smackers the script must've read like a stoner's wet dream.  cheech & chong couldn't come up with something so ludicrous in their weed toking days.  

these klowns are fantastic.  they throw flesh-eating pies.  they make shadow puppets that eat people.  they pop a kind of kernel that once popped make little sharp fanged creatures that try to strip the flesh off your bones!  but why the hell would an alien race of killer klowns want to eat stringy, bony people?  when there is fleshier animals on earth to devour?  why ask why.  just sit back & enjoy this dark ride.

i was rooting for the klowns even tho i knew how the moive ends. oh, john vernon - remember him? he played the uptight dean wormer in animal house [1978] - is the only actor you might recognize.  everyone else, especially the comic relief provided by two goofballs as teenage ice cream truck drivers, underact & overemote.  just the kind of performances you expect from this b-movie gem.

the theme song is by the punk band the dickies.  the special fx are quite effective.  the photography, editing & direction are spry as fuck keeping the action moving.  there really is no plot but rather a series of set pieces strung together for the gag of alien killer klowns on a tear thru a CA beach town.  oh, one little tidbit.  a smaller sized klown gets in a rumble with a biker outside of a biker bar.  after the biker makes the little klown cry says to the diminutive alien, 'what you gonna do?  knock my block off?'  in a blink of an eye the klown has boxing gloves on.  one punch was all it took.  the biker's head breaks off his body & sails across the parking lot into a trash can.  that moment alone is worth the price of admission.  & tho the heat abated not a whit, & my exhaustion was still profound, i went to bed feeling a little lighter after watching these klowns do their thing for the thousandth time.