Carl the Critic: Talks about "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" [Caution: Contains Plot Spoilers]

Experience: Do you want to know what a film critic's favorite kind of movie is? A bad one! Why? because we are film critics and if there is nothing to critique about, it is not worth our time. Bad movies, are a film critics guilty pleasure and not a lot of us will confess this, but believe me when I tell you that we watch bad movies just to rip on every possible thing that makes it a bad movie. Which is also what makes a movie like "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" and all time favorite of film critics. It is by far my least favorite movie ever made (but my favorite kind of movie to talk about.)

I watched the film a few years ago, and felt my IQ drop about 10 points. But let's talk about why I love to hate it so much.

Story: The story is a linear structured... Stop right there! All ready there's a problem. The linear structure (not counting meandering, or branching) is the worst kind of structure for a full length feature. It has one direction and it is very boring. Short films should only have this structure.

Anyway back to the story. It is about aliens who come to earth in a giant circus tent, and who look like clowns, have come to earth to kill people because they have a favorite kind of food that only humans have... Blood. Which raises the question "how did they survive in space?" The clowns have brought with them some special weapons of choice including a ray gun that engulfs a person in a cotton candy cocoon, a gun that shoots pop corn that chases people and if you want can turn into clown faced monsters, balloon animals that act like real animals, and an amazing (by "amazing" I mean "cheesy") talent of making shadow puppets of Tyrannosaurus Rex that eats a group of people. There are several other things the clowns do which are extremely corny and gruesome.

The main characters are these two teens who are on their first date, and they discover the clowns and try to warn people but everyone thinks they are telling lies (you know like in every single horror film ever made since "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920)). But after everyone begins to die, then it is up to these melding kids and their dog (just kidding there is no dog) to find a way to stop these clowns from eating everyone in town. But they are proved harder to kill than a normal human clown, so they must find out how to kill these clowns first.

Critique: This movie is calls itself a horror comedy, and has been deemed a cult classic. But this movie, is just not very good. I think the reason that it has reached cult status is because think it's so bad people need to see for themselves how bad it is. The dialogue is jarring and sounds like what a third grade kid would write. In the first encounter with the clowns in their circus tent, the two teen aged "lovers" are being chased by pop corn, and the girl yells "why pop corn?" and the boy responds with "because their CLOWNS that's why?" Yes only a clown would use pop corn. But wait who associates clowns with pop corn? I guarantee that when I say clowns the first thing that comes to mind is either "a group of people getting out of a tiny car" or those creepy guys who live in your night mares. If the movie were about the "Killer Koncession Stand People from Outer Space" this might make more sense.

This movie works differently for different people, either you think it is funny or scary depending on if you have a bad case of coulrophobia or not. This is not how a horror comedy is suppose to work, you need to balance the two out, or make the movie just a horror or just a comedy. And if you do choose the film to be a horror, comedy, or both you need emotion for the main characters. Other wise you can never relate to them and their problems. Through out this film there is not one person you truly feel for except the clowns, and the feeling for them is usually sickness because they are so disgusting and horrible. When you write a script you need to figure out who the "Best Character" is (they don't need to be good, but they need to be the character that people will like the most.) There is no one like that or at least there is not an obvious character to like the most. There needs to be a good solid structure for a movie of feature length. Although many argue that a movie can be linear and feature length and still be a good movie, I believe that linear is one of the basic structures that people use as a tool to create a structure that is more interesting. It is from the linear structure that we get meandering, branching and even the "explosive" structures that are better suited for longer stories. Structures like "linear" and "cyclical" are basic structures used in films of a shorter subject. Linear means that there is a single conflict and a single solution, and they go from point A to point B. Simple and short. Many films like "Killer Klowns" have made the mistake of getting from point A to B and thought "this is too short lets stretch it out a bit. And that just makes the movie long, and slow.

Other than one minor interesting plot devise, this film is really not very good. I recently went to the store one day and saw the DVD, and the tag line was "There is no ice cream in outer space!"... What? Was ice cream in the movie at all and I missed it? What do clowns have to do with ice cream? But I guess the point is that they're referring to the ice cream truck that the teen aged heroes drive around to stop the clowns.

Overall: This film gets the lowest rating on any film I have ever rated, including such films as "Cannibal Holocaust," "Repo: the Generic Opera," "The Gamer," and "The Hottie and the Nottie." So low that it is less than zero. I gave this film a - ∞.9 (that's negative infinity point nine) out of 10. It's so bad that it doesn't even get a real number! But for those who do like it for what ever reason you are free to comment below why "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" was your generations "Macbeth."

Spoilers: Not a lot of spoilers for this film, because I can say anything about the ending and everyone with an IQ in the triple digits would say "Yeah, saw that coming!" We all know that the clowns are all killed, and that there is a big clown is named "JoJo." But the biggest spoiler comes to how they kill the clowns and this is something interesting, and yet stupid.

Have you ever noticed that all clowns seem to have a big red nose? Have you ever wondered what it is used for? Neither have I really, but just in case you do "Killer Klowns" has your answer. Apparently it is where the clown is most vulnerable and if you destroy the nose, you kill the clown.

This is discovered by the young police officer who shoots one of them in the nose and it immediately has a spastic fit before it explodes. The very last boss, JoJo, is killed when he eats a police squad car with the young police officer in it, and the police officer manages to get to the clowns nose and use his deputy badge to cut it from the inside out!

If you ever think that what I have described is what you want to see, take my advise; watch it with a friend, hopefully you both can make fun of it and at least you wont have to suffer by yourself.