Every film buff should make some time in his or her life for watching trash cinema as a corrective to getting too immersed in pretension and worthiness. Apart from light relief, such films help a critic appreciate real quality on those all too infrequent occasions when it appears. So I am always prepared to leave my brains by the door, as long as I can pick them up again on the way out.
It's been a while since I last viewed this cult gem directed by Stephen Chiodo (his sole directing credit) and produced by his two brothers. All three are still in the industry but somewhat down the food chain, mainly involved with special effects. It's the brightly told tale of giant clowns with scary teeth arriving in a small town to harvest its inhabitants by wrapping them in cotton candy/candy floss, so they can suck their blood through funny straws when they feel a little peckish. Clowns, like dolls, are pretty frightening presences, I think, to the easily unnerved and the characters in this movie who are tempted to react positively to them soon learn to their detriment otherwise.
The clowns dispatch their victims by a variety of comedic means including popcorn-loaded guns (where the leftover popcorn grows into miniature clowns), shadow animals that spring to life to devour, and a surfeit of custard pies to bury the unwary. Despite the theme, it is not really a horror movie but more an amusing and affectionate throwback to the alien-threat films of the '50s. The film boasts a largely no-name cast apart from veteran actor John Vernon as the pig-headed local sheriff and old-timer Royal Dano as the first victim, but seeing that it was probably made on a shoestring budget, there would have been no point finding some better-known teens to defeat the baddies.
Article comments
1 - RJ Elliott
Look, we live in a massive universe.
This universe contains hundreds of billions of galaxies.
Each galaxy contains hundreds of millions of stars.
Most of these stars (even in binary systems) have planets orbiting them.
A sizable percentage of those stars have rocky planets orbiting them (and not just gaseous monsters like Jupiter).
Some of these rocky planets are large enough to have gravity hold an atmosphere.
Some of those planets are in the proper range to have water in liquid form.
A decent percentage of these planets are suitable for life.
On many of those planets where the conditions are right, simple single-celled life forms (like bacteria or algae) will arise.
On some of those planets, this life will evolve into multi-cellular life.
Some small percentage of those planets will see life forms migrate onto land (lichens and grasses).
A few of those will even see multi-cellular animal life thrive on dry land.
A tiny percentage of those will remain stable long enough so that intelligent, sentient life forms have evolved.
A small percentage of those will have the natural resources available that allow this intelligent life to utilize fire, build machines, and even venture into space.
A miniscule percentage of those will survive long enough to colonize their solar system.
Some of them will explore their entire galaxy.
And a small handful will advance to a point where they are able to visit the farthest reaches of the universe.
And they might just visit us.
So.
Who are YOU to say this alien species isn't comprised of popcorn-shooting, pie-throwing, killer klowns (from outer space)???
;-)
2 - RJ Elliott
Okay...what I wrote in comment #1 was damn funny...so of course no one responds... :-/
3 - duane
Obviously it was because you were making fun of a very serious piece of art. Is nothing sacred with you?
4 - -E
Congrats! This article has been selected as one of this week’s Editors’ Picks.
5 - RJ Elliott
Yippie! :)