Killer Klowns From Outer Space (4½ Stars)

This is an incredible film. If you only see it once, you'll never forget it. It will leave an impression on you, whether you like it or not.

Many people are scared of clowns. It took me many years to understand it. As a child, and even as an adult, I always thought clowns were funny. Even after seeing Stephen King's "IT" in the late 1990's I didn't see anything scary about clowns in general. For me Pennywise was an exception, an alien abusing the image of a clown. My second wife (we married in 2002) told me she was scared of clowns. I found that amusing. After that other friends, all of them women, told me that they were scared of clowns. Female hysteria? It wasn't until 2010, maybe later, that I sat down and looked at a typical clown's face. Yes, I can see why they're scary. It's the smile that does it. Under normal circumstances, a smile shows that a person is friendly, someone to be trusted. By having a smile painted on, the purpose is the opposite: the smile is used to conceal a person's emotions. It's scary to think that evil intentions can be hidden behind a friendly smile.

My grandson was already scared of clowns when he was three. That's the reaction of a normal child. The fact that I liked clowns as a child shows that I was lacking emotional judgement. I'm the same today. I trust everyone. It's easy to take advantage of me.

The clowns in this film aren't even human. They're aliens travelling across the universe, making a brief stop on Earth to stock up on food supplies. We humans are their food. They kill a few hundreds of us and carry our bodies to their spaceship before they leave. They use a multi-coloured ray gun which simultaneously kills us and wraps us in a cocoon of candy floss. The cocoon is probably necessary to keep our bodies fresh until they reach the next planet.

The aliens look like clowns. Their space ship has the form of a circus tent. Maybe we can explain this. It could be that when they visit a planet they tap into the inhabitants' primal fears and take on an appropriately scary appearance. That would make sense, but I say forget it! The film isn't supposed to make sense. The aliens are exaggerated caricatures of the clowns we know, designed to make us laugh.

It's successful in this respect. The clowns made me laugh. The film is almost perfect. The only thing that could have improved it would have been making it scarier. The film is so hilarious from beginning to end that I just couldn't tremble when I looked at the clowns. They didn't make me jump. The killings didn't shock me, and there was no suspense.

I'm surprised that after all these years no sequel has been made. Anyone with good money sense should have made "Killer Klowns 2" in 1990 at the latest. The rights to "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" have recently been purchased by the American SyFy channel. Could that open the way to a sequel? Maybe. Or maybe it will just mean another 10 years of discussing round and round in circles.

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