The Killer Klowns are a murderous and malicious species of humanoids that resemble clowns.
The Klowns use a variety of strange, comical, and futuristic tools and weapons in order to harvest Humans for later consumption.
Biology[]
Killer Klowns are humanoids with bulging, sagging white skin, with blue markings around their eyes and red lipstick-like markings around their permanently smiling mouths, which have red cheek-like bumps on the edges of their mouths, making them appear to be typical circus clowns. Additionally, they have different-colored fuzzy hair with different styles, sharp, crooked yellow teeth, and a round, red nose. While these features are constant throughout the entire species, Killer Klowns have wildly variable physical appearances, although always notably taller or shorter than the average Human. Their heads and faces have variable, exaggerated, almost cartoony features, such as enlarged or shrunken craniums, ears of varying size, which are often pointed, and mouths of variable sizes. Their hands resemble cartoon gloves, with tiny fingernails and pudgy fingers. Female Killer Klowns are distinct from males by their body shape, as they have the same features as males otherwise.
Baby Killer Klowns after growing out of their larval form
Their offspring are large litters of popcorn-like larvae, which develop into long-necked creatures that attempt to bite any person nearby. In their larval form, Killer Klowns need a dark environment and food in order to begin moving and growing, although they grow very quickly and can consume Humans as a swarm, even as larvae. In their long-necked juvenile form, they gain a humanoid head which already has hair and sharp teeth, although their humanoid bodies have not developed yet, and their eyes remain closed, presumably until they metamorphosize into an adult. As female Killer Klowns appear to possess breasts, it is possible that juvenile Killer Klowns need some sort of nutrients from their mother at some stage in their life, even though they appear to be able to get out of their larval state without such nutrients.
While the lifespan of Killer Klowns is unknown, they appear able to grow into massive forms, up to 5.5 meters tall, where they become more monstrous and far stronger, although slower. It is unknown if this if this is a natural stage in the lifespan of every Killer Klown, presumably near its end, the result of genetic manipulation, or the result of being higher on some sort of biological hierarchy.
Although they are usually less agile than Humans due to their bulky frames, Killer Klowns have a variety of abilities that allow them to easily overpower adversaries. They possess incredible strength, enough to decapitate Humans with a punch, and can jump high enough to clear multi-story buildings. They have also displayed the ability to control shadows with hand movements, able to create shadow puppets of impossible shapes and turn shadows into physical beings, and can use these physical shadows to shrink multiple humanoids into a size small enough to hold in their hands. Killer Klowns can also harmlessly remove their hands, which strangely appear hollow, and quickly generate new hands. Additional biological traits include the ability to swivel their heads 180 degrees, and female Killer Klowns are able to drastically enlarge their breasts at will.
A Klown crystalizing before exploding
While Killer Klowns seem to feel no pain, easily walking off bullet wounds, car crashes, and more, their weakness is in their noses: if someone shoots or otherwise pierces a Killer Klown's nose, making it pop like a balloon, the Klown will spin rapidly in a green light, appear to crystalize, and explode, with the destruction of their noses being the only time Klowns are visibly in pain. As shown when the giant Jojo the Klownzilla was destroyed, the bigger the Klown, the bigger the explosion, with Jojo's explosion being powerful enough to destroy a Killer Klown spaceship. Despite how vital their noses are to their survival, their noses are quite vulnerable, as the pointed tip of a police badge was able to pierce the nose of a giant Killer Klown. Strangely, Klown noses appear to be the only organ they need to survive, and Klowns also do not seem to have any blood, as when their noses are destroyed or their bodies are pierced, the only thing that comes out are Styrofoam-like and glitter-like substances. It is unknown if the noses of the Killer Klowns are used for respiration, as they do not have any visible nostrils.
Culture and society[]
The Killer Klowns are evil psychopaths that enjoy the taste of humanoid blood, as well as general carnage, mayhem, destruction, and random killing in new and inventive ways, sometimes for mere sadistic pleasure without cocooning the victim. While they prefer capturing and harvesting sapient beings, they also presumably catch other creatures for consumption, such as dogs. Killer Klowns are known to act in typical clownish manners, not immediately attacking, but rather performing mock circus acts and other seemingly harmless pranks that make unassuming members of target species ignore or applaud them, allowing them to easily set themselves up in position for whatever mayhem they have planned. While their incursions begin in this manner, once they have enough members on the ground and have killed enough victims, they begin an outright assault on whatever settlement they entered, rolling armored vehicles down streets while armed Klowns fire at anyone in sight.
The reason for their desire to eat sapient beings is unknown, but they are openly malicious, even outright telling victims that they only want to kill them, and indiscriminately attack civilians, including children and elderly. Killer Klowns make no attempts of communicating or reasoning with members of target species outside of their pranks, mock comedy, and taunts, although they are known to use their voice mimicry abilities to trick victims into letting them get close. Notably, while all known male Killer Klowns were hostile, female Killer Klowns appear to have no interest in killing and do not leave their ships. Surprisingly, female Killer Klowns are willing to get intimate with males of other species, such as Humans, almost immediately after meeting them. The only other Killer Klowns who do not leave their ship to invade planets are giant Killer Klowns, with each ship appearing to carry only one giant, who serves as the leader of the Klown crew, and only directly intervenes if the ship is infiltrated by enemies. For unknown reasons, females of target species are sometimes not immediately killed, but captured alive.
The general aesthetic of their technology, clothing, and other items they use are all circus-themed, painted in bright colors and resembling toys or impracticably comical versions of the regular items. Killer Klowns walk around in an odd manner due to their clown shoes, and have shrieking, different–pitched voices when they speak in their own language, which somewhat resembles English. As giant Killer Klowns command Klown spaceships, Killer Klowns display immense respect and even apparent fear towards any image of a giant clown-like figure, ceasing hostilities and retreating in the presence of one. However, giant Killer Klowns appear to not like their authority being challenged by another giant clown. When consuming victims, Killer Klowns wait for the victims to be fully liquified, and then drink them through silly straws. Killer Klown larvae do not appear to be cared for, instead kept within machines, presumably incubators, and are used as bioweapons.
Technology[]
A Klown larvae cannon
Killer Klown technology and armaments, while appearing harmless and comical, are very dangerous and highly advanced, with their most common armaments being toy-like rayguns, each with a different design. These weapons can kill Humans in one shot, and while the shots leave no external injuries, they cocoon the bodies in a cotton candy-like substance that gradually liquifies the body within into a red, blood-like substance. Other rayguns the Klowns possess instead incase victims inside of giant balloons, which appear to either have no oxygen flow or put victims into stasis, as Humans feel light-headed upon being freed from them. Another notable Killer Klown weapon is a handheld cannon loaded with popcorn larvae, used to spread baby Klowns by shooting them onto fleeing victims. Other Klown weapons include clubs, mallets, and boxing gloves, which do not appear to have advanced technology within them, but Klowns also have access to false pies made out of some sort of acid, which can melt Human bodies when thrown in large quantities, and party whistles which can function as prehensile hands. A notable piece of what is presumably Klown technology are their balloon dogs, which, while resembling balloons, come to life when fully folded, making dog-like sounds and capable of tracking the scent of other species. Klown vehicles, decorated with clown-like designs, include armored tank-like vehicles with vacuums for cocooned victims, clown cars, which, like their Terran equivalents, can fit more occupants within them than one would expect, and are durable enough to survive explosions, and invisible cars that leave only the headlights and driver visible to the Human eye.
A Killer Klown ship taking flight
Killer Klown spacecraft are shaped like giant tops, with red and yellow vertical stripes. When grounded, they drill into the ground, leaving a large crater when they take off again, and when fully grounded, only the upper part of the ships poke out of the ground, making them resemble a typical circus tent. Additionally, several thick cables with blue lights lining them help secure the ships to the ground, resembling the cables of circus tents, which quickly retract when taking off. The cables also deliver a powerful electric shock to anyone who tries to grab them, making them serve as a defense system, although no other armaments are visible on the spacecraft's exterior. Their main entrance is a triangular door, although they can also open up circular holes on their hull with a green flash. Within the ships, there are several bizarre rooms with tubes cluttering their hallways. Doors in Klown spaceships are usually half-tubes that swivel to take Klowns to the next room, and are operated by soft red buttons that make comical honking sounds when pressed, while technology within the ship is operated by a combination of buttons and levers. Random funhouse-like machinery and booby traps are present throughout the ship, like shifting hallways, doors leading to more doors, tunnels shaped like fish, and poles meant to get to lower floors, with a pit holding an alien monster at the bottom of the pole, presumably to kill any unwary intruder. The power core of Klown spacecraft, held in a large chamber, resembles a ball of blue energy. When taking flight, Klown spacecraft spin and glow, and fly with no visible engines, possibly using a reactionless drive. Additionally, they resemble comets when flying.
Notable weapons[]
- Cotton Candy Cocoon/Balloon Ray Pistols
- Acid Pies
- Mallets
- Boxing Gloves
- Popcorn Bazookas
- Bloodhound–like balloon animals
- Paper Whistle
History[]
On a Friday night in 1988, a Killer Klown spaceship crewed by at least 40 Klowns, including a giant captain named Jojo the Klownzilla and at least two females, landed in the woods near a California town known as Crescent Cove, their ship mistaken for a comet as it landed. An elderly Human and his dog soon investigate the ship, and a Klown known as Jumbo opened a porthole on the ship to capture the dog with a net. Jumbo then exited the ship, sneaking up behind the old man as he tried to break into the ship, and killed him with a raygun, cocooning him in cotton candy and taking him into the ship's food storage chamber. Two other Humans, Mike Tobacco and his girlfriend Debbie Stone, later investigated the craft as the Klowns began harvesting other Humans. The couple discovered the dead Humans, and saw a Klown operating an incubator with Klown larvae held within. When Mike and Debbie tried to escape, the Klown, Rudy, saw them and quickly grabbed a larvae bazooka, firing the weapon at the two as they ran, managing to get some larvae onto them as they escaped. However, the larvae remained inert. Some Klowns chased the Humans to their car using a balloon dog, but were unable to catch them, although they found a sign pointing them towards the town. The Klowns then decided to invade the town, a group of them walking to the town while killing some college students at a nearby lover's lane. The rest of the Killer Klowns took off to relocate their ship to an amusement park on the coast, with the Klowns sent to invade the town carrying props, weapons, and bags of Klown larvae.
Entering the town, the Killer Klowns began to perform magic tricks and puppet shows to attract Humans to them, while two others entered a drug store, killing two customers and then becoming interested in the merchandise. After attracting a number of Humans to them, the Klowns began killing them, and hauling their cocooned bodies away to be taken to their ship. Mike and policeman Dave Hansen, who were investigating the original landing site and the remains of the lover's lane, soon arrived in the town during the killings, just in time to see a Klown, Slim, creating shadow puppets to entertain a group of Humans at a bus stop. Slim then used his shadow-manipulating abilities to create impossible shapes, such as a dancer, George Washington crossing the Delaware, and an elephant, before creating a dinosaur-like shape, which became physical and swallowed the Humans, shrinking them down and placing them in Slim's hands. Slim then fed the shrunken Humans to the Klown larvae, before Mike and Dave tried to ram Slim with Dave's police car, although Slim jumped away before they could hit him.
Undeterred by the Human interference, Slim retrieved an invisible Klown-tech car and ran another car off the road just for fun, while Jumbo unsuccessfully attempted to lure a young girl outside a burger joint to kill her with a hammer, although he had already placed Klown larvae within the restaurant's dumpster, which began growing after eating a worker that accidentally fell in. The Killer Klowns continued their murder sprees across the town, soon escalating to a full-scale invasion, orchestrated like a parade, with Klowns marching alongside an armored vehicle equipped with vacuums to hold the cocooned corpses, other Klowns breaking into apartments and killing everyone within. These Klowns were soon sighted by Mike and his friends, the Terenzi brothers, as they attempted to get to Debbie's apartment. Debbie, who had gone home after escaping the Klown ship, removed her clothes to take a shower, and did not notice the larvae still attached to the clothes become active, seemingly eating some of the clothes and pills in a cabinet behind the mirror to start growing.
Jumbo using Mooney's corpse as a puppet
Meanwhile, after presumably eliminating all other policemen in the town, leaving just Dave and his bad-tempered partner Curtis Mooney, Jumbo entered the police station to confront Mooney. Mooney, who had not seen the aliens for himself and believed that all the calls from people being attacked were pranks, thought the Klown was merely a Human in a suit. Jumbo sprayed Mooney with water from a fake bouquet of flowers, prompting Mooney to attempt to arrest him, but Jumbo merely removed his hands to escape the handcuffs, and comically shuffled off. Still showing no hostility to toy with Mooney, Jumbo regenerated his hands and complied when Mooney ordered him to get in a jail cell alongside two Humans, but Jumbo was quickly enraged when Mooney struck him with a flashlight. Jumbo promptly grabbed Mooney with a party whistle that functioned as a hand, allowing him to kill Mooney by slamming him against the bars, and then killed the other two Humans in the cell using a raygun, before ripping out Mooney's back and painting him to look like a ventriloquist dummy. Dave then entered the station, being met with Jumbo, who used Mooney's body to taunt Dave, explicitly saying that he only wished to kill him. Jumbo then went to attack Dave with his bare hands, intending to give him a more sadistic death. Dave repeatedly fired at Jumbo, who walked off all the shots, until one hit him in the nose, destroying him.
Slim shooting Debbie with a balloon raygun
Back at Debbie's apartment, the popcorn larvae began to grow into the juvenile long-necked form, and attacked Debbie after she changed her clothes, although she managed to escape them. Slim then arrived at her apartment with a group of other Klowns, and mimicked Mike's voice to trick Debbie into letting him in. When she tried to escape through the window, she only saw more Klowns waiting on the ground with fireman helmets and a comically small trampoline, and was then grabbed and thrown onto a couch by Slim, who was joined by Klowns Bibbo and Rudy. Slim then drew a balloon raygun on Debbie, shooting her and generating a balloon around her, taking her away by tying her to a Klown car. The Klowns drove back to their ship, chased by Mike and the Terenzi brothers, but managed to escape them when the Terenzi brothers foolishly stopped their ice cream truck when they saw Dave following them. At the amusement park where the ship was, the Klowns were confronted by an oblivious Human nightguard. When told that the park was closed, the Klowns drew acid pies, and when the guard asked what they intended to do with the pies, the Klowns proceeded to throw the pies at him, melting his skin away with the acid, with one Klown, Shorty, placing a comically large cherry atop the remains. Debbie was taken into the ship's cotton candy storage room and placed with other balloons that presumably held other captured Humans, as every Klown used in the invasion returned to the ship.
Mike and Dave, along with the Terenzi brothers, managed to infiltrate the grounded ship, although the Terenzi brothers fell through a trapdoor and into a ball pit in a small chamber, right in front of two female Klowns, Rosebud and Daisy. Immediately infatuated by the Humans, the female Klowns enlarged their breasts to titillate them, and the Terenzi brothers, surprisingly intrigued, did not resist the Klowns' advancements. The brothers managed to seduce the female Klowns into letting them go, or simply managed to escape them, leaving with large lipstick marks to go retrieve their ice cream truck. Meanwhile, Mike and Dave managed to rescue Debbie, all three hiding behind cocooned bodies and watching an obese Killer Klown, Chubby, use a silly straw to drink the liquified remains of a Human. Unable to find any other potentially living captives, the Humans made a run for it, although they were found and chased by other Klowns. Dave, armed with a shotgun, managed to kill several Klowns by shooting their noses, as the Humans escaped to the lower levels of the ship. Finally, the Humans arrived in a section of the ship known as the Klown Kathedral, where they were cornered by the surviving Killer Klowns, minus Jojo and the female Klowns. Deciding to kill the Humans in a more brutal fashion, the Klowns drew axes and spiked clubs, forcing the Humans to get on top of a pillar, as Dave ran out of ammo. However, the Terenzi brothers then got their ice cream truck into the ship, crashing through a Kathedral wall, and using a clown head-shaped speaker atop their truck to order the Klowns to stand down. Frightened by the image of a giant clown, the Killer Klowns stood down and let the Humans go.
Just as the Humans reached the ice cream truck, Jojo himself dropped down into the Kathedral, angered that an imposter was trying to usurp his power, his presence scaring off all the other Klowns. Jojo quickly smashed the clown speaker, and threw the truck aside, destroying it and seemingly killing the Terenzi brothers. Dave then distracted Jojo by shooting at him with his pistol, allowing Mike and Debbie to escape the ship while Jojo chased Dave around the chamber. Eventually, Dave ran out of bullets, and Jojo grabbed him, lifting him into the air. Just before he could kill Dave, Dave managed to get an arm free and take off his badge, using it to stab Jojo in the nose, destroying it. As Jojo began to crystalize, Dave ran into a nearby Klown car for cover, and Jojo then exploded, the blast being powerful enough to annihilate the ship. However, it has been confirmed that the klowns that were aboard survived the explosion. Dave managed to survive the explosion the car, who met up with Mike and Debbie on the ground, along with the Terenzi brothers, who also survived Jojo's attack by hiding in the armored freezer of their truck, managing to get in the Klown car before the blast. Despite the Klowns being destroyed, as the Humans contemplated if the threat was over, they were suddenly pelted by several non-lethal Klown pies that were blasted out of the ship, with the Klown laughter echoing in through the sky. It is unknown what became of the juvenile Killer Klowns left in Crescent Cove.
Appearances[]
- Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
Notes[]
- The Klown Magori is shown prominently on most Killer Klown related media, including the film posters and DVD box cover, but never actually appears in film except for a brief second near the end, but not in a full-body shot.
- The Klowns had two different head models, one still head with motors that controlled eye blinking, and another head with movable face features that was operated by puppeteer in close up scenes.
- Due to the rock band The Dickies performing the film's theme song, it was featured as one of the songs on their international tour. This in turn brought knowledge of the film along with it, and helped the film gain massive foreign box office earnings, which accounted for almost half of the film's revenue.
- The Killer Klowns were all portrayed by the following actors: Steve Rockhold, Michael Harrington Burris, Geno Ponza, Scott Beatty, Paul Haley, Dennis C. Walsh, Genie Houdini, Charles Chiodo, Karl Shaeffer, Paul Parsons, Jimmy Locust, Mitch Bryan, and Greg Sykes.
- It is theorized, but unconfirmed, that female Killer Klowns are made from Human women, or just females of other species, explaining why Human females were captured instead of immediately killed, although alternative theories include saving Human females as sex slaves for the Klowns or to breed more Human stock aboard the ship.
- Near the end of the film, Mike, Dave, and the Terenzi brothers speculated about where the Klowns came from. One suggestion was that the Klowns were ancient, and visited Earth at some point in the distant past, inspiring the concept of clowns and comedy. Another was that the Klowns came from a dying planet, and thus need Earth and its inhabitants for both a food supply and a place to live. Finally, it was speculated that the Humans captured alive were meant to be used in experiments, although none of the protagonists could explain why the Klowns were unwilling to reason with Humans. Ultimately, none of the theories were confirmed, although the ancient astronauts theory appears somewhat plausible, as the Klowns displayed at least a basic knowledge of Human culture, language, and history, implying that they have been watching Earth for some time.