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Late to the Party: ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’ (1988)
Welcome back to another edition of Late to the Party, where the iHorror writers take turns checking off boxes on their personal unseen classics list. With the release of the IT remake and the premiere of the new season of American Horror Story, it appears as if scary clowns are all the rage again. This has forced me to make a rather embarrassing admission; I have never seen the 1988 cult classic Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Until now.
Going in, there were a couple of things I knew about Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Of course, I knew what the titular Killer Klowns looked like, since they are the film’s main iconic image. Also, being an old punk rocker, I was familiar with the Dickies theme song. But, other than that, I was going in blind when I popped in the $7.99 blu-ray from Walmart (I splurged on the limited edition Dia de los Muertos-inspired cover version).
Basically, Killer Klowns from Outer Space is one big laugh riot. There’s nothing serious about the film at all. It’s a standard alien invasion flick along the lines of The Blob or Invasion of the Body Snatchers (in fact, it even lifts plot points from both of those influential movies), only with clowns (sorry, Klowns) as the alien invaders. It’s a glorified B-movie.
What makes Killer Klowns from Outer Space a “glorified” B-movie instead of just your run-of-the-mill B-movie is the klowns themselves. For what seems to be a very low-budget production, the alien Klown effects are very well done. They’re more elaborate than just actors in makeup; the klowns look to be part rubber monster suit and part animatronic puppetry. The klowns also take turns pulling out all the stops while terrorizing the public, doing clowny things like using victims as ventriloquist dummies and attacking bystanders with shadow puppets. They even stick the people they abduct into cotton candy cocoons. The story may lack creativity, but the appearances and the actions of the klowns are inventive enough to make the movie fun, and for a B-movie, that’s really all you can ask for.
I’ve personally never been particularly afraid of clowns, so in the end, Killer Klowns from Outer Space is exactly the movie that I thought it would be. How could it be any different with a title like that? The klowns did surprise me, as they were much more animated and “monster-like” than I thought they’d be, and some of their methods of attack are downright ingenious. But, for the most part, Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a movie about just that – killer clowns from outer space – and doesn’t pretend to be anything else
Come on back next week for another edition of Late to the Party, or check out older ones you may have missed in the meantime!
(Feature image courtesy Chris Fischer)
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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Movies
‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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News
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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