“Killer Klowns From Outer Space” is one of the greatest movies ever made. Obviously.

It starts out with Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” buying some “Beer,” labeled thusly. Ralphie has also been by the Seavers’ garage sale, and is wearing Carol’s glasses. Later, Ralphie will grow up to become Christopher Titus, but for now, he is dead inside a cotton candy cocoon. As well as one random blonde chick, beginning the steady ’80s-aughts transition from “useless curvy blonde who shows her boobs, then dies” to “useless skinny blonde who doesn’t show her boobs, then dies.”

Now we are at makeout point, which is of course awesome, especially since you’d think some of these people could afford other places to neck, seeing as they are all 37 and above.

Then we see an ice-cream truck, and I am really beginning to sense some kind of otherworldly connection between my blog and ice-cream trucks. And this truck is scary! Because it has a clown on top of it. These two doofuses run the ice-cream truck, and harass the people at makeout point, and you’d think these “kids” would be grateful for ice cream, since no one is hooking up anyway. One chick is drinking champagne for some reason, like this guy who looks exactly like he was born to play “All American Jock with a sense of humor” back in the ’80s is plying this chick with (flat) champagne, and it’s like, dude. WTF. And these actors aren’t so much with the “acting” as the “YELLING.” Who goes to makeout point to drink flat champagne and yell? These two.

But, oh how romantic! Now they have not only champagne, but a huge asteroid shooting through the sky, and champagne chick, whose name is Debbie (natch), thinks it’s romantic. She wants to go track it down, and there is a lot of “banter” that we as the audience must endure.

Unfortunately, Debbie and All American Jock are believe it or not making a stupid mistake by chasing the “shooting star” as Debbie calls it, which makes sense on a literal level since the sun is a star. But now the farmer’s dog Pooh Bear is missing! The farmer is upset until he realizes he will meet Pooh Bear in cotton candy heaven soon, as a klown comes out and electrifies the farmer with a non-terrestrial from “The Abyss.”

Here we have the lackadaisical PSA subplot of the late ’80s when this male couple gets arrested for drinking wine in public and Sergeant Mooney berates them and makes them go to jail for drinking wine unlike Ralphie who was drinking beer before, because beer is manly, generic brand and Carol Seaver glasses notwithstanding. So Mooney tries to rough up the gay couple, until we learn that homophobia is bad…or drinking is bad…frankly, I’m not sure. Good Cop Dave intervenes, and saves the day though.

Ah, Dave. Get used to him, because he is around (SPOILER ALERT!) for the whole movie. His hair is very, very fluffy and very, very blonde, and he is very, very serious and noble.

Over on the other side of town, Debbie and AAJ arrive at their “shooting star,” and despite the fact that there is now a humongous circus tent there, they don’t let that get in the way of their bland yelling. And to their credit as a couple, they each take turns being a huge idiot, Debbie for chasing the “shooting star,” AAJ for bouncing off the walls like Spinner that time he gave his Ritalin to Jimmy. Bouncing all around, getting Debbie and her hair to relent and enter the circus. Once they get inside the tent, the dialogue is impressive, not to mention the delivery:

AAJ: THIS IS NO FUNHOUSE!

Debbie: NO CIRCUS, EITHER.

Unfortunately, they do not go, “This is Ellllllll-lay!”

Then things get crazy. Debbie and AAJ run in and out of elevators, chased by klowns. They find a room full of cotton candy cocoons, and find that one of the cocoons holds a dead guy! But Debbie and AAJ get away, because they are the lead actors. And turns out that Debbie knows Dave the cop.

Outside the circus tent, the klowns are wreaking havoc. Throwing puppet shows, both regular- and hand-, then killing the audience. Going into drugstores, and zapping girls in gray sweatshirts rather than buying original Peanut Butter Twix® while they still can.

Then there is this one klown that’s so cute!

He shows up to a biker bar and they all make fun of him, until he decapitates the lead bully! And between this and “Walk Hard,” I’ve seen a lot of headless bodies collapse to the ground this weekend.

Then because it is the ’80s, we get a car-over-cliff scene and a shower scene, starring Debbie. And whereas if this were 1985 or earlier, there would 100% be requisite nudity right now, you wonder, because it looks like Debbie is unfortunately stuck with us for the duration. And you can’t have both – bare boobs AND escape from the monsters. So what shall it be???

Also, there is popcorn all over her floor. OMINOUS popcorn.

You know where else there is ominous popcorn? In a dumpster out back behind the Big Top Burger. So this employee in an AMAZING uniform investigates, only instead of lifting the lid and peering in, or getting a flashlight to peer in, he LEANS over, further…further…until there we go! He’s pulled in and eaten.

Oh, have I mentioned that Dave is Debbie’s ex-boyfriend? Which, you would think as a policeman, Dave would know about statutory laws. But now he is making passive-aggressive, woe-is-me comments about Debbie choosing laughs from AAJ over stability from Dave (because he is 40), and here is my problem with that: If he is self aware enough to realize that Debbie goes for laughs, couldn’t he try to be funny? And here is my other problem: AAJ IS NOT FUNNY, and I blame him and people like him for all the guys in the ’90s thinking all they needed to do to be funny was to loudly quote Adam Sandler and/or Austin Powers.

I’m just going to leave Mooney’s “Smoke a cigar, get sprayed in the face” allegorical scene alone. Bottom line is, he throws a klown in a cell with people, but the klown kills him, reverse-Wicked-Witch-of-the-East style. The klown’s cellmates cheer. Little do they know that THEY’RE NEXT 😮

Dirty Dave arrives back at the jail to find that the klown did after all, make a dummy out of Mooney, as the klown is acting as Mooney’s ventriloquist, with his hand in the back of Mooney’s corpse. Ewwww. BUT! On the “plus” side, Dirty Dave discovers the secret to killing the klowns: Shoot them in the nose! Just like at a fair! Fun!

Oh, so yeah, Debbie is safe, because she went to extremes, and did the opposite of nudity: cable-knit sweater, jeans, tee, boots, necklaces, large earrings, and a ponytail holder in her hair.

But then! The ominous popcorn hatches into evil klown spider things! And they scare Debbie and she gets even louder than usual!

Oh excuse me, Debbie is not wearing boots, she’s wearing leg warmers even though it is 1987.

So the klowns don’t kill Debbie because she is not only a lead character but also very stylin’, so they reward her by putting her in a balloon that is like one of those toy balloons you used to punch. What happened to those toys? I seriously want one. They were awesome!!! Suffice it to say, I’m kind of jealous of Debbie as she flies down the road in a balloon.

The klowns have a parade and kill Samantha Micelli’s boyfriend after Scott Grimes.

Oh yeah, the Ice Cream Doofuses are lurking around all the while, acting dumb and not really adding much to the movie. But if it weren’t for the ICDs, we may have had to live forever without one of the best scenes I’ve ever witnessed, in the form of a voiceover from the truck as Dirty Dave and ICDs join forces to fight the klowns. The following transpires:

– IF YOU WERE A CLOWN, WHERE WOULD YOU HIDE?

– THE AMUSEMENT PARK!

– GREAT!

– ALL RIGHT!!!!!

Now we get a klown kar joke, as the amusement park security guard gets KILLED BY PIES, and the kute klown puts a cherry on top of the melted man sundae.

Then we get some “booby trap” entendre, and of course one of the ICDs just has to press a red button, because it is the ’80s, and pressing mysterious buttons is par for the course, and the ICDs fall in a ball pit, where we get “Gremlins 2” foreshadowing as one klown grows boobs right in front of us, and an ICD goes, “Are you Debbie’s roommates,” and I do not have enough time to explain that one.

I will discuss how krazy straws suck now no pun intended, another time. But this one klown has an AWESOME krazy straw, and uses it to suck blood from the cotton candy victims!

Meanwhile, Dirty Dave and AAJ are looking for Debbie, and AAJ just starts SCREAMING right in the klowns’ lair. They find Debbie and shoot her down from her kokoon trap, then they all run away from the klowns who overheard AAJ’s perma-meltdown.

From here on in, until further notice, assume that Debbie does absolutely nothing but bounce and yell uselessly.

“ANOTHER DOOR! ANOTHER DOOR!” AAJ (speaking of useless) keeps yelling, as the klowns chase them until they escape! Because of course the klowns run out of ammo.

The kute klown, yay! But can I just say, he and the other klowns have individually each killed many people, but together, can’t seem to catch Debbie, Dirty Dave, or AAJ! Awesome.

Speaking of awesome, the ICDs are back in their ice-cream truck with klown lipstick all over their faces, and they pretend to be a klown god or something (’cause, the ice cream truck), and for some reason, the klowns listen. But before anything else can happen, a BIG klown comes down like a Sonic the Hedgehog end-of-the-level villain!

The ICDs are still being tools, and though Dirty Dave tries to save their sorry asses, they get all, “We can’t leave! (The ice-cream truck is) rented!” And Sonic Klown smashes the little clown on the truck, and throws the truck, and because it is the ’80s, the truck explodes. Luckily, Dirty Dave saves the day with his carnival knowledge, and Sonic Klown goes down, which defeats the entire Klown Tent, the whole thing spins away into the air, looking like a….big top. Until it explodes into fireworks! Signifying the independence of humanity from the Klowns.

Dirty Dave shows up for no discernible reason in the klown kar, which did not become a firework! And lo and behold, the ICDs survived the explosion by hiding in the freezer of the ice-cream truck, and the ICDs are sucking proverbial pink popsicles! All’s well that ends well, though personally I preferred the klowns to any of these tools.

“Killer Klowns from Outer Space” ends with foreshadowing to Season Four “Friends,” as now, Dirty Dave, AAJ, and Debbie are all a couple. They hold each other, and AAJ does not mind at all that Dirty Dave will not stop touching Debbie. They sway, and we finally have peace.

Until! Debbie shouts, “Do you think it’s over?” And AAJ, useless as ever, goes, “Yeah, sure!”

But then! They all get pies in their faces! And I wonder why they don’t melt into sundaes like the security guard. But no time to wonder too much, because it is the ’80s, so: FREEZE FRAME!

~ THE END ~

© July 9, 2008