When Mike (Grant Cramer) and his girlfriend, Debbie (Suzanne Snyder), turn up at the local police station warning that a gang of homicidal alien clowns have arrived in the town of Crescent Grove, California, the cops are naturally sceptical.
Talk of popcorn-firing guns and a spaceship shaped like a circus tent out in the woods hardly helps to convince them.
Before long, however, reports start coming in from anxious locals reporting similar run-ins with the colourfully-dressed, large shoe-wearing assailants, who intend to cocoon the local population in candy floss and suck out their life juices.
Combining inspired amateur brashness, delightful Loony Tunes design and a winningly bizarre unreality, this engagingly cheap affair from effects wizards Stephen and Charles Chiodo is an infantile and vicious delight which played on the deep-seated fear most of us have of clowns and carnival folk.
Made for a modest $2 million dollars, the movie became an instant cult classic and raked in over ten times its budget within six months of release.
The title song was recorded by The Dickies.
Mike
Grant Cramer
Debbie
Suzanne Snyder
Officer Dave Hanson
John Allen Nelson
Farmer Green
Royal Dano
Officer Mooney
John Vernon
Rich
Michael Siegel
Paul
Pete Licassi
Director
Stephen Chiodo