We Could See ‘Killer Klowns 2’ If People Ask For It
By George Robbins
There have been plenty of cheesy horror movies over the years with some of even the most well recognized of films being a part of that list as time has gone on. Among those horror movies that became parodies of themselves over the years have been movies such as the ‘Friday the 13th’ series, the ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ series, and the ‘Halloween’ series. These movies started off being their own type of horror movies that all fit within the slasher genre, but they are regarded as being very important horror movies. They are horror movies that helped establish the genre and bring it into a new age, but they eventually just started getting ridiculous because the kills in the film became the biggest part of the films. It is due to this that the movies eventually shifted away from telling a story with horror elements to just ridiculously crazy plots with interesting ways for the antagonists to kill people.
While more unique horror movies do exist out there in the world, there are many that came out in the 80’s that defined the horror genre as a whole and among them was the movie ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space.’ While the premise and plot of the film were ridiculous, this is the exact reason why people fell in love with the movie in the first place and why it became so popular. Ridiculous horror movies are the reason for a lot of the stuff we see nowadays in horror films because they inspired entire generations of films. While the films that we get now may not be as crazy plot-wise as those old films used to be, they definitely take some inspiration from them. This is only if they were trying to take inspiration from them though because movies now are making their own identities.
The horror movies that were made in the 80’s can very easily be split up into two separate groups based on what I have already said which is the group of serious films and the not so serious films. The not so serious group of films had a much larger tendency to be campy films that clearly were not meant for people who did not like horror movies. In order to watch them, you had to have something of a morbid sense of humor because they were closer in relation to black comedies instead of horror movies for the most part. The acting in the films was not really all that great, but a lot of effort was usually put into the set pieces which is what people really like about horror films to begin with. Plots have never taken precedence in horror movies and visuals are the part that a lot of people pay attention to, at least for those older films.
Nowadays we have been gifted various horror films with well-designed plots which no one ever would have expected, but this wasn’t really the case in older horror films. The plot usually just took back seat in those films, but it always catapulted a movie to critical success status if the movie had both well-done plot and visuals. Horror movies are something that is hard to get right because everything in those movies is meant to illicit some kind of strong emotional response from the audience. Whether that be adrenaline pumping nightmare fuel or something that is supposed to keep the audience on edge, it is the response that filmmakers look for from their horror films. In order to try and illicit this kind of response from the audience, filmmakers have tried focusing more on making the plots better in new films in order to better create tension.
Visuals are still very important for getting people to appreciate the film that they are watching and horror movies usually provide some very good visuals, albeit very gory or disturbing in some way. This way of using visuals in movies is what attracts people to horror movies so much because people have an innate morbid curiosity and seeing something morbid in a movie feeds that curiosity. Thus horror movies and shows have become a huge part of modern day entertainment media that always manage to draw people back in even if the plots of said movies aren’t that great. Movies from the 80’s did something that wasn’t really possible before and allowed for more people to enjoy horror movies as time went on. They normalized horror movies in the modern day and created an entire generation of horror fans that have continued to consume horror content since then and that love of horror movies has been passed down over the years.
Campy horror movies of the 80’s may not have received all that great reviews but they have gained cult status over the years due to the ridiculous nature of the content seen in the movies. As mentioned before, ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space’ is one of those campy horror movies that is just so ridiculous that it has made a lot of people want to see it. It is due to the nature of the film where we see alien clowns land on earth and start killing people that has made this fever dream film all the more endearing. Clowns have been seen as a symbol of fears for many years so making those fears take form in this movie is something that was seen as inventive. It gave an actual reason to people to fear clowns from that point on, but they went a step further with their film by just distorting the figures of clowns even more than they are usually distorted in our minds.
When we have a fear of something we often have the image of that thing distorted in our minds to the point that they start naturally looking horrifying to us in some way. It seemed like they were really trying to capitalize on this distortion to really sell the movie because they purposefully made them look way more terrifying than clowns actually are and people in the movie don’t start taking them seriously until they start killing. Like trying to avoid fears in real life, people in the movie just laugh off the titular Klowns or they ignore them for the most part but it comes back to haunt them in the end. The Klowns make sure that they kill as many people as they can before eventually being forced back into space by the main characters of the film. This movie is easily responsible for creating a lot of fans that enjoy those type of ridiculous horror films.
Plenty of people over the years have been saying that they would like to see a sequel for the film release at some point but the likelihood of that was very low from the beginning. Horror movies often end on cliffhangers in order to leave the audience with an open ending that is filled with suspense, but this also opens up the opportunity for future films. This is how horror movies have been able to come up with sequels over the years and make them naturally fit in with the end of the previous film somehow. As a result of this type of open ending being common for 80’s horror films, people are hopeful that they will get to see sequels to the films they originally fell in love with. ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space’ is one of the films that has gained the cult status necessary for a possible sequel to be brought about. The original film’s director Stephen Chiodo has said that it could be possible for a sequel to be made if fans ask for it.
It isn’t really all that much of a surprise that asking fans to ask the studio would be the answer to the question of whether there can be a sequel or not. Studios need a good reason to make movies and that reason is often the money that will come out of the movie if people were to go and see it. In this case, it would be a bit more difficult because the film originally only made back about what its budget was at the time and not many people cared for the horror-comedy genre at the time. It has since become a much more popular film in the eyes of horror movie enthusiasts but it is still hard to make a proper case for the film where they will be able to make the movie. Luckily, the horror-comedy genre has become a much more commonplace type of film because it has expanded the overall market.
If ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space 2’ was to be requested by fans to be made, it would take a fair number of people asking for it before MGM would actually decide to make the film. Even then, it would have to be made on a low budget like the original was because they only have the original film to go off in terms of box office returns so they would be hesitant in making it. However, this could work in the movie’s favor because the original film was made on a low budget and yet people have fallen in love with it over the years. There is a lot of doubt that they would be able to work on it any time soon with the pandemic currently going on, but it would take some time before they were convinced by people to do it anyway. Horror fans are most definitely going to hope that this wish becomes reality but there is no guarantee.