I hadn't watched Killer Klowns From Outer Space in a while. It's an alien invasion that's heavy on comedy and murderous clowns, or killer klowns as The Chiodo Brothers wrote in the title. The brothers are artists and effects guys and this is their only movie. They still work doing special effects for films. Stephen Chiodo directed the movie in 1988 and on the 2001 dvd the brothers says they are going to do a sequel in 2013. That's coming up, less than a year, wonder if they will do it. If you haven't seen KKFOS it's a nice mix of horror, comedy and science fiction all colored up in a rainbow of colors. It starts like a teen comedy with couples parking in the woods to make out. That's where we meet our hero couple Grant Cramer and Suzanne Snyder who are making out in the back of his SUV. After a brief comic interuption from a pair of ice cream selling comic relief machines a big fiery ball shoots across the sky. Grant and Suzanne think it's a meteor and decide to go check it out. Royal Dano is a farmer who's sitting on his porch with his dog when the meteor falls near. Royal and the bloodhound go check it out. They find a colorful circus tent with lights and music. It turns out to be a spaceship. Royal's brief encounter with the klowns leaves him pretty much dead and wrapped up in a pink lightbulb shaped cotton candy blob. The Klowns head into town to blast citizens with their rayguns turning them into cotton candy. Our hero couple show up at the tent and we get to seen the inside of the ship. It's pretty entertaining with colored lights, pipes all over, flashing control panels and a giant popcorn popper. We find out that the aliens are canning humans.
That's some of our klowns. They pie a guy so hard he becomes a smoking mound of goo. The pistol is nice, huh. John Vernon plays the local cop, a gruff old fart of a guy, who thinks the citizens calling about the klowns are pranking him. Jokes on him. Soon enough one of the klowns shoves his hand up John's ass and works him like a puppet. Haha, indeed. Our hero couple enlist the aid of the deputy and they fight back. Eventually the world is safe. Except if there's that sequel. Even after many viewings it still makes me laugh.
Not so Lost In Space, the 1998 movie based on the 1965 tv series. It's directed by Stephen Hopkins who's only directed one other movie I like. Predators 2. LIS is filled with great noisey special effects that look good but the story just isn't there. It's pretty much the same story as the tv show just all jazzed up by Akiva Goldsman. I don't care for many of his movies. William Hurt plays Mr Robinson and Mimi Rogers plays Mrs Robinson. Gary Oldman plays the evil Dr Smith, Matt LeBlanc plays the pilot, Heather Graham plays Judy Robinson, Lacy Chabert plays Penny Robinson and Jack Johnson plays Will Robinson. The evil doctor sabotages the ship and after plunging into the sun they warp somewhere. They encounter a large earth spaceship and investigate. They are attacked by critters and while escaping they blow up the other ship's engines. They are too close and the explosion makes them crash on the planet below. Lots of stuff happens but I just wasn't that interested. There's a sort of happy ending but by then I was almost sorry to have bought the dvd. I guess that one should go on the get rid of pile.
I also watched The Last Broadcast this morning. It's not science fiction but I hadn't seen it in a while and thought I would throw it on the dvd player. It's a movie that cost $900 to make, and that's 1998 dollars, so that must be closer to a grand today. According to the Wikipedia it did about $12,000 business at the box office. It's a documentary about a death of the cast and crew of a paranormal cable tv show. The 4 guys go out to the woods to look for the Jersey Devil and only one of them comes back alive. Two are found dead near the camp and the other man's body never shows up again. The live guy is hooked for the murders and sent to prison where he dies mysteriously while the film maker is making this documentary. There's a bit of a twist ending so I won't give that away. It's not great or anything but it's interesting enough. I found it more entertaining than that othe movie about the Jersey Devil The Blair Witch Project. I sold the dvd to TBWP soon after I saw it. I wouldn't watch TLB very often. You can watch the while thing here. You might like it.
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