Last year we spoke about Jon Favreau’s (Iron Man, Jungle Book, The Mandalorian) interview were he let it slip that he’s producing a Christmas special by frequent collaborators Chiodo Brothers (Killer Klowns from Outer Space) for Netflix. Well, now- the time is here and Chiodo Bros’s Alien Xmas is up and streaming and you can enjoy it’s stop- motion goodness just in time for holidays!
A young elf mistakes a tiny alien for a Christmas gift, not knowing her new plaything has plans to destroy Earth’s gravity — and steal all the presents.
Who doesn’t want to see some Aliens destroying Christmas for everyone?
Now, the next logical thing to ask is “what’s going on with the Killer Klowns 2?” and interestingly Netflix is considering that too. “We are talking to them. We’re talking all the time”Chiodo said to ComicBook.com. Of course MGM still has the rights so until they decide to pull the trigger it’s all up in the air but if there was ever a time for a sequel for that craziness of a movie– the time is now! In the meantime enjoy Alien Xmas:
Earlier this week we saw Fox’sThe Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space(in 3D) as one of the number of projects (including The Sims movie?) that Disney has canceled after the acquisition. But now it seems that things are actually looking up for the Chiodo Brothers.
In a Hollywood Reporter interview Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Jungle Book) casually mentioned an animated project with Chiodo Brothers, and it seems it’s a done deal. He said “…even talking to [an outlet] like Quibi about doing short-form stop motion, working with Netflix on a stop-motion Christmas special. I’ve been trying to work with these guys the Chiodo brothers, who did the stop-motion on Elf, it took over 15 years, only because the business model changed.”
Then the brothers let it slip that the special is actually based on their ’15 Christmas picture book ALIEN XMAS.
Nothing says Christmas like marauding aliens who mistake Santa’s workshop fora weapon-building facility.
Color me interested! We don’t know how far along it is, but hopefully we’ll get it this Christmas on Netflix.
The movie starts with MGM logo soon fallowed with a deranged song about clowns and you know right away this you’re in for one weird experience tonight. The music then changes into smooth jazz and then we see a parking lot with a bunch of teenagers making out. Some idiots brothers show up and try to sell them icescream in the middle of the night interrupting them and they almost miss the falling star because of it too. Only the falling star is not star at all- it’s a spaceship!
No Icecream? Oh, the horror!
Two of the teenagers, Mike Tobacco and his girl Debbie find the ship that is also a Circus tent (and it already claimed it’s first victim- the crazy old man. He doesn’t find anything strange in the fact that there’s a circus in the middle of the forest and decides that it must be of the more avant-garde European ones- (as someone living in Europe I can assure you that circuses are pretty much the same wherever you go). Anyway two of them start exploring the ship until they run into one of the aliens… I mean clowns and then they finally figure out that something is wrong.
He wasn’t expecting this… on the other hand who would?
Evil clown starts chasing them, hunting them with his dog made out of balloon. They do the reasonable thing and hit him with a car but that doesn’t really stop him. If anything it seemingly motivates all the clowns to come down from the woods and have some fun in the city And what fun they had!
They are all set for night of clowning around!
One of them played in the drugstore, another made a street puppet show, one surprised an old lady with a present and my favorite one made friends with a biker gang (*see below). In the meantime Mike and Debbie report a murder and try to explain the treat of the clowns to the police- as you can guess that doesn’t go so well. Young blond cop Dave Hanson (also Debbie’s ex- boyfriend) finally accepts that something funny is going on (no pun intended) and goes to investigate but the old officer decides stays in the station and is firm in his decision to ignore multiple distress calls from over town (and his other decision to get drunk while doing so). When Mike and Dave return to the station in hope of reasoning with the officer they find out that he is already dead and one of the clowns even uses him as a hand puppet.Truly bizarre! In the meantime the others of the merry gang of aliens are busy storing human bodies into cotton candy cocoons– so they can drink their blood later- yes it seems the title was not really precise one, it should be Vampire Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
Clown walks into a drugstore, you know that one, right?
Clowns making friends everywhere they go!
I love this scene!
They finally organize picking up the irritating brothers with an ice-cream truck in the way and fallow clown all the way to a deserted amusement park where they finally confront them. Also idiot brothers menage to have sex with two of the female clowns somehow!!! Anyway it turns out they were way over their heads. Just when they finally think they got away cleverly using an ice cream truck as a distraction a GIANT KILLER KLOWN shows up and starts causing a ruckus. Irritating brothers explode into nothingness (finally!) but the rest of them find a way out and get out of the tent in the last possible seconds before tent becomes a flying saucer and goes away. Ship lifts up a bit but then explodes in the way of pretty purple fireworks. Small clown car crashes from the sky and the irritating brothers WHO JUST DIED MINUTES AGO come out of it with some imbecilic explanation and the movie ends- a lot worse than it began,
And now enjoy this extraordinary song from the Killer Klowns OST (by The Dickies), it makes as much sense as the movie itself!
Verdict: I could easily envision Tim Burton directing a remake of this film, one bit more streamlined story-wise and definitely more epic visually. Someone like him could pull this off even in his sleep. Chiodo who directed this one- not so much. But don’t get me wrong, with all its faults this is still one hell of an entertaining flick but if you want to watch one evil clown movie- I would still probably recommend TV adaptation of Stephen King’s IT. But this one is solid second place!
Trivia: The Chiodo Brother are currently working on the sequel titled Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3D, targeted for 2015 release.
Worsemovies 