Killer Klowns From Outer Space Has Way Higher Kill Count Than You Remember

As implied by the name, Killer Klowns from Outer Space is an iconic horror-comedy from the '80s that is more known for its absurdity than for its violence, but with the film currently available to stream on Netflix and Tubi, many audiences are just now discovering it and, for those who might only remember the film for its silliness, the above video points out there are actually 40 deaths in the film. As detailed in the 2018 installment of YouTube channel Dead Meat's Kill Count series, not only does the film feature the deaths of dozens of human victims, but it also sees the titular villains meeting their grisly demise.

In the 1988 adventure, a mysterious object from the sky lands near a small town, which residents learn was merely the spaceship for a group of unearthly jesters who invade the community and use a variety of silly weapons to wreak havoc among the population. Their bizarre appearances don't initially frighten victims, allowing the "klowns" to get close enough to wrap them up in cotton candy cocoons and slurp up their liquified corpses.

When the film first landed in theaters, it didn't quite earn the reception that creators the Chiodo brothers had hoped for, with audiences discovering it years later when it was made available on a number of cable channels. At the time, the film wasn't even readily available on home video, which the filmmakers thought was the perfect market for it to find its audience.

Killer Klowns might most be known for its silliness, but co-creator Edward Chiodo previously detailed that the concept was born out of an attempt to think of the scariest image imaginable.

"One night, just sitting around, the question was posed, what's the scariest thing that you could think of?" Chiodo shared with ComicBook.com earlier this year. "It started with Stephen [Chiodo] then running with that idea. He said that if he was on a dark, winding mountain road at night and a clown pulled up alongside of him, he thought that was one of the creepiest images he could think of. And then Charlie [Chiodo], I think, chimed in, 'Hey, that is weird. That's really weird. Hey, but what if the clown wasn't in a car? What if he was just floating outside of the car going along with you?'"

He continued, "We said, 'Well, that would mean the clown had a come from outer space. And what would they be doing here? Clowns from outer space. Of course, they're here to kill us.' And so, right from that, Killer Klowns from Outer Space. From there we just thought, 'All right, let's just play around with this idea.' Then it kind of wrote itself in terms of, once we locked in on what it was, I think Stephen ... we're big fans of the movie The Blob. We liked that basic storyline. Something mysterious comes to town. Teenagers see it, try to alert the authorities and nobody believes them and then they're on the front line against this alien invasion."

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is streaming now on Netflix and Tubi.

Are you surprised by the film's body count? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!