What is This 'Killer Klowns from Outer Space' Cable TV 'Requel' Going to Be?
The cult film's director Stephen Chiodo had only garbled things to say about a new possible Klown invasion.
The 1986 face paint-drenched, weird, West-Coast camp nightmare Killer Klowns from Outer Space is to some, a cult classic, but to many others, one of those baked-in Amazon Prime horror flicks you’ve never had the wherewithal to actually watch. Mostly, it’s a platform for some incredible monsters, if not much else. Discussions to turn the unlikely favorite into a franchise have been long-running; a potential Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3D is a fairly long-standing proposition. For a while, a 2013 release date was rumored.
Even that — what kind of budget could a 3D KKfOS sequel reasonably rassle up? — might have seemed like a big ask, but the revised plan that director, producer and co-writer Stephen Chiodo outlined in the newest episode of the The Movie Crypt podcast seems even more ambitious.
The new Killer Klowns — why not give it a reboot? Everything is getting one — will, apparently, be an elaborate four-part series. It depends on how you parse Chiodo’s statements; could it be both a four-part series and a movie? Here’s the quote:
Right now, we are currently pursuing a long arch series for cable. We wondered, should we do a sequel to the first one or do we do a remake? We came up with a ‘requel’ – it’s a sequel and a remake… It’s a trilogy in four parts, and it really follows the continuing adventures of new people who are experiencing this phenomenon of a Klown invasion, and once in a while you see some of the old guys pop up and hear their stories – find out what happened over the last 25 years. It’s fucking great.
Yeah, hard to figure out what the hell is going on here; a “requel,” as a concept, sounds like some nonsense. Probably, just the same as a sequel with flashbacks that vaguely rehash the events of the first film (See also: The Omen serial drama Damien). We also have to assume that the “‘requel’” and the “long arch series” are the same thing. But it’s unclear.
Some Klowns getting after it
The bigger question is: Who would run such a show? With their slant toward more prestige-y fare like The Expanse and The Magicians, it’s unlikely that Syfy would take a gamble on this. Then again, they are getting into the Creepypasta game with the upcoming anthology take on the microfiction classic, “Candle Cove.”
In any case, one hopes the Chiodos won’t be too caught up in the mythos of the original film — imagine how bad and unintelligible a patchy, fan-service-filled Killer Klowns could be — and put their all into creating something compelling in the context of contemporary horror television. There’s a lot of good stuff out there; if the Klowny show happens, it could either be a narrow win or a huge aberration.
