John Vernon as Officer Curtis Mooney

Part 1 Part 3

One of the costliest and least successfully executed scenes in the movie is when a guy is driven off the road by a klown on a motorcycle. Instead of the car diving off the cliff and into a river and catching fire, it hits the edge and flops over like pushing a pencil off of a desk long-ways.

Our most disturbing scene comes after the car vs. bike scene. Instead of a gory scene to make scares, we end up with a creepier scare. One of the klowns stops off at Big Top Burger, where he tempts a small girl to come out of the restaurant so he can kill her with a hammer. The scene is a staple for child safety and the popular "Don't talk to strangers" campaigns of the 1980's. For our sake, the little girl's mom grabs her just before she leaves the building to meet the klown.

In the patrol car Mike is cuffed. Dave notices something amiss at the Top of the World, make-out capital of the town. It seems that everyone has disappeared, only to be replaced with some pink goo. Curious, eh? Mike is uncuffed when things seem to be falling into his story. At the station, Mooney is left alone to take all the phone calls from locals about the killer klowns He doesn't care at all. In fact, he downs some scotch. His paranoia makes him believe that the whole town has it in for him.

At home, Debbie decides to chill out. This opens the door for one of the most humorous points in the film: the shower scene... coming in a few paragraphs.

By now, we have reached the halfway point. Our plot is thick by now, and the terror has developed. One thing I'll allow you to ponder is this: Why doesn't anyone realize that these huge, disproportionate, wrinkly, swollen klowns aren't real clowns? People seem to just be amused and go along with the show. Bottom line is that a killer klown is one scary lookin' dude.

Back in the movie, we have a shadow-puppet show on the street that ends in disaster when a shadow-dinosaur eats a group of people. Dave and Mike try to run over the puppeteering klown, but killer klowns are also blessed with a vertical jump that makes Michael Jordan look like a slug. They decide to call it into the station, but Mooney tells them, "F#@% you!" I guess this was long before those new MPAA regulations, eh? Mike leaves Dave. Split up, they can cover more ground to protect the town. Mike gets the idea that the Terenzi brothers should take him to Debbie's in the ice cream truck.

And what about Mooney, eh? Will he ever get his for saying "Frig you" to the town? It seems that he does. A klown comes in and pisses off the short-leashed Mooney, only to find himself heading to a jail cell. Once inside, his cellmates are frightened. Mooney is taken care of when he is attacked by a party horn that bashes his head into the jail cell bars. When Dave finally makes it to the police department, he sees Mooney, sitting upright, with a klown. He speaks... "Don't worry Dave, all we want to do is kill you." The klown pulls a red arm from a bloody hole in Mooney's back, as his corpse falls to the ground.

In this pivotal scene, we also see Dave shoot a klown in the face-- the nose-- and the klown dies in a cyclone of glitter. This is great for us, fans of the good guys. Of course, we also see a terrible scene where the klowns collect a number of cotton candy cocoons in a vacuuming vehicle of some sort.

Back at Debbie's, the shower continues. This scene was modeled after the famed shower scene in psycho, with Janet Leigh. Instead of the blood mixing with water and going down the drain, the Chiodo's thought the toilet might be a better idea for this instance. To say whether it worked or not would be insanely presumptuous. The bottom line in this scene is that we find out the deal with the popcorn, which is killer popcorn that eats people. It attacks Debbie, but that chick's tough. She fights it off just enough to make it to the living room, where she's attacked by a group of klowns

For some reason, Debbie's special. She's put in a balloon instead of directly to cotton candy. She's alive and well, but stuck in a giant balloon and on her way to being held captive by the klowns. The Terenzi's offer a load of comedy when they cause a car accident in a chase scene that lasts all of 60 seconds. But where did the klowns go? "If you were a klown, where would you go?" "The amusement park!"

Part 1,\ Part 3