Back in 1988, a movie called Killer Klowns from Outer Space hit theaters; a film designed to be bad for bad’s sake. It featured grotesque clown creatures that touch down on Earth and do nasty things to the human residents. It was horror with an apocalyptically chortling twist, you might say.
In 2024, the game creators at Illfonic have created a game based on the movie—titled, appropriately enough, Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game. And this asymmetrical multiplayer horror game leans very heavily into the original kampy kult classic: It’s as goofy, gory and grotesque as its source material.
The story and gaming goals are fairly simple. A trio of large alien Klowns (team 1) are scouring a nearly empty amusement park and surrounding areas with space-alien weaponry in their white-gloved mitts. At the same time, seven surviving humans (team 2) struggle to scavenge the necessary materials to fight back and get away from those deadly jesters. At the end of a 15-minute match, if the humans don’t find their escape, the “klownpopolis” will come, and the screen will cover the area in lethal cotton candy.
This is a multiplayer game that may sound like it’s heavily weighted in the weapon-toting Klown’s direction. And it can feel that way at times since the Klowns can’t actually be killed. If they’re downed, they respawn in 45 seconds. (Humans can respawn too with a little friendly minigame help.) But the game is actually a cleverly balanced tug-and-pull struggle, especially if the opposing teams use their character classes and built-in communication tools effectively.
Humans have five different classes to choose from—Athletic, Rebellious, Heroic, Resourceful and Tough—and each type raises or lowers their health, stamina, movement and strength stats. The Tough class has a much stouter health gauge and can absorb more hits, for example, while Athletic can speed away more quickly.
Klowns have Ranger, Tracker, Trapper, Tank and Brawler types to work with. Their classes are much more focused on human snatching skills, however. So the Tracker can create a small balloon animal to sniff out those sneaky humans, while the Ranger can actually hypnotize a “humie” if they look in his eyes.
Humans can find weapons to fight with, but their smartest choice is to seek out the necessary items required to unlock one of four hidden escape points around the map.
For instance, a docked motorboat can carry off a human or two, but it needs a filled gas tank, an installed spark plug, and an engine start before it takes off. And each of those steps requires a quick time event button press so as not to alert any Klowns.
For their part, Klowns can zap humans with guns or bash them with mallets. They can also clog up escape points with cotton candy goop. And if they cover a foe with enough cotton candy, they can hang those human cocoons on a special gizmo that produces little Klown minions and eventually can trigger an early klownpopolis.
As mentioned above, this game is multiplayer only and it does require an online connection.
On the plus side of the scale, Killer Klowns gameplay is quick, fluid and colorful. The matches are short. Team play is heightened through the built-in voice-chat communication tools. And there are lots of small details in the midst of play—such as the human ability to lock doors and hop over windowsills—that help even out the differences in firepower.
The Klown weapons have silly circus names—such as the Cotton Candy Raygun, the Popcorn Bazooka and the Jawbreaker Mace—but there’s still a lot of heavy thumping and zapping in the mix. Some finishing moves can splash bloody goop around. And humans show up with blood-spattered clothes.
There are some sensual visuals that show up in the form of lightly revealing female outfits. And we hear occasional bits of foul language in the human exclamations, such as uses of the s-word and “b–tard.”
On that language front, the voice chat communications with other players can spill some nasty verbiage, too, depending on the individuals you’re randomly matched with.
Keep in mind that this is an M-rated game (in contrast to the PG-13-rated movie). And though the content isn’t as nasty as some games with that rating, it’s nonetheless a part of the confetti package.
If you ever wanted to invade the Earth in the garb of a grotesquely ugly clown, this is your sugar dumpling. But it’s still an M-rated sugar dumpling.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
