10 Ridiculous Horror Movie Villains That Shouldn’t Have Worked… But Did

The 1980s was a strange decade for horror films. For every ground-breaking classic like The Shining, A Nightmare On Elm Street, and The Thing, there was a peculiar (yet delightful) oddball like Critters, The Burning, or Street Trash. Another of these cinema misfits was Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and it’s exactly what you think it’s about.

When a circus tent spaceship arrives just outside the town of Crescent Cove, the inhabitants fall prey to clown-like aliens who proceed to kill and kidnap the townsfolk in an array of comedic ways. Whether it’s by encasing people in candy floss cocoons, devouring a crowd with a shadow puppet, or creating vicious balloon animals, Killer Klowns wears its circus aesthetics on its sleeve and strives to get as much fun out of its ideas as it can during its runtime.

But these Klowns are more terrifying than their wacky antics suggest. There’s an uncanny grotesqueness to their appearance that’s equally comedic, horrifying, and even charming at points. And when this is coupled with their vicious actions, like the cocoons implied to be slowly digesting the victims, this villainous troupe have an unexpectedly fierce edge to them.

Even when funny, horror clowns are always terrifying.