Editorials
Did You Ever Spot the Killer Klowns in ‘Ernest Scared Stupid’?!
Hey Vern, it’s the Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
The road to Halloween isn’t just about watching as many horror movies as possible, but rather embracing anything and everything that is, for lack of a better word, Halloweeny. From eating ALL the pumpkin treats to revisiting the Roseanne Halloween episodes, there are many things that I just need to do each year to get myself in the proper spirit, and I’m surely not alone when I say that watching the 1991 comedy gem Ernest Scared Stupid is one of those things.
Released on October 11th of that year, Ernest Scared Stupid is essentially Ernest P. Worrell’s Halloween special, and in it the lovable idiot summons forth an ancient troll when he messes around with a tree it had been contained in; in Ernest’s defense, he was just trying to help a group of local kids create the ultimate Halloween haunted house. The diminutive troll, once freed from his prison, begins collecting children and quite literally turning them into wooden dolls, and once he acquires five of them, he’s able to unleash an army of trolls to do his bidding and, well, take over the world and stuff.
Trolls, man. Aren’t they just the worst?
The most noteworthy aspect of Ernest Scared Stupid is undoubtedly the creature effects, which came courtesy of the Chiodo Brothers. The brothers were tasked with not just creating the main troll but also his pint-sized army of creatures, and like always, they knocked the gig totally out of the park. Without their incredible effects work, I’m honestly not sure I’d revisit Ernest’s Halloween hijinks around this time each year, and I say that with all due respect to the late Jim Varney.
But what makes the trolls extra special is that some of them are actually Klowns!
Ernest Scared Stupid came out just three years after Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which was of course the Chiodo Brothers’ masterpiece. They designed the various Klowns in the film, in addition to writing and directing, and two of those Klowns actually ended up being re-purposed, believe it or not, for Ernest Scared Stupid. During the 1991 film’s most memorable sequence, wherein all the newly-spawned trolls are running wild, slightly modified versions of two masks the Chiodos whipped up for Killer Klowns are worn by the performers playing trolls, and we’ve screen-grabbed them for you below – alongside their Klown counterparts!
As you can see, the noses were changed and the masks completely repainted, but other than those slight alterations, they’re immediately recognizable as the same masks used in Killer Klowns from Outer Space. In all likelihood, it was less an homage on the part of the Chiodo Brothers and more a side effect of the budget they were provided with; after all, simply reusing existing materials from their workshop was a pretty smart way to bulk up the troll army.
Another fun connection between Killer Klowns and Ernest Scared Stupid is the manner in which the trolls die. After being squirted with milk, they disappear into thin air after a brief light show spectacular, which is pretty much, aside from the whole milk thing, exactly how the Klowns die!
I leave you with a behind-the-scenes shot from Ernest Scared Stupid, which shows one of the Chiodo Brothers posing with the various troll masks. The two masks to the far left on the second row are the Klowns that were given a second life as trolls.
Pretty cool, huh?!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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