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?!
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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