Treatment by Chris Miller
Feb. 2002
LOGLINE: When an alien clown homing device is accidentally activated, a new invasion begins, forcing two down-on-their-luck friends – one a failed comedian dressed as a clown – to become Earth’s unlikely saviors.
ACT ONE
DEEP BENEATH THE PACIFIC OCEAN
The story begins on the ocean floor where TED, a deep-sea salvage diver, discovers an unusual object among the debris of the previous alien spaceship. It’s a brightly colored device with a clown-like face. Curious, he turns it over in his hands and finds a hidden button. When pressed, the clown’s nose begins to blink ominously.
Back aboard the salvage boat, Ted’s boss enters the room unexpectedly. Ted quickly hides the device in his pocket.
“Ted, business isn’t what it should be. I’m gonna have to lay you off.”
Ted pleads to keep his job—anything but returning to fast-food work—but his boss is unmoved.
“No, it’s too late. When we dock, I want you to get your stuff and get off the ship.”
Dejected, Ted heads to his quarters to pack his belongings, the blinking device forgotten in his pocket.
THE COMEDY CLUB
Inside a dingy comedy club, an intoxicated audience waits as the announcer introduces the next act. Backstage, MARK, a man in clown makeup, prepares to go on.
“Everybody loves clowns, and I’m here to spread the clown love,” he announces, stepping into the spotlight. He begins unzipping his pants, grinning wickedly. “Just a minute, I think I have it.”
He pulls a rubber chicken head through his zipper. “Anybody wanna choke my chicken?” he asks, gyrating suggestively toward the appalled audience.
Silence falls over the crowd.
THE BAR
Later at the bar, Ted downs shots of tequila chased with beer. Mark sits beside him, ordering the same. The bartender scoffs, “What you did on stage, you call that comedy?”
“Yeah, I do,” Mark replies defiantly. “And better make it two shots and a beer.”
The club manager approaches and fires Mark on the spot. “After a set like that, there’s no need for you to be working here. That’s not comedy, that’s a goddamn visual and mental assault.”
Ted turns to his now-unemployed friend. “Mark, where did we go wrong?”
“We both get fired from every job we ever try.”
Mark raises his shot glass. “This is a toast to losers like us everywhere. May the rest of humanity rot in hell.”
They drink and order another round.
“At least today wasn’t all bad,” Ted says, pulling the still-blinking alien clown device from his pocket. “I found you something.”
Mark’s eyes light up as he examines the strange object. “Never seen anything like it. Where did you get it?”
“Out on the bottom of the ocean, somewhere I’ll never get to go again.” Ted reaches for another shot.
ACT TWO
MIDNIGHT ENCOUNTER
The bar closes and the friends stagger out, drunk and aimless. Mark, still in his clown makeup, giggles. “Watch this, it’s hilarious.”
He steps into the street and tries to hitchhike as a clown in the middle of the night. Drivers swerve around him, speeding away in terror.
Further down the road, they spot a parked car belonging to a driver who refused to pick them up. Mark decides it would be funny to urinate on it.
Ted continues walking and notices a “Help Wanted” sign in a storefront window. As he reads it, he sees a reflection of a clown approaching in the glass. Turning to speak to Mark, he’s horrified to find it’s not his friend but an ALIEN CLOWN.
The creature lifts Ted off his feet. Ted drops his vodka bottle in fear. The alien clown speaks in unintelligible sounds when Mark rounds the corner. The alien hesitates, confused by Mark’s clown makeup.
The homing device in Ted’s pocket glows intensely. Ted pulls it out, and the alien lunges for it. Ted instinctively tosses it to Mark, who catches it.
“Run!” Mark shouts.
Ted tries to flee, but the alien is faster. It shoots him with a bubble gun, trapping Ted in a multi-colored balloon cocoon.
Mark holds up the blinking device. “Let my friend go and I’ll give it to you.”
As the alien steps forward, Mark hurls the device at it, striking its nose and killing it instantly.
The bubble gun remains behind. Mark finds a way to free Ted, and they wonder how the weapon works. They experiment on a nearby dog, which becomes wrapped in a balloon so light that it floats away, barking frantically.
The friends burst into drunken laughter—until they hear eerie circus music from the next block.
“Remember the story of the guy who got kicked off the police force after telling a story of an alien clown invasion?” Mark asks. “Maybe it was all true.”
“Sure, you would know some bizarre clown folklore that no one else would know,” Ted replies skeptically.
ACT THREE
THE INVASION BEGINS
They investigate the music and discover more alien clowns harvesting humans. The aliens are confused by Mark’s makeup, allowing him to move among them unharmed. He quickly applies clown makeup to Ted, remembering how the alien hesitated earlier.
They surreptitiously join a chaotic clown parade, initially getting caught up in the excitement until they realize people are being murdered all around them.
The aliens deploy various deadly weapons disguised as circus props:
- A tickle gun that stops people in their tracks with convulsions of laughter
- Air blowers with streamers that strangle
- Glue pies that suffocates victims
Mark gets carried away: “Let’s set fire to the sushi bar!” he yells, momentarily joining the alien rampage before Ted pulls him back to reality.
Using the confiscated bubble gun, they begin fighting back against the invaders.
A brave human from the crowd grabs an alien’s oversized mallet when it’s set aside and tries to attack, only to find it makes a harmless squeak when used against the alien clown. The alien offers a friendly handshake, then electrocutes the human into ashes.
ACT FOUR
ABOARD THE SPACESHIP
Mark and Ted manage to infiltrate the alien clown ship. Inside, they marvel at the bizarre technology.
“Didn’t you ever wonder if there was life anywhere but Earth?” Ted asks philosophically.
“The only thing I ever wondered about space was if there was methane in Uranus,” Mark replies crudely.
Mark notices movement and investigates an open door leading to living quarters. Inside is a FEMALE ALIEN CLOWN who locks eyes with him—instant attraction. She places his hand on her bosom and kisses him. Ted appears in the doorway, stunned.
“Why don’t you wait outside for a second, okay?” Mark closes the door on his protesting friend.
Meanwhile, a group of clowns return to the ship from their human harvest. Ted tries to hide while attempting to warn Mark. Eventually, the door opens, and Ted bursts in, locking it behind him.
The CAPTAIN CLOWN notices his quarters are locked and bangs on the door. Inside, the female clown (the captain’s wife) is covered only by bedsheets while Mark frantically dresses. She points to a ventilation grill they can escape through.
The door bursts open as the captain enters, gun drawn. Finding only his wife, he sniffs the air and detects human scent. Spotting the open grate, he roars in fury. He discovers a piece of Mark’s clothing and throws his wife down in rage before storming out.
ACT FIVE
THE ULTIMATE WEAPON
The enraged captain unleashes the alien clowns’ ultimate weapon: a psychotic, extremely powerful clown that kills anything in its path, including other alien clowns.
From a distance, Mark and Ted watch as a floating multi-colored cage is unloaded from the spaceship. The alien clowns keep their distance as the captain remotely lowers the cage to the ground. He takes Mark’s torn clothing, attaches it to a pole, and pushes it through the bars. Whatever is inside tears at it violently.
The clowns retreat to the ship, leaving a weapon on the ground. As the door closes, the captain opens the cage remotely.
With a burst of energy, the PSYCHO CLOWN emerges—a drooling, muscular beast with bulging eyes and, strangely, missing the typical red nose. It attacks the retreating clowns unsuccessfully, then turns its attention to the weapon.
Picking up the gun, it fires at a nearby building. A boxing-glove missile demolishes a significant portion of the structure. The creature’s hyena-like laughter grows louder.
From their hiding spot, Mark and Ted decide this isn’t an enemy they can face directly. They attempt to retreat but are spotted. The psycho clown fires at them, causing explosions all around.
Another person breaks cover and runs, drawing the psycho clown’s attention. It tears the unfortunate victim apart while Mark and Ted find the car Mark had urinated on earlier. They toss out a cotton candy cocoon from the driver’s seat and drive away.
The psycho clown fires at their car, scoring a direct hit. The vehicle smashes into a utility pole, knocking it down. Mark and Ted are saved by the airbags but knocked unconscious, the car surrounded by live electrical wires.
The psycho clown chases another victim into a store, crashing through the window and destroying everything inside.
Mark and Ted regain consciousness and drag themselves from the wreckage. They hear screams and see flames from an explosion a block away.
“We could just run away, you know,” Ted suggests.
“Yeah,” Mark agrees.
Instead, they head toward the chaos, finding a scene of complete destruction—fires, body parts, smashed glass, and overturned cars.
ACT SIX
THE COUNTERATTACK
Above them is a giant pie sign for a local bakery. Mark looks up, then at his friend. “I have an idea.”
Ted takes a swig from a liquor bottle. “You could’ve just walked away, maybe go to unemployment tomorrow… started looking for a job, but no…”
He spots the psycho clown about to attack someone and hurls the bottle at it, breaking it on the clown’s head. The beast’s eyes glow red with rage.
Ted makes a face, sticks out his tongue, and moons the psycho clown. Enraged, the creature tears its victim apart and chases Ted down the street.
Ted hops over a cotton candy cocoon and runs into the bakery. The beast stops to break open the cocoon to drink its contents.
From the roof, Mark cuts the supporting wires with bolt cutters, sending the giant pie sign crashing down on the psycho clown, flattening it.
Ted joins Mark on the roof, panting. “So how come you got to stay up here while I had to outrun that thing?”
Mark shrugs. “Let’s go get the rest of ’em now.”
They head down the stairs and out the back door. Meanwhile, the debris covering the psycho clown stirs. The beast crushes a skull from the broken cocoon and follows their trail.
ACT SEVEN
THE FINAL CONFRONTATION
Mark and Ted return to the spaceship but find the door sealed. Inside, the captain confers with another clown via hologram. The female clown notices the two friends outside and distracts a guard with a seductive smile. She presses a button opening an exterior door near them.
Mark and Ted enter the ship, navigating dark tunnels filled with ankle-deep smoke and colored tubes. Outside, the psycho clown follows their scent into the ship.
The friends reach the command deck and watch the alien clowns finish their holographic communication. When the clowns leave, they sneak in, searching for a self-destruct sequence.
“You think ships really have something like that in real life?” Mark whispers.
Ted shrugs but freezes when a gun presses against his head. They’re surrounded by alien clowns.
The circle of alien clown’s part to reveal the captain standing beside his wife. Mark’s eyes meet the female clown’s, their connection still evident. The captain orders her taken away and prepares to cocoon the two humans.
Suddenly, the psycho clown bursts into the group, attacking everything that moves. Mark and Ted slip under the console to escape.
The female clown fights her guard and knocks him down. Mark balloons the guard with the bubble gun, grabs her hand, and tries to pull her away, but she resists. Ted grabs Mark’s other hand and pulls him away as a dead alien clown flies between them.
The female clown turns to the console and starts pressing buttons. The ship rumbles.
A few alien clowns pursue them up a stairwell. Ted grabs a cotton candy cocoon and smashes it on the stairs. The red liquid inside creates a slippery surface, causing the clowns to fall back down.
Outside the ship, Mark turns back to rescue the female clown. The door begins to close, and he jams it open with the bubble gun. Just as the weapon is about to shatter from the pressure, the female clown squeezes through. The gun explodes into tiny pieces as the door seals.
FINALE
THE AFTERMATH
The massive big-top spaceship builds spinning momentum and lifts off, illuminating the area in bright primary colors. Its ascent is unstable, tilting left and right like a toy top losing speed. Finally, it tips sideways and explodes in a spectacular, colorful fireball.
Watching from the ground, the friends exchange looks of triumph.
“We did it, we saved the Earth,” Ted says.
“Yeah, maybe we aren’t a couple of losers after all,” Mark replies, his makeup now smeared and mostly gone.
He looks at the female alien clown beside him. Their eyes meet as she brushes her fingers questioningly across his exposed human skin. He smiles and leans in to kiss her.
Suddenly, the area around them lights up. Mark reluctantly breaks the kiss and follows Ted’s gaze to the sky, where thousands of big-top spaceships blot out the stars.
FADE TO BLACK.
THE END… ?