Scary Clowns

Scott Hardie | October 31, 2016
Will clowns reach a tipping point where they are considered horror characters more than their traditional role as silly entertainers? Have they reached that point already?

Samir Mehta | October 31, 2016
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Scott Hardie | November 1, 2016
I'm sure that the birthday-party-clown business is taking a hit this year. And the circus business has been hurting for a very long time.

Let me rephrase the question: When we think of Halloween characters, there are the typical icons: Ghosts and witches and mummies and vampires and devils and so on. Will clowns someday join their ranks?

Steve West | November 1, 2016
Oh, they've already joined their ranks. I think Pennywise was the deal sealer so to speak. Prior to him there was that evil clown doll in Poltergeist and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Since then we've seen a rash of evil clown characters like that Spawn clown, Billy from Saw, and even the Joker. Clowns are just plain creepy to me. And don't get me started on Ronald McDonald.

Samir Mehta | November 1, 2016
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Scott Hardie | November 6, 2016
Yeah, Gacy was real, and arguably Ronald McDonald is "real" in the sense that you can meet someone playing him at a McDonald's-sponsored event, unlike the other aforementioned characters that are limited to movies. But Ronald McDonald is innocuous, threatening harm only through fat and cholesterol, and Gacy had made his last appearance in makeup by the time he was suspected of any crime. On the other hand, the first modern scary-clown sighting happened in 1981, before It and Poltergeist and shortly after Gacy became notorious, so perhaps that's it after all. On the other other hand, clowns have always been scary. I don't know any more.