The killer clown is a standard horror trope at this point, and you can’t only blame Stephen King, though Pennywise has done a lot of heavy lifting on that front. We also have Art the Clown, Sweet Tooth, the Hell House LLC gang, Frendo, and so many more. There was an uptick in coulrophobia back in 2016, just ahead of the first It movie, when people started spotting clowns that seemed way out of place. Some of that had its origins in stealth marketing for the found-footage tale Gags the Clown, but that couldn’t account for all the sudden eerie sightings. A new documentary coming to Hulu aims to investigate under the perfectly chosen title of Clown Panic.
Here’s the entertaining trailer that just dropped today.
“Why would you want to kill your customers?,” wonders the “good clown” interviewed here, but he’s just assuming there’s a scrap of logic behind any of this. The answer is obvious: because the mere suggestion of it is scary as hell.
“When children in a small South Carolina community report seeing clowns hiding in the woods in 2016, few believe them,” reads the official synopsis. “But as sightings spread across the country, panic escalates into school lockdowns, police investigations, and a nationwide media frenzy.”
“Featuring chilling archive footage, viral internet videos, and revealing interviews with witnesses, law enforcement, clowns, and cultural commentators, Clown Panic examines the collision of fear, social media, and modern America at a moment of deep national anxiety. Darkly funny, unsettling, and unexpectedly emotional, the film uncovers how a bizarre urban legend spiraled into a global moral panic that has echoes that resonate today.”
Ed Perkins, who made the truly disturbing Netflix doc Tell Me Who I Am, directs. Clown Panic arrives on Hulu and Disney+ starting October 12, so you can slot it into your Halloween viewing schedule with ease.
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