A subject not talked about on here for ages is that of the Clown sightings of the past few years. The worldwide craze started by the Northampton Clown, caused much fear and loathing in the community in the UK and US and started a viral sensation that now is but a distant memory.
September sees the release of the new version of Stephen King’s seminal horror, “IT” which I’m sure that we are all familiar with. The movie looks like something most fans of the horror genre will be looking forward to, but maybe not if you’re caulrophobia (Phobic of clowns) but the whole thing has got me thinking that while the whole craze is old hat now, we might be seeing a resurgence of such antics again once the movie has been released.
If you haven’t seen the trailer for the new film yet, where have you been? No longer will we see the great Tim Curry don the guise of the infamous “Pennywise the dancing clown”, but now Bill Skarsgard will play the evil alien entity who disguises itself as a variety of head fucks to feast on the young residents of the town of Derry.
For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer, here it is before we carry on with the discourse.
Looks ok, but the proof of the pudding will be seeing the movie in its entirety. It does look as if the movie will deal with the first part of the story (when they were kids) with a sequel in the works probably to carry on the second part of the story (when they are adults) and have to face “IT” once more to stop its reign of terror.
This aside, I’m pretty sure we are going to get the onslaught of clown sightings as a response to the movie’s release. There will always be some joker (get it?!) ready to put on the clown suit and mask and start scaring people for a variety of reasons, be it for publicity, for viral hits or simply to spite those who live in fear of clowns. This is a big issue, seriously bigger than you’d realise, some people really do have a proper fear of all things clown. the last time I blogged about them, at one point I received 160,000 hits in a day just on one post about the subject and over 100 private messages and emails! A real boost for my humble site stats for sure, but a real eye-opener in terms of how much this subject affects people’s lives and psyches.
I recently took my kids to the circus, myself hoping that the clown/s there would be creepy enough to entertain me (well, I’m not scared of clowns if you’re wondering) but what I ended up finding is that “real career clowns” if I can call them that, are somewhat watered down compared to the traditional idea, which for me at least was a bit disappointing!
What I will do here, is monitor the subject in the media over the course of the movie release, and what I find, I will blog about. One thing is assured this time, is that if my own area sees the return of the Doncaster Clown (or other pretenders to the title) I will try my best to get an interview with the guy, in fact, if there are any other regional clowns, I’ll also try to start up a conversation with them, just to see what motivates these folks to do what they do!
Who knows, I might end up making some clown related PDFs, minis or similar type stuff to cash in on the craze (well, if it happens) and the very least should help me shift some books!
Whatever happens, mark my words. The clowns will return, and I’ll be here to keep you up to date with the associated craziness that comes along with it! Let me know your thoughts and comments on the subject!
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