Do they bring you joy, or are they really just evil monsters?. Love them or hate them they can’t be ignored. With there pale white dead skin and oversized grinning or frowning mouth’s they certainly are fascinating creatures. Here’s my top ten list of some of the nastier one’s on display:
1. Captain Spaulding.
Created by Rob Zombie and played menacingly by the wonderfully chilling Sid Haig in The house of 1000 corpses and The devils rejects. Proprietor of Captain Spaulding’s museum of monsters and madmen and a proud member of a family of serial killers. This is one bad ass clown you don’t want to mess with.
“Howdy folks!. You like blood? violence? freaks of nature? Well come on down to Captain Spaulding’s museum of monsters and madmen, see the alligator boy, ride my famous murder ride. Most of all, don’t forget to take home some of my tasty fried chicken. Ha Ha! it just tastes so damn good” (Captain Spaulding).
2. John Wayne Gacy.
3. Ronald Mcdonald.
“Doing more to make the world a bigger place”. The worlds largest food chain has been responsible for the decline of healthy living standards on a massive level. The fact that they use this weird looking clown to sell there fatty, high calorie and salted garbage to children must make him pure evil. Morgan Spurlocks 2004 Super size me documentary shows just what happens when you only eat mcdonald’s food for a month.
4. Pennywise.
“They all float down here. And when your down here you’ll float too!” (pennywise). Created by Stephen King in 1986 and made into a film in 1990 by director Tommy Lee Wallace. “It” centres around a small town of inhabitants where the children are vanishing in mysterious circumstances. “It” turns out to be an evil clown called Pennywise and with a taste for children’s souls (played brilliantly by Tim Curry). The local children think they have killed Pennywise only to find out later in adulthood that “It” is back and as hungry as ever. The first half of the film has a real genuine creepy nature too it, the problem is in the second half of the film when the children are adults and return to there small town to defeat pennywise once and for all. This is a film where the child actors actually outshine there older counterparts, and the ending is so lame. Despite that, Pennywise the clown is a pretty terrifying character.
5. The clown in Zombieland.
Following on from the successful Shaun of the dead (2004) Zombieland is another zombie horror/comedy directed by Ruben Fleischer in 2009. It’s a zombie film folks! so i don’t really need to go into the plot of the film, lets just say that the world is over run with the living dead and the remaining living are trying to avoid…well just being eaten, enough said!!. The clown zombie is played by Derek Graf.
Why didn't the zombie eat the clown?. Answer) because he tasted funny.
6. Dead silence clown.
Directed by James Wan and from the creators of Saw this 2007 film is about a crazy woman ventriloquist called Mary Shaw who set’s out to make the perfect puppet out of real people. She’s eventually killed by having her tongue cut out by a local clan. Her request is to be herself turned into a ventriloquist’s dummy and buried with her collection of dolls.
Someone as mental as that is surely going to return from the grave at some point, only to seek bloody revenge on her enemies.
"Beware of the stare of Mary Shaw, she has no children, only dolls. If you see her in your dreams, be sure you never, ever scream". (or she'll rip your tongue out at the seams).
7. Poltergeist clown.
Directed by Tobe Hooper of texas chainsaw massacre fame this 1982 film was a truly groundbreaking movie in it’s day. Also written and produced by none other than King Steven Spielberg who in the 80’s just simply had the midas touch.
Ok i admit, i saw this film again quite recently and did think it looked a bit naff now, but i am 36 years old and so used to horror films iv’e just become a bit desensitised to it all. Scarier when you are 10 years old.
8. Lou Jacobs.
Born Johann Ludwig jacob this real life clown performed for more than 60 years throughout America. The originator of the classic red rubber ball nose and credited with popularising the small clown car Honk Honk!!!. In 1966 had the distinction of being the only living American to have his image on a U.S postage stamp. Ok, not a proper nasty man in real life but doesn’t that high fore head and smile look just a bit sinister?.
9. The clown bank robbers in dark knight.
The dark knight (2008). Directed by Christopher Nolan.
I would of put the Joker in this list of evil clowns but i just can’t label him a clown, he just has the appearance of a clown due to falling into a tank of chemical waste. Thankfully though for me writing this list there are some great clown characters in the dark knight which means i can have my say on whether the Joker is really a clown or not?.
10. Bruce Nauman’s clown torture (1987).
A truly unnerving work of art by the godfather of installation art Bruce Nauman. Using stacked monitors and wall projections in an enclosed darkened space Clown torture is an assault on the senses. He describes his work to be like being “hit in the face with a baseball bat. Or better, like getting hit in the back of the head. You never see it coming. It just knocks you down” (BNauman). His work is characterised by an interest in linguistics and explores the feelings of confusion, anxiety, boredom, entrapment and failure, alluding to subjects like insanity, political torture and surveillance. The costumes and make up of the clowns act as a disguise for the actor underneath and the viewer becomes like the clown subjected to the feeling of experimentation and interrogation, and thus questions his/her own participation in the events on the screen.
That concludes my list of evil clowns for now. But i’m sure due to my traumatised mind that they may pop there ugly faces up again somewhere?. Somewhere un expected?????.
Lewis Mindenhall.
urbanfox2k 