Editorials
10 Clowns that Will Haunt Your Dreams Forever!
In case you haven’t heard, clowns have been in the news a lot lately. It’s a very off phenomenon that seems to be getting worse as time passes. Hell, even John Carpenter chimed in on the subject. It’s not as if clowns aren’t scary enough! Their sightings have caused school closings in more than 20 states and a panic among the residents of many suburbs (even our own Mr. Disgusting’s neighborhood has been affected) The onslaught of clowns in the country has of course got me thinking of many of the fictional clowns that inspired these creeps. Being scared of clowns may be silly to some people, but it’s always been one of those fears that I just can’t shake. I remember being taken to the Mardi Gras parades (I spent my early years growing up right outside of New Orleans) as a toddler and legitimately freaking out when I spotted a float full of clowns down the road. So here are some clowns that have gotten under my skin over the years.
Pennywise (It)
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Pennywise (Tim Curry) is terrifying, and while I’m excited for the remake coming out next September, I’m also legitimately scared to go see it. The original ABC mini-series has not aged well with time, but King’s novel is still capable of sending chills up the spine. Pennywise is one of the greatest villains ever created.
Captain Spaulding (House of 1000 Corpses)
Tutti fuckin’ frutti! If Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had a clown in it and was also directed by Rob Zombie, then Sid Haig’s Captain Spaulding would no doubt be that clown. While his screen time is limited in House of 1000 Corpses, he is able to truly terrify in The Devil’s Rejects. Spaulding is a relentless and vicious psychopath that no person should ever hope to come into contact with.
Clown Doll (Poltergeist)
Did any child watch Tobe Hooper’s Poletergiest and not immediately become terrified of clowns (and possibly trees, pools and televisions)? I commend you if you didn’t! Watching this possessed doll attack poor Robbie will forever be permanently ingrained in my memory.
Art (All Hallows’ Eve)
I won’t even lie to you guys: Art the Clown (Mike Giannelli) creeps me the fuck out. Like a mix between a drag queen (the lipstick looks like something Trixie Mattell would wear) and a demon, Art is a mute homicidal clown. Watching him laugh silently as he stares at one of his dismembered victims is a visual you don’t want in your brain.
The Ghastly Grinner (Are You Afraid of the Dark?)
Children of the 90s should know who this bastard is. Are You Afraid of the Dark? is one of those shows that would probably seem laughable now (I haven’t seen it since I was a kid), but there’s a difference when you’re eight years old and watching it. The Ghastly Grinner’s (Neil Kroetsch) modus operandi would be to laugh maniacally in front of his victims, turning them into giggling idiots who drooled blue slime. It’s scarier than it sounds.
Needles Kane (Twisted Metal)
Surprise! The villainous clown in Sony’s Twisted Metal’s video games is named Needles Kane. Sweet Tooth is actually the name of the weaponized ice cream truck he drives. Kane is a serial killer who maintains that he is the greatest serial killer of all time. He will do whatever it takes to keep that title.
Cloyne (Clown)
It may have taken two or three years to see the Eli Roth-produced Clown see an American release, but it was worth the wait! Kent McCoy (Andy Powers) puts on a clown suit for his son’s birthday party only for it to permanently stick to his skin. It turns out the costume isn’t a costume at all, and is actually the skin of a child-eating demon named Cloyne.
Twisty (American Horror Story)
American Horror Story really screwed the pooch when they dispatched Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch) four episodes into its Freak Show season didn’t it? Twisty was arguably the most interesting part of the series’s weak season, making it particularly front-loaded. Still, Twisty was an imposing presence who managed to leave a solid mark in American Horror Story history. At least we’ll always have those four episodes!
Doom-Head (31)
31 has received a mixed reception from critics and audiences alike (read our Sundance review here), but there is one thing we can (hopefully) all agree on: Richard Brake’s Doom-Head is the best part of the film. After he opens the film with a truly creepy monologue delivered to one of his victims, he remains off-screen until the film’s climax. It is then that he really gets to let loose.
Fizbo (Modern Family)
I don’t care what anyone says. Cam’s (Eric Stonestreet) alter-ego Fizbo the Clown is absolutely terrifying. After debuting in the ninth episode of the ABC comedy’s first season in 2009, Fizbo has been a recurring presence looming over the series, appearing in several more episodes in future seasons.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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