It’s been nearly a decade since an outbreak of clown sightings frightened people, first in the U.S. and then later across the globe. A clown in the right context isn’t necessarily scary, but a random clown just appearing with no obvious purpose is horror movie material. And, in fact, some of the creepy clown epidemic of 2016 can be traced back to Gags the Clown, a found-footage indie that turned some clever grassroots marketing into a stunt that went viral.
Gags the Clown came out in 2018, which means Andy Muschietti’s 2017 It squeaked its giant shoes into the pop-cultural conversation first. (Remember the “clowns only” screenings the Alamo Drafthouse hosted back then?) The first Terrifier came out in 2016, but Art the Clown didn’t achieve mainstream monster status until its sequel in 2022. And while Gags might have played to a much smaller audience, you need only dig into the archives of the Green Bay Press Gazette to discern its lasting impact.
In an article published August 10, 2016, the paper reported photos purportedly showing local sightings of “a sinister-looking clown with a clutch of black balloons” were actually “the first salvo in an online marketing campaign for a locally produced short film.” The article pointed to a Facebook page—created just a week prior by Green Bay filmmaker Adam Krause—annoucing Gags, a short film. He hoped, the article noted, “he and others involved with the film could use social media to create a small viral campaign that would reach a couple hundred people.”
As we know now, clown sightings became one of 2016’s biggest weird news stories. Even if it started as a way to drum up interest in a horror short, the phenomenon tapped into a nightmare many people didn’t even realize they had until they started reading news stories about clowns in the wild. Gags the short did indeed come out in 2016, but you have to assume Krause knew he’d grasped a certain kind of magic, and the feature-length Gags the Clown followed.
Clown in a Cornfield, a clown-themed horror movie so splashy it got its own activation at the recent San Diego Comic-Con, is hitting Shudder this week. So it makes sense the streamer wanted to beef up its clown inventory—you can also watch multiple Hell House, LLC movies there, as well as the first appearances of Art the Clown in All Hallows’ Eve—by bringing Gags into the fold this week too.
Gags and Cornfield both dig into the idea of killer clown sightings, but Gags assembles its tale through found footage assembled from different sources across one doom-filled night in Green Bay: phones, CCTV footage, police body cameras, news breaks, and so on. The film follows various groups as they react to the clown phenomenon. There’s the determined reporter who’s insulted that her boss put her on the Gags beat—until she figures out an angle she’s sure will be her ticket to a Pulitzer. There are the bored teens who decide grabbing a clown costume and pranking people will be absolutely hilarious. There are the cops who are trying to keep the peace amid increasingly circus-themed chaos. And then there’s the right-wing podcaster and livestreamer who decides it’s on him to mete out some vigilante justice against the balloon-toting joker taunting his town.
While Gags is clearly capable of making good on his sinister promise, he doesn’t really even need to. No amount of stabby violence can compete with the psychological terror he emits by just standing around. Not speaking, not moving other than to appear and disappear suddenly, and paralyzing an entire population by just flickering into view when least expected. He’s not theatrical like Pennywise or Art; instead, he’s just there… staring. The imagination works overtime filling in all the possibilities of what he might be planning or what he might do next.
Gags the Clown eventually sprinkles in just enough explanation and motivation—in the grand tradition of the Blair Witch Project, it’s always a good idea to listen closely when an old-timer type pops up with exposition—and it also delivers plenty of body horror along the way. There’s some uneven acting that might distract a less forgiving viewer, but the clown and his aura of menace are extremely effective. The fact that this movie about clown sightings helped spawn a legitimately worrisome rash of actual clown sightings? That just adds another layer of freaky delight.
Gags the Clown is now streaming on Shudder; Clown in a Cornfield arrives on Shudder and AMC+ August 8.
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