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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Clown Terror Has A New Face

After hearing for years about American Horror Story, about 3 weeks ago, my friend Terri DVR'd the first show of the new season. We sat. We drank wine. We drank more wine...and we were both were introduced to our latest craze. I spent the next 2 weeks on Netflix catching up on the past seasons.

Prior to watching American Horror Story, the most terrifying clown I'd EVER come across was Pennywise the Clown from the book "It" and the mind of Stephen King and played to the hilt by Tim Curry in the film adaptation.


Pennywise hid in the sewers of the requisite creepy Maine town and his favorite food of choice was...kids. Sure it's a bit ghoulish but who am I to criticize the culinary quirks of clowndom's citizens? So Pennywise liked to eat kids. Kids can be annoying. John Wayne Gacy was a real-life killer clown and he creeped me the fuck out. I don't think he developed a taste for kids but if you were a handsome, young gay man, you might end up buried in the crawlspace beneath his house.

I LOVED Homey the Clown. He was hilarious. He belted kids across the chops with a quarter-filled sock. I was delighted by Caesar Romero, Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker:
I even liked the band, Insane Clown Posse a little bit.

I liked clowns. OK...I did want to kick Ronald McDonald in his clowny little gladbags. But most clowns were OK...until I happened upon Pennywise. Pennywise fucked it all for me.

In the previous seasons of American Horror Story, I was introduced to a host of scary characters. But holy fucking shit! The thing that scared the living shit outta me and gives me nightmares is a character called "Twisty the Clown". Twisty doesn't talk...at all. He performs like a normal clown. Makes balloon animals, pulls bouquets of flowers out of his sleeve, has the eternally long string of knotted scarves in his pocket. The thing about Twisty is he can go into a murderous rage when his balloon animal pops or you don't find his antics particularly amusing. And sometimes he just murders for no reason...or maybe he has a reason we're not privy to. We have absolutely no clue what's going on in Twisty's mind. Because he doesn't talk. His creepy clown suit is filthy. Twisty doesn't seem to care about personal hygiene. Oh yeah...Twisty doesn't pull rabbits out of hats either. Usually...it's a head. A human head. He DOES appear to be wearing a real clown hat...made out of a real clown. In episode 2, we got a glimpse of what is under that giant rotten grin.

I would hand-feed my kids to Twisty. Morsel-by-morsel. Twisty is not mocked and I find his silence far more menacing than any clown I've ever encountered. The character actor behind Twisty's visage is John Carroll Lynch who last scared the crap out of me in the HBO series "Carnavàle". He has definitely upped the ante.

As a kid, I remember after Halloween trick or treating, sitting down with my parents to sort through the candy to check for tampering. No doubt if I had gone to Twisty's house, I'd have come home and dumped my candy on the floor...and human heads would have rolled out of my sack. I seriously doubt they teach "Head Severing 101" in clown college.


Go ahead and fuck with Twisty. I dare you. I double dare you. I triple dog dare you.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN BITCHES!