Terror Wears a Red Nose

By sizemore Last edited 217 months ago
Terror Wears a Red Nose
cotton_candy_autopsy.jpg

Ok, we think it's safe to come out now, we think they've all gone. Having so many of them congregate in the one place was always going to be a problem. Where were the police when we needed them? But it's all clear now. You can send the kids off to school, but be sure to warn them of the dangers of anyone who looks a little foreign... and by foreign we mean white faced, green haired, red nosed and long footed. Clowns, man. They creep us out.

This is why we steered well clear of East London over the weekend. Clowns in their hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions congregated at All Saints Church in Haggerston, Hackney for some kind of clown ritual. The cover story was that they were there to attend the memorial service for Joseph "Joey" Grimaldi, the original clown. That's right folks, generations of terror can be attributed to that single gravestone. We're not exactly sure what goes on when clowns from all over the world gather in one spot, but rumours of confetti bucket stockpiling, water discharging flower trading and general tomfoolery cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Numbers at this point are hard to validate as police counted on average 36 clowns to each small vehicle parked outside the church. Matters were further complicated when several of those vehicles were later folded up and put into large baggy pockets.

If you're worried about this kind of thing (and who isn't?) we've compiled a top five list of cinematic clowns to help keep you safer this time next year:

1. The Killer Klowns From Outer Space - the masks finally slip here with a killer soundtrack provided by The Dickies and deadly shadow puppetry.

2. Pennywise - The scary bastard from Stephen King's IT. More likely to rip your arm off in a storm gutter than make you a balloon animal.

3. Grimm - sad faced bank robber played by Bill Murray in Quick Change "Alright, I gotta hang-up now, because I gotta go kill everybody"

4. The clown toy from Poltergeist. Everyone concentrates on the little girl just because she gets sucked into a TV. Meanwhile her brother is attacked and eaten by a tree and touched in an inappropriate way by a possessed clown toy with arms so long it scares us just to type about them. *shudder*

5. Claire Kane in Altman's Short Cuts whose dayjob affects her hubby so much he has no problem fishing in the company of a corpse for the weekend.

Bonus Clownage: The pic is taken from Londonist's favourite ever clownscapade, A Cotton Candy Autopsy.

Last Updated 06 February 2006