Clowns & Horror: Rivals of Terror

By Steve Hutchison

Clowns are performers fond of physical comedy. Some are funny, some are scary. Some love children, some hate them. They are a major archetype of horror movies. In this book, film critic Steve Hutchison reviews and ranks 50 of the best horror movies featuring clowns ever released. How many have you seen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Jun 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393589150

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

Book preview

RivalsOfTerror2019_Clowns_Cover.jpg

Tales of Terror’s

Rivals of Terror 2019

Clowns & Horror

INTRODUCTION

Clowns are performers fond of physical comedy. Some are funny, some are scary. Some love children, some hate them. They are a major archetype of horror movies. In this book, film critic Steve Hutchison reviews and ranks 50 of the best horror movies featuring clowns ever released. How many have you seen?

It

2017

A group of bullied kids band together against a shapeshifting demon clown.

Keep away from children! This film is not for them, despite the fact that all protagonists are tweens. They’re young but they’re in a horror movie and they’re here to suffer. As such, they get beaten in the cruelest ways. For a while, the script opposes each child in the losers’ club to Pennywise, one of the creepiest clowns in film history. He fucks with them then leaves, often interrupted.

Perfect sound, pacing, lighting, perfect acting and overall cinematography; It is nearly flawless. It is quite simply one of the best horror movies ever made, and, undoubtedly, one of the scariest. In comparison with the 1990 mini-series by the same title, everything, here, is more extreme, sad, scary and shocking. You get a bunch of solid jump scares that fool you even if you expect them.

Many special effects are computer generated and that’s not really a problem. It’s a style. Complaining about the abundance of compositing would be nitpicking. The characters’ chemistry is representative of the actors’ bounding on set. Their relationships are warm and compelling. The adults are all scums. This is the first part of a duology and it takes place in the 1980’s.

8/8

Poltergeist

1982

A suburban family’s home becomes infested with ghosts.

Few ghost movies are this marketable, complete and polyvalent; containing taboos, scares and gore, yet available to adults and younger audiences alike. It is also convincing when relying on psychological horror. Ultimately, the fear of the unknown is what it focuses on. It makes you go through a wide range of emotions in between its terrifying key scenes, borrowing from many genres.

The cast is relatively limited. The actors are intense and can convey both humor and terror. The dialog feels natural, when not purposely surreal. A character is injected late in the script to bring fantasy, spirituality and hope to a film otherwise much darker. The dynamic between scientists, believers and the family gives you a false sense of security that it can take away at any time.

The effects in Poltergeist sometimes reveal color key artifact, but the grain and technological limitations create a unique cinematographic signature. The major scenes are big and loud, and those flaws are soon forgiven, considering how much is thrown at the viewer. The directing, the editing and the score are an immersing torrent that truly adds to the ambiance.

8/8

It

1990

A group of friends return to their hometown to defeat a demon that haunted them when