‘Gags the Clown’ Leans Into an City Legend That Perhaps Wasn’t a Legend

It’s been almost a decade since an outbreak of clown sightings frightened individuals, first within the U.S. after which later across the globe. A clown in the proper context isn’t essentially scary, however a random clown just appearing with no apparent objective is horror film materials. And, the truth is, a few of the creepy clown epidemic of 2016 might be traced again to Gags the Clown, a found-footage indie that turned some intelligent grassroots advertising and marketing right into a stunt that went viral.

Gags the Clown got here out in 2018, which suggests Andy Muschietti’s 2017 It squeaked its big footwear into the pop-cultural dialog first. (Keep in mind the “clowns only” screenings the Alamo Drafthouse hosted again then?) The primary Terrifier got here out in 2016, however Artwork the Clown didn’t obtain mainstream monster standing till its sequel in 2022. And whereas Gags may need performed to a a lot smaller viewers, you want solely dig into the archives of the Green Bay Press Gazette to discern its lasting influence.

In an article printed August 10, 2016, the paper reported photographs purportedly displaying native sightings of “a sinister-looking clown with a clutch of black balloons” had been truly “the primary salvo in a web-based advertising and marketing marketing campaign for a regionally produced quick movie.” The article pointed to a Fb web page—created only a week prior by Inexperienced Bay filmmaker Adam Krause—annoucing Gags, a brief movie. He hoped, the article famous, “he and others concerned with the movie might use social media to create a small viral marketing campaign that might attain a pair hundred individuals.”

As we all know now, clown sightings turned one in every of 2016’s greatest bizarre information tales. Even when it began as a strategy to drum up curiosity in a horror quick, the phenomenon tapped right into a nightmare many individuals didn’t even understand that they had till they began studying information tales about clowns within the wild. Gags the quick did certainly come out in 2016, however you must assume Krause knew he’d grasped a sure sort of magic, and the feature-length Gags the Clown adopted.

Clown in a Cornfield, a clown-themed horror film so splashy it acquired its own activation on the current San Diego Comedian-Con, is hitting Shudder this week. So it is sensible the streamer needed to beef up its clown stock—you can even watch a number of Hell Home, LLC motion pictures there, in addition to the primary appearances of Artwork the Clown in All Hallows’ Eve—by bringing Gags into the fold this week too.

Gags and Cornfield each dig into the concept of killer clown sightings, however Gags assembles its story by way of discovered footage assembled from completely different sources throughout one doom-filled night time in Inexperienced Bay: telephones, CCTV footage, police physique cameras, information breaks, and so forth. The movie follows varied teams as they react to the clown phenomenon. There’s the decided reporter who’s insulted that her boss put her on the Gags beat—till she figures out an angle she’s positive might be her ticket to a Pulitzer. There are the bored teenagers who determine grabbing a clown costume and pranking individuals might be completely hilarious. There are the cops who’re making an attempt to maintain the peace amid more and more circus-themed chaos. After which there’s the right-wing podcaster and livestreamer who decides it’s on him to mete out some vigilante justice in opposition to the balloon-toting joker taunting his city.

Whereas Gags is clearly able to making good on his sinister promise, he doesn’t actually even must. No quantity of stabby violence can compete with the psychological terror he emits by simply standing round. Not talking, not shifting apart from to look and disappear abruptly, and paralyzing a whole inhabitants by simply flickering into view when least anticipated. He’s not theatrical like Pennywise or Artwork; as an alternative, he’s simply there… staring. The creativeness works additional time filling in all the chances of what he could be planning or what he would possibly do subsequent.

Gags the Clown finally sprinkles in simply sufficient clarification and motivation—within the grand custom of the Blair Witch Venture, it’s all the time a good suggestion to pay attention carefully when an old-timer kind pops up with exposition—and it additionally delivers loads of physique horror alongside the best way. There’s some uneven performing which may distract a much less forgiving viewer, however the clown and his aura of menace are extraordinarily efficient. The truth that this film about clown sightings helped spawn a legitimately worrisome rash of precise clown sightings? That simply provides one other 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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