Ever since his publication of It in 1986, author Stephen King has established himself as a leading expert on creepy clowns. The 68-year-old writer, who created Pennywise the Dancing Clown, has weighed in on the menacing real-life clowns that have been terrorizing North Carolina.
The Bangor Daily News, the local paper in King’s hometown, reached out to the author to get his opinion on the recent clown incidents that have been creeping out the residents of Winston-Salem and Greensboro. King responded in an email to Bangor Daily News reporter Emily Burnham about the situation in North Carolina, and why he chose to have a clown be the primary embodiment of his evil predator in It.
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“I chose Pennywise the Clown as the face which the monster originally shows the kiddies because kids love clowns, but they also fear them,” King said. “Clowns with their white faces and red lips are so different and so grotesque compared to ‘normal’ people. Take a little kid to the circus and show him a clown, he’s more apt to scream with fear than laugh.”
Because people have essentially been conditioned to be scared by clowns from scary movies, these pranksters have been using that to wreak havoc on people for a laugh. King continued, “The clown furor will pass, as these things do, but it will come back, because under the right circumstances, clowns really can be terrifying.”
While King maintains that the horrifying fascination with clowns will pass, he admits that he is could be frightened by clowns as well. “If I saw a clown lurking under a lonely bridge (or peering up at me from a sewer grate, with or without balloons), I’d be scared, too.”
Just to make sure your fear of clowns becomes all too real again, the new movie version of It will be coming to theaters next September as the film is currently shooting.
[H/T Bangor Daily News]
