Clown in a Cornfield

In the novel, the antagonists adopt the avatar of a clown mascot linked to the industrial history of Kettle Springs. By utilizing the image of the clown to represent the threat to the protagonists’ lives, Cesare taps into a niche subgenre within American horror—killer clown horror.

Killer clown horror weaponizes the discomfort symptomatic of coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. The exaggerated features of clowns—from their painted faces to their loud clothing—mask the intentions of the people who wear the costumes, creating a sense of unease beneath their playful façade. This unease has deepened the clown’s impact as a figure of horror in popular culture.

One of the earliest manifestations of killer clowns in literature dates back to Edgar Allan Poe’s 1849 short story “Hop-Frog.” In Poe’s tale of revenge, a jester dressed in motley tricks a king and his court into entering a public death trap. Similarly, the 1892 Italian opera Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo tells the story of a murderous clown with no remorse for his crimes.

By the 20th century, the killer clown took a more prominent place in mass media forms. In 1940, DC Comics debuted the Joker, the clown archenemy of Batman. His appearance was inspired by actor Conrad Veidt’s portrayal of the title character in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs, a man whose face holds a perpetual smile. In 1978, the sensationalized case of American serial killer and sex offender John Wayne Gacy intensified the fear of clowns, as he worked as a clown at children’s parties and public events prior to the discovery of his murders. Although he never committed any murders in his clown costume, the association was cemented when he was given the moniker “The Killer Clown.”

The publication of Stephen King’s It in 1986 formalized the killer clown subgenre of horror. The novel’s title character is a shapeshifting entity that takes the form of fearful figures. It most prominently appears as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, which King arrived on upon realizing that his child protagonists were likely to share a common fear of clowns. King’s novel kicked off a boom in killer clown horror, which carries on to the present. In 1988, the Chiodo Brothers’ film Killer Klowns from Outer Space transformed the killer clown narrative into a science-fiction comedy with slasher elements.

Over the next 35 years, more films would lean into the horror elements of these stories, including three adaptations of Stephen King’s It in 1990, 2017, and 2019. During this time, a parallel phenomenon developed in which people dressed up as clowns to instigate widespread panic. This phenomenon was reported as early as 1981 in Brookline, Massachusetts, but most recently gained attention in 2016 when a marketing stunt for an American horror short film called Gags inspired a series of evil clown sightings that began in the United States before spreading to other countries like Canada and the United Kingdom. In 2014, a wave of violent incidents involving individuals dressed as sinister clowns spread across France, including cases of assault. In response, the town of Vendargues issued a temporary ban on clown costumes for people aged 13 and older, citing concerns about public safety and the potential for confusion and disruption during Halloween festivities (Calamur, Krishnadev. “No Joke: French Town Cracks Down On Clown Costumes After Attacks.” NPR, 2014).

Cesare draws from these pop culture traditions to instill a sense of menace around the events of his novel. At first, the protagonists assume that the people in clown costumes are pranking them, which leaves them susceptible to the attacks that the evil clowns commit. By aligning his fictional killers with a cultural figure already associated with chaos and fear, Cesare amplifies the horror while gesturing toward deeper anxieties about social trust and generational tension.