Aren't clowns supposed to be fun, entertaining children at birthday parties or the circus? According to statistics, more people are afraid of clowns than they are afraid of heights or plane crashes. Have we just been watching too many horror movies? After all, movies with and about horror clowns have been booming since the 1980s.

Pennywise from the movie "It", Batman's villain The Joker, Art The Clown from the "Terrifier" movies, and many other fictional horror clowns have been instilling fear in us for decades. True crime documentaries about the serial killer John Wayne Gacey, who gained chilling notoriety as a "real killer clown," do little to improve the image of clowns either.

But if you think that horror movies have ruined the reputation of these once kind and harmless entertainers, think again. On this episode of Arts Unveiled, we dive deep into the world of creepy clowns and show you that clowns have never really been funny, but have always been a little scary. Not only do we talk to horror clown expert Benjamin Radford, author of the book "Bad Clowns," but we also venture into the German epicenter of horror clowns, Filmpark Babelsberg to meet up with real horror clowns.




#clown #dwhistoryandculture #halloween #horrorclowns
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00:00 Introduction
02:02 Most Famous Creepy Clowns
03:08 Why Clowns Make the Perfect Villains
05:34 The History of Creepy Clowns
08:36 Real Killer Clowns