While we can all agree that the trailer for the remake of Stephen King’s It looks fairly spectacular, it does have an unwarranted side-effect: actual clowns are feeling the hurt.
There may have been a time when people could look at clowns and feel a gut reaction other than fear, but that time has long passed.
Between King’s original novel in 1986, the first adaptation which featured Tim Curry as Pennywise The Clown back in 1990, this new remake, and all of those random scary clown sightings across America last year (which the producers had to publicly claim wasn’t a marketing stunt for their new movie), it has not been a good time to be a clown.
Sky News spoke to some professionals, and they weren’t very happy about the look of the remake.
Matthew Faint (aka Mattie The Clown) told them: “We fight our corner as proper clowns. It’s a horrible movie and we’d like to distance ourselves from the subject of scary clowns. There’s just so many horrible movies out there … clowns that eat people or whatever. It takes people’s minds in the wrong direction. We don’t need it. It’s bad, it’s disgusting. It’s sensational rubbish. I don’t know why people want to see these horrible things. What’s the point? I don’t understand people’s mentalities.”
Celine (aka Tickles) had similar complaints: “It’s a horror movie and it affects people’s thoughts and opinions on what a clown is. Unfortunately it’s not like Jaws, which is unrealistic. We do have clowns in society, and yes it will affect business, of course it will. I have parents and teachers phoning me … they’re scared to hire you for 35 kids in case they’ve got one child who will be upset.”
First of all, we’d like to point out that many, many people were afraid to get back in the water after they watched Jaws.
And secondly, maybe the clowns are missing a trick here. Why not repackage themselves and get hired in and around Halloween to scare the spinal fluid out of everyone they run into?
Meanwhile, the remake of It looks destined to be a massive hit to Warner Brothers, when the over 197 million people watched the teaser within the first 24 hours of it being posted online, beating the previous record holder Fast & Furious 8, which had 139 million views in the same time period.
Shall we watch it again?
Clip via Warner Bros. Pictures
