Note to self – never visit Montreal
A blood-soaked Pennywise-looking clown was spotted holding a knife and standing in a dimly-lit door frame on Google Maps.
The clown, originally dreamt up by Stephen King, was seen splattered with a blood-like substance in the entrance to a basement in Montreal, Canada.
The person behind the mask was lucky enough to be caught on camera as the Google Maps van drove by. The exact motivation for the prank is not known, but clearly, the timing was spot on.
Pennywise was the terrifying killer clown from King’s 1986 horror novel, IT, who feed off children in Maine.
But King did not merely pick the first villain he could think of; after all, the Pennywise entity can technically morph into whatever form it pleases.
Speaking on his decision process in 2013, King said he was on the lookout for a “binding, horrible, nasty, gross, creature kind of thing”.
While many of us may attribute the rise of the horror clown to King, professor Andrew McConnell Stott traces it back to Charles Dickens. The author’s interpretation of Joseph Grimaldi’s memoirs developed into something categorically darker than other versions.
Serial killer John Wayne Gacy certainly didn’t do anything for the rep of clowns across the world. Between 1972 and 1978, Gacy sexually assaulted and later killed more than 35 men in Chicago- earning him the title of “Killer clown”. Gacy had regularly performed at children’s hospitals and events as ‘Pogo the Clown or ‘Patches the Clown’.
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- Clown shortage leads to calls for new recruits in Northern Ireland
