When people started seeing men dressed in full clown make-up and costumes, lurking in the woods outside their homes, they understandably freaked out. However, the cops found no evidence, so they assumed it would quickly blow over. It didn’t. Soon the volume of clown calls roused them out of their apathy. Before long, the ominous clown sightings spread throughout South Carolina and into bordering states.
Not surprisingly, 2016 was a tough year for professional clowns. Their birthday party business dried up. To make matters worse, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus went into a 7-year dormancy, due to animal rights litigation in 2017, rendering hundreds of clowns unemployed.
Somehow, Perkins tries to tie it all to the 2016 election, blaming the irrational mass hysteria on political polarization and uncertainty. Who does he position as the voice of reason? Naturally, Cenk Uygur, the extremist demagogue, who basically blames the “Zionists” (and we know what he means by that) for all the world’s problems.
Even without Uygur’s record of divisive rhetoric, Clown Panic still has massive credibility problems. Basically, Perkins tries to have things two ways. The film pillories the Greenville Police Department for not taking the early clown reports seriously, because they came from traditionally minority neighborhoods. Yet, then the film dismisses the entire phenomenon as deliberate hoaxes and viral videos. It is one or the other, but both contentions can’t be valid.
In fact, Perkins plays it fast and loose with causality, trying to tie the tragic murder of a young boy wearing a clown mask to the clown panic emanating out of Greenville. Yet, the young man responsible had a long-standing clown phobia, predating the Greenville sightings. It is a heartbreaking case (which really brings down the film’s mood), but at best, it is very tenuously related to the phenomenon starting in 2016.
Indeed, the most memorable material in Clown Panic was culled from online sources. Arguably, the doc would have worked better if it hadn’t taken itself so seriously, and just served as a “Best of” for evil clown videos. Consequently, horror fans are probably better off watching movies like Clown in a Cornfield, The Night Watchmen, and either version of It. Not recommended, Clown Panic starts streaming today (10/12) on Hulu.
