Clown Panic (2026) Movie Script

[car passes by]
[police sirens wailing distantly]
[cars passing by]
[dog barking]
[vocalist singing]
[bicycle whirs and rattles]
[Janesa Torres] I haven't
spoke about my brother
in this way before.
I just haven't felt ready.
[crowd yelling indistinctly]
[tense music playing]
[Tonie Vasquez]
Senseless. It was all senseless.
Everybody's lives got changed that night.
-[crowd shouting angrily]
-[person screaming]
-[vocalist singing]
-[police sirens wailing]
We lost two people over a clown mask.
One is dead...
and one is alive but dead.
[dramatic music playing]
[crowd cheering]
[crowd] [chanting]
We love Trump! We love Trump!
[reporter 1] ...major attacks targeting
law enforcement officers...
...worries about instability
in the economy.
[reporter 2] It is turmoil.
People's jobs are on the line,
and everybody is kind of wondering,
"What's coming next?"
[person] Yo, dude, what are you doing?
What the fuck?
We've been hearing a lot of chilling
stories lately involving creepy clowns
reportedly trying to lure children
into the woods.
She is an abject,
psychopathic demon from hell.
Baggy pants, nose, hat.
[Ben Radford]
2016 was an inflection point.
[person] Please don't tell me
that he's gone. Please, officer.
[Ben]
The world's going to shit,
and something fundamentally shifted
in the country.
[Donald Trump] You can do anything.
Grab 'em by the pussy.
[Guilford "Gilly" Adams]
People are angry. They're frustrated.
-Murderer!
-[reporter 3] A major health alert...
[Cenk Ugyur] And, all of a sudden,
a killer clown pops out of the woods.
[person] What the hell?
These creepy, murderous clowns.
[Gilly] What the hell is going on?
[reporter 4] I don't think I've ever
heard anything quite like this.
[U.A. Thompson]
The story of the clowns...
[reporter 5]
Scary has swept...
[U.A.]
...is the story of America.
[people shouting]
[rock music playing]
[music fades out]
[soft orchestral music playing]
[narrator]
The United States of America.
Land of freedom.
Forty-eight different states
from which to choose,
each with its own
particular beauty and charm.
Down where the blue Atlantic
rolls against warm, white sands
and palm-fringed shores,
lies the state of South Carolina.
Twenty-eighth in size,
27th in population,
but second to none in wealth of interest
and warmth of hospitality.
[unsettling music playing]
[rain pattering]
[gentle piano music playing]
[Nat Arnold]
It was about 9:00 p.m.
My cousin had came over
to, like, play with me and my brother.
We ended up having dinner.
We had mac and cheese and ham.
Then we went outside
to the basketball court
that had just opened.
As we were playing for about 30 minutes,
we started seeing lasers flashing at us.
[children chattering]
And our reaction was just like,
"Oh, shit, what's about to go down?"
[leaves rustling]
And then I just started
seeing rummaging in the woods
and started hearing,
like, leaves crunching.
[leaves crunching]
And then, suddenly, a clown just
popped out from behind the tree.
[tense musical sting]
White face paint, red nose,
just staring, like, deep at us.
It felt like we were being
looked at as prey.
-[tense musical sting]
-[children yelling]
We grabbed our basketball
and then just ran.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Donna Arnold]
What do I say about clowns?
I hate 'em.
I really hate 'em.
They have ruined my life.
[acoustic music playing]
Nathaniel come running to me
and he said, "Mama,"
said, "There's a clown watching us."
And I said, "Oh, yeah, right."
I said, "Just go get your bath
and get in the house."
It was a little far-fetched for me.
-[tub draining]
-[eerie music playing]
[Nat] I started to doze off.
Maybe I had just hallucinated it
or just made it up in my head.
But then I started hearing
a really strange noise.
[chains rattling]
Chains being dragged against the concrete.
Just pure, like, metal just scraping.
[chains rattling]
[Donna]
We started hearing moaning.
[Donna moans]
Then you'd hear clank, clank, clank!
And then...
[creepy growling]
...bang, bang, bang, bang.
[discordant music plays, fades out]
[phone line ringing]
The next thing I did
is I called the sheriff's office
to report that my son
had seen a clown in the woods.
[operator]
911, what's your emergency?
And the first response
I got from them was,
"Are you on crack?"
[tense, foreboding music playing]
[Ken Miller] A member of my team
came in and said,
"Hey, look, the sheriff's office
have had a report of a clown sighting
over in Fleetwood Manor."
And my first response was a chuckle.
Like, really? Clowns?
I was the police chief
for the city of Greenville.
And of all the problems we deal with,
and we deal with some
significant problems,
a, a clown sighting, you know,
what, what's next?
[percussive music playing]
I asked what we knew
and what we were doing about it.
And, you know,
we'd increased some patrols,
and they were just
trying to pay attention.
But we were unable to locate any evidence
that the clown had been there.
-They didn't leave anything behind.
-[dogs barking]
You know, the nose fell off.
It could, [laughs] could be
they lost a glove
or they lost a button
when they were running away.
There was nothing.
I-I mean, honestly,
I-I had hoped it would just kind of--
We'd move on from it.
-[phones ringing]
-[indistinct chatter]
[Shale Remien] As journalists,
every day we have our content meetings.
You walk in, trying to hold your own
as a rookie reporter,
going in guns a-blazing with three good,
heavy, weighted story ideas.
And all of a sudden, my manager
basically looked at me and said...
"Today you're going to be
covering clowns."
I... was like, "What?"
[laughs]
I mean, literally, the only thing that
I've covered remotely comparable to that,
as far as when they told me that,
was Bigfoot.
So I drove down to Fleetwood Manor.
And it, I don't wanna say
felt like a waste of time,
but it was kind of like,
"Okay, is this real?
Why is this a story?"
You know?
[turn signal clicking]
I came across Donna, and she was adamant
that her son had seen
a clown in the woods.
You can tell that she's scared
and, you know, wants to share her story.
And so, that's basically
what we rolled with.
[reporter] Neighbors in a South Carolina
apartment complex
are watching their backs
after children reported seeing clowns
in the woods near their homes.
Shale Remien reports.
[Shale] Clown sightings.
It's been the talk
of Fleetwood Manor apartments,
and it has most parents,
like Donna Arnold, on high alert.
I'm a parent of a child
that was almost abducted.
[Shale]
Arnold says she called
the Greenville County
Sheriff's Office for help
after her son and others
around the complex
said they saw clowns
behind the basketball courts.
[young Nat] There was clowns
running in the woods
telling the kids that they had candy
and they would give it to 'em
if they ca-came down.
[Shale]
Clowns might sound silly,
but it's a situation
parents are not finding funny,
and want the clowns caught.
[Nat] At first, nobody really
believed me at all.
People around the neighborhood
just laughed about a lot of it,
saying I was just imagining things.
Nathaniel was not believed,
even by our own church.
Everybody thought that I needed
to go have his head checked.
It's so painful when you look
into another human being's eyes
and not be able to say,
"It's going to be okay.
I got this. You gonna be fine."
So, well, I decided I was gonna go
into the woods myself
and see if I can catch who's doing it,
or do something to make it go away.
[tense music playing]
I went back through the woods.
And lo and behold,
there was a red balloon
laying on the pond.
[tense music continues]
It reminded me of It...
where It was holding the balloon
and saying, "Come and swim with me."
[children laughing]
And it really terrified me then.
I was like, "Oh, no,
he ain't gonna get me."
[tense music playing]
What on God's green earth
is happening here?
[clown shrieking]
[Traci Fant]
Shit, a clown being in the woods?
Oh, hell nah.
That's some scary shit.
I ain't lying, I'm like,
"Yo, that's some scary shit."
[percussive jazz music playing]
Boogeyman? Yeah.
A homeless guy? Yeah.
A clown? That ain't the type shit
kids in the 'hood make up.
We'll set up.
She ready, right?
We're ready too.
You know what I'm saying?
-Freedom fighters out here.
-[overlapping chatter]
The community was scared,
and they were confused.
So, our main goal was
to make the community feel safer,
and to also let them know
that we value them enough to show up.
Oh, yeah, good seeing you.
How have you been?
-I'm alright.
-That's wassup.
Fleetwood Manor is a predominantly
African American community, lower income,
people who may have
fallen upon hard times.
But because this is the 'hood
don't mean it ain't good.
[U.A. Thompson]
Uh, Traci Fant actually called me
and she said,
"Y-You heard about this nonsense?"
And I... remember saying, "Oh, my God."
We do know the clowns were there.
But we did not know why they were there.
[bell tolling]
I mean, this is very satanic.
This is dark.
This is deeply troubling.
This is deeply sinful.
This is-- This is sinister.
[eerie musical sting]
Black folks, like, we scared of clowns.
We don't play that.
I mean, it dates back,
you know, in history, like,
we don't like people in masks.
[eerie music playing]
Think about Michael Myers, right?
Think about Jason,
Friday the 13th type shit.
They stand there and stare at you.
We don't know what they gonna do,
but we know they gonna do something.
Want some popcorn?
And I've never seen a scary movie
where a Black person made it to the end.
I promise you,
if it's a Black person, you go,
"Oh, they-they about to die."
-[grunts]
-[knife slashing]
-Yo!
-[grunts]
[rain pattering]
[phone line ringing]
[911 operator] Greenville County 911
What was the location of your emergency?
[caller] Hi...um
I'm reporting the...um
Killer clowns
[911 operator] What?
I don't understand what you are saying
[caller] The clown that's kidnapping kids
[911 operator] The clown that's
kidnapping kids?
[Ken] It was one thing for there to be
a single clown sighting.
That-That-That wouldn't have
troubled me that much.
And then there was a second one
and it was like, "Well, okay,
how many more of these are we gonna have?"
And then they started
popping up pretty regularly.
I just kept hearing
chains, chains, chains.
[reporter] Breaking news,
another sighting of possibly
a person dressed as a clown.
I saw him, like, just walk by.
I saw orange.
[person] They kicked through.
It went through, right?
[Traci] There was one that happened
in Piedmont Manor
where the clown busted through the fence.
[on TV] They had on baggy pants,
you know, tight nose, hat.
I'm imagining in my mind,
you know how Homer Simpson,
how he backs into the bushes like that?
What's going on in Greenville?
Have you guys heard about these clowns?
I think it's just an asshole casserole,
wanting to mess with them sons of bitches
down there in South Carolina.
[dispatcher] Subject dressed
in a red and yellow suit.
We can't depend on the police.
Shit, they might be the police.
So we've had six between
Greenville County and Greenville City.
[reporter 1] Let's hope it is not
children's imaginations run wild.
I don't think I've ever heard
anything quite like this.
[reporter 2] A woman
at Park Haywood apartments
got quite a scare as she was leaving
the complex's laundromat.
This woman looks directly at the clown,
and the clown looks directly at her.
[reporter 2] The woman said
the suspicious person quote,
"Smelled like house paint."
Imagine just locking eyes
with that clown.
I mean, what do you do next?
This story was straight out
of a horror movie.
[phone ringing]
Clowns, huh?
[Ken]
There were multiple calls coming in.
It's not that we didn't
believe the claims,
although maybe some of them
were less believable.
Look! A clown, right there!
[tires screeching]
[clown cackling]
[car crashing]
But unless you catch somebody
wearing that makeup or that mask...
I don't see him anywhere.
[Ken]
...you don't have a lead.
Sorry, guys.
Uh, the clowning around needs to stop.
It's illegal. It's dangerous.
It's inappropriate.
Uh, it's creating community concerns.
It needs to stop.
Thank you all.
[U.A. Thompson] The clowns did not show up
in white communities.
They showed up
where there is dire poverty,
where the people are marginalized,
where the children were already
in painful places in life.
And, you know, the mind
can only take so much before it snaps.
[Donna]
My 10-year-old can't even sleep.
He has not slept in three days
because he can't sleep.
He's scared that they gonna break in.
But the police act like
they don't see nothing.
If the clown issue had happened
in a rich neighborhood,
they would've been on it
night and day until they solved it.
But in a poor neighborhood,
they did not care.
They felt like we didn't matter,
that we wasn't part of the human race.
Here is one very mad, very angry mother
that is not gonna take it.
I am Navy-trained SEAL,
and I'm not afraid to use my skills.
[applause]
[Ken]
It stings a little bit, I-I must say,
uh, because I paid attention
to our Black communities,
our minority communities,
and I cared about those communities,
uh, every bit as much, if not more,
um, because of their disadvantaged nature.
[tense music playing]
We wanted to identify
these perpetrators...
[sirens wailing]
to intercept them...
and stop the madness.
[percussive music playing]
-[thundering]
-[rain pattering]
[Jeremiah Motz]
I'd been on paternity leave,
um, and I was ready to come back to work,
uh, because a-a baby is,
uh, a lot more work
than, than being an investigator.
[laughs]
[percussive music continues]
I was told, "Hey, let's go make sure
that there's no circus tent spaceship
spinning people into cotton candy."
Well, I'll be greased and fried!
[chuckles]
-[unsettling music playing]
-[vocalist singing]
[Jeremiah] We decided that we needed
to go down to the woods,
the last place they saw 'em.
[leaves crunching underfoot]
You know, we're trying to find
something that would
really show that
they're either here or they're not.
For a community to be healthy, happy,
engaged, vibrant,
they need to feel safe.
There was an abandoned house
that the creepy clowns lived in.
And fear, fear permeates all of that.
The clowns, they were very inside my head.
It felt like I was going insane.
[Donna]
I felt like I was a failure.
I expected more out of myself
to guard my kids.
We were so ready
for that shit to be over with.
Put the clown bed to rest.
We needed this to stop.
-[maniacal laughter]
-[menacing music plays, fades out]
[birds chirping]
[Jeremiah] We didn't find
anything in the woods.
No big clown shoes or anything like that.
Just really didn't find anything.
[drill whirring]
[percussive music playing]
[Ben]
I remember first hearing the news
about this clown panic
in Greenville, South Carolina.
I was actually at the dentist.
I'd just been sedated, of all things,
and my phone's burning up.
Like, "There's all these scary clowns.
What do you know about them?"
-[notifications buzzing]
-And my first thought is,
"What took 'em so long?"
[laughs]
I was like, honestly,
I was kind of expecting it, right?
Because, newsflash, clowns are not good.
They will fuck you up if given the chance.
[drill whirring]
I wrote a book in 2016
called Bad Clowns.
[vocalist singing]
The roots of clowning go back millennia.
They're in every culture in the world.
And they're trickster figures.
But there's this duality, right?
You never know whether
they're happy or sad, good or bad.
And that duality
is what makes them fascinating...
and fucking scary.
Because at a second's notice,
they could wipe that smile
off their face and attack you.
[car engine revving]
[reporter] For these kids,
fresh off the bus from school,
there's fear something's lurking
behind Building D
at Fleetwood Manor apartments.
At first, I thought that
the Greenville clown panic was a one-off.
This is classic legend,
fairy tale, horror stuff.
The kids are gonna say
they made it up, it'll go away.
It didn't.
Hey, everybody, how y'all doing?
Hope y'all doing good.
Anyways, my brother just hit me up
and asked me if I wanted to go for a hike.
And it's a beautiful day, so I was just
like, "Hell yeah, let's go for a hike."
-I'm super excited.
-[Jake Taylor] Look how pretty it is.
[Brennen Taylor] Alright, let's go.
[Jake] Let's get our hearts going.
[Brennen] This is the place that we're at.
Like, it's called Victory Trails.
[Jake] Go this way, though.
[Brennen] [softly]
Wait, hold on a second. What the fuck?
Hold on. I'm trying to zoom.
I'm trying to fucking zoom.
-[Jake] What is he doing, though?
-[Brennen] I don't know. Is--
-Is that one of those fucking clowns?
-[Jake] [softly] It better not be.
-[shouts] Hey, how you doing, man?
-[Brennen] Shut the fuck up!
What the fuck?
Oh! Oh, fuck!
Shit! Go, go, go!
Fuck this, bro.
[Ben] Videos of actual clown sightings
began to spread online.
It was like an urban legend
coming to life.
And next thing I know,
it's spreading to different cities.
Mysterious clown sightings continue
to spread throughout the Southeast.
The sightings began more than a week ago
in Greenville, South Carolina.
Since then, there have been
more sightings, but in a different state.
[Ben]
Suddenly, I'm riveted to the news, right?
It's like, if anybody in the world
wants to know what's going on, it's me.
[creepy circus music playing]
[person 1] What the hell?
Did you see that?
[person 2]
So, we're playing Pokmon at Sims Park,
and there's this fucking dude over here.
[person 3]
Oh, my God. What the fuck?
[Ben]
I'm, like, putting pins in the map.
Like, here's a sighting here,
here's a sighting here.
It's like one of those horror films.
Where's the monster popping up?
Well, here, boop, boop, boop...
This is not a one-off clown panic thing
that lasts a week.
This, this is a production.
-[person 4] What the...?
-[person 5] No, this can't be real.
[reporter]
At this car wash in Clinton Township,
they saw a clown standing in one
of the bays like this, just waving.
By golly, we see a darn clown
walking down the street.
What do you guys think
about the, uh, clown update today?
The only fucking clown you should trust
is the one that's carrying a Big Mac.
[person 6]
Oh, my God. I just wanna fish, dude.
[person 7] I'm just chilling here
at the Dunkin' Donuts, right?
Then I see this fucking clown right there.
[reporter] ...you are concerned
about clowns being seen across the region,
you can vote now on wymt.com.
You never know
who's behind the clown mask.
It could be a pedophile.
We have tons of pedophiles in this area.
I rebuke it in the name of Jesus Christ.
[cymbal crashing]
[Ben]
People were genuinely frightened.
So, what I tried to do
was to tell people, say,
"Look, I understand you're scared,
"but realize that there's almost
certainly no real danger
to your kids from these, these clowns."
And then everything went to shit.
[eerie music playing]
[insects chirruping]
[insect buzzing]
[Cole Baker]
The rumors started to spread around town
that there were clowns,
and we didn't fathom
that they would even be close.
Like, we didn't think
that could happen to us.
Like, we're the smallest town ever.
We thought nobody
was stupid enough to
-do something like that around here.
-To try in...
-Yeah. Yeah.
-...God and gun country. [chuckles]
[upbeat acoustic music playing]
[dog barking]
[Cole]
There's nothing to do here. [laughs]
It's God, football, family.
In that order.
And beer drinking after that.
[Rodney Ball] You either go fishing
whenever the summer comes,
or dirt track racing.
And it's a lot of fun
if you grew up around it.
[Cole] The high school
is, like, the center of the town.
That's the only thing we got, really,
that's good, is the school.
That is our future, okay?
This is our future leaders.
And it is sacred to people.
It's just a glue that, in my opinion,
pulls the whole community together.
[Mike Lambert]
In 2016, I was the, uh, chief deputy
running the sheriff's department
from top to bottom.
I would have to say that
I've never had a clown case before.
This was the first one
that I had ever been involved in.
And as far as I know, my last one.
[children laughing]
Well, I know a lot of people
that are terrified,
have phobias of 'em or whatever.
Um, I've never had a big deal with 'em.
You know, when I was a kid,
probably the most famous clown
was actually Ronald McDonald.
Ooh, [indistinct].
[Mike] Man, it was a big deal
when I was growing up to, uh, get to go.
Uh, we was focusing on eating
it's not near as much
as we was on actual Ronald
and Grimace and the Hamburglar.
[Joe Thomas] I remember seeing him
at McDonald's, that was it.
Had no problem with him.
Kinda like Santa Claus.
You always love to see him.
I like McDonald's.
My favorite breakfast
from McDonald's is an Egg McMuffin.
[Trae White] Back in 2016, we were
students at, uh, Flomaton High School.
Think it was freshmens or sophomores.
-Freshmen.
-Freshmen.
The rumors were
that there was killer clowns.
-Yeah, that's about it.
-Yeah.
I don't really think there was a detail...
No, there was no detail to it.
There was just...
Apparently, there's clowns here,
and they're killing shit.
-[laughs]
-Yeah.
[Mike] There were clowns seen in different
rural areas outside of Flomaton.
[camera operator] Holy shit.
And there were also some seen
walking on the street behind the school
over here at the cemetery.
[person 1]
No way! He's just going--
-Oh, my God, dude.
-[person 2] Oh, my God.
It was super creepy, but no threats
or anything that we were aware of.
The next thing that happened was
there was a Facebook page created.
Just popped up, and it was a creepy clown.
This Facebook page
then began to message students
that attended Flomaton High School.
[notification pings]
[Trae] I don't know if it was
picking people by random or what,
but it was just constant threats.
"Don't come outside your house,"
or, "I'm watching you shower
through your window."
It's just, yeah, small shit like that.
Then this video pops up.
[clown hissing]
[Cole]
People, in general, were concerned
because what, what is this,
in our small town, this happening?
[indistinct shouting]
Then it got out of control.
-[school bell ringing]
-[children laughing]
[Trae]
I was in school that day.
-[Cole] We was in school that day.
-[Trae] Yeah.
[Cole] And at right about third,
about midway through third period,
a Facebook post came.
[Mike] Flomo Klown posted...
-[notification pings]
-..."It's going down tonight."
Gun emojis, "I kill for a living."
That's when the entire situation changed.
[menacing music playing]
All of us students
are mumbling to each other,
trying to figure out what's going on.
Adrenaline's starting to pump.
We're getting a little nervous.
I'm thinking, "What the fuck is going on?"
[Mike] Based on the only
information that we had,
we had to consider
that the threat was credible.
-[siren wailing]
-And so, decision was made
to put the school into a lockdown.
[alarm blaring]
[automated voice] [on PA]
A lockdown has been initiated.
Please follow your lockdown procedures.
That alarm finally went off,
and everybody was scared shitless.
We're just thinking, "Damn, they're gonna
break in the school and kill us all."
[tense music playing]
[sirens wailing]
[Mike]
There's officers everywhere.
Probably 30 to 40
law enforcement officers on scene.
[barking]
The situation at hand is much like
an active shooter situation.
[Cole] People were frantic.
Everybody was under tables.
[Trae] All the girls
are in a corner by themselves
just texting their parents,
scared shitless, shaking.
[student sobbing softly]
[furniture scraping]
Was barricading the doors.
We grabbed library books,
the thickest ones we could find.
I'd've beat 'em with a book or my hands
or anything I could find.
I'm not fighting for myself,
I'm fighting for everybody
in this fucking school.
[tense music playing]
[Joe] America does have
a dark history of school shootings.
[reporter 1]
Breaking story today,
two gunmen opened fire
at Columbine High School.
[reporter 2] Thirteen people killed,
23 others injured.
Who can forget these images?
After Columbine, if there is a threat,
especially at a school,
they're gonna react.
[President Obama]
This evening, Michelle and I will do
what I know every parent
in America will do,
which is hug our children
a little tighter...
and we'll tell them that we love them.
There are some
crazy people out there,
so you gotta take every threat seriously.
[suspenseful music playing]
We went through each classroom
and made sure that every student was okay.
But at the end of the day...
we found...
nothing.
-[alarm blaring]
-[eerie vocalizing]
[Rodney]
People was truly scared.
I mean, most of the time,
you'd see young'uns outside
playing in their front yard.
But with the clowns coming into Flomaton,
you didn't see young'uns out.
I had a nephew in school at the time.
Me and him's really close.
And if the clowns was coming there...
I'm getting teary-eyed thinking about it.
Somebody'd be in the swamp right now.
Around here, we're welcoming people,
but you do not mess with our families.
Especially the young'uns.
[sinister music playing]
[Joe] We covered the story
here in Flomaton.
And then, days later,
I started getting phone calls
from different news organizations
about what was going on.
And then, the next thing you know,
they're talking about it
on the national news.
Maybe you've seen the headlines.
Neighborhoods across the country on edge
after a series of scares
involving people dressed as clowns.
The sightings are terrorizing kids...
[Cenk]
When I first started seeing the clowns,
I remember thinking,
"That's both strange and telling."
It was strange in that,
what are they doing?
Uh, why are they trying
to scare the shit out of people?
The so-called clowns
had a Facebook page...
[Cenk] And what's motivating
society to be fascinated by them?
You walk anywhere near
somebody's house looking like that...
-Mm-hm.
-...in America?
Whew! It's a mighty miracle
he hasn't been shot yet.
And so, to us,
we're trying to figure out America,
so that's why we covered it.
We were in a middle finger mood in 2016.
Murderer!
[crowd]
Hands up, don't shoot!
[Cenk]
Things were devolving.
I want to make America great again.
We are a nation
that is seriously troubled.
And in the middle
of this hysteria in 2016,
all of a sudden,
a killer clown pops out of the woods.
[reporter]
A News 5 community alert:
Creepy clown sightings in the South,
and threats of violence in Alabama
force several local schools
into lockdown today.
Nobody scares the bejesus out of people
better than the mainstream media does.
Several reports of clown sightings...
[Cenk] What was our local news
for decades on end?
Scary crime!
Be scared!
Coming up at 11 o'clock.
Scary shit always sells.
Creepy clown sightings
are happening across the country,
and it's no laughing matter.
[reporter 1]
The police are not clowning around.
Jeff, this is no joking matter.
[reporter 2] No laughing matter.
No laughing matter.
And once the clowns
start threatening the schools,
that's not an idle threat
and we're not having fun anymore.
Uh, now we're worried about our kids,
and you do not want to make us
worried about our kids.
It's not a joke to sit there
and threat the school.
The world's going crazy.
These people are going around
trying to kill kids.
[Cenk] So, that's when it got
escape velocity,
and now we're at a major national story.
-What is going on with the clown thing?
-I don't get it.
-I don't either.
-But they're scary.
They are scary.
[host] Well, that's because
Stephen King released that movie
when I was in high school...
[grunting]
-[phone buzzing]
-Oh, God. Hold on, vibrating.
[grunts]
Yeah, hello?
No, I'm doing an interview thing.
Yeah.
[upbeat music playing]
How did I get into clowning?
Bad grades. Um...
Uh, interests fluctuating a lot.
In my whole career,
I have probably done 4,000 parties.
I've been doing it for 25 years.
I do balloons,
but I juggle, I do hat tricks.
I do-- I got, like, a little bit
of everything, you know?
I did, uh, work
as an assistant to Ronald
for a long time, and I loved it.
I loved it.
There are few mascots
that the world knows.
Santa being one of 'em.
Ronald is, like, in the top five.
My goal as a clown
is to bring smiles to people,
to alleviate the day-to-day doldrums
that they have, just for a minute.
You know, I always say,
well, I mean, all clowns are sad.
That's why we're clowns.
But making other people slightly happier,
it makes me slightly less unhappy.
Oh.
It's probably something
that medication would solve.
Yeah. [laughs]
The creepy clown craze
that is sweeping America
is having a direct impact
in Southern California.
[reporter] Multiple police departments
confirming reports
of clowns scaring the public.
[person 1] Oh, my God.
[person 2] Dawg, look, what the fuck?
Nah, this shit's serious, dawg!
[Gilly] When I heard the statement,
and I remember it,
"There are scary clowns
on their way to California. Stay tuned."
It's like, oh, my God, dude.
You guys seeing
what's going on politically?
Like, don't we have
other stuff to talk about?
You know, and then,
the more I would kind of look at it,
the more stories I would see.
And that's when it became kind of, like,
"Oh, [laughs] that's not good."
That's not good for me, you know?
Uh, Clarabell, do you wanna
hang up your stocking now?
[ethereal vocalizing]
[Ben]
For decades in America,
you had this notion
that clowns were good.
Would you like to see me
do something funny?
[Ben]
You had Bozo the Clown.
You had Ronald McDonald.
So long, boys and girls!
[Ben]
They were happy clowns.
So, you can see why you-- we would assume
that all clowns were good.
-[audience cheering]
-[upbeat music playing]
But a couple things happened
that sort of turned
the, the iconic smiley,
good clown figure upside down.
One of them was Stephen King's novel It,
and his evil clown, Pennywise.
It, the original, you can forget it.
[laughs]
The scene I really hated
was where the little boy
was playing with the paper boat.
Aren't you gonna say, "Hello?"
That shook me to the bone.
-[screaming]
-[growling]
[Gilly]
Jaws was released in, like, 1975,
and people are still scared as shit
about getting eaten by a shark.
I mean, it's effective, right?
I mean, it's so effective
that there's not only It now,
there's Terrifier, there's Terrifier 2,
they're making a Terrifier 3.
I mean, it is part of the common culture.
-[chainsaw whirring]
-[screaming]
And there's no person to be like,
"Hey, um, excuse me,
let's not do that to the clowns, please."
[Ben] You also had other real-life
figures, such as John Wayne Gacy.
John Gacy, a man who liked to put on
a clown suit and entertain children.
Now, he is charged with one murder,
and the police have found, at last count,
27 bodies buried
under his house and garage,
and two more in a nearby river.
And, of course,
the public latches on to "killer clown."
[Gilly] People always say like,
"What do you think about John Wayne Gacy?"
Sounds like an asshole to me.
I mean, I don't know any clowns
that want to go kill a bunch of kids.
I mean, that makes no sense, you know?
I mean, that's your customers, for one.
Right?
[nature sounds]
[water bubbling]
[Mike] After the Flomo Klown
had threatened our kids
and the school was placed into a lockdown,
I felt like the world was looking at me.
[phones ringing]
Our telephones was ringing off the hook
with reporters calling,
wanting to know who is the Flomo Klown?
[officer] Lieutenant Kojak's office.
-Have we made an arrest?
-Yes?
-What are we gonna do next?
-Who is this?
Where is it happening and going down?
What's your plan?
I felt like I was in
one of those cop movies,
you know, calls popping off
all over the place.
It was, uh, overwhelming.
No, no.
Th-Thanks for the call. Yes, ma'am.
I felt that it was very important for us
to make an arrest on this case,
to put a stop and an end to it
before this thing got out of hand.
But all we got, at this time,
is a Facebook page.
We didn't even know if they were
right here in Flomaton,
or if it was somebody
that was in Timbuktu.
They could have been overseas doing it.
[sirens wailing distantly]
So, at that time,
we felt like the right thing to do
was to reach out to the FBI
and ask for assistance from them.
[Bobby Chacon]
With so many sightings,
and now, you know,
the potential of a school shooting,
there was a lot of pressure
to resolve this or to catch somebody,
because up in this point,
we haven't caught one single clown.
[tense music playing]
We had to find out
who was behind the Flomo Klown mask.
We have a Facebook page.
And the first thing we did
was try to obtain the IP address.
The Internet Protocol address
is the unique identifier.
It's kind of a digital fingerprint.
And our technical people
use those series of numbers,
then they can backtrack
from the internet address
to a physical address.
-[engine revving]
-[sirens wailing]
[Mike]
It was in a, uh, secluded part of town
in the north part of, uh, Flomaton.
We didn't know what to expect.
It could have been a big, burly guy.
Or, you know,
some little, tiny, meek person
who was just wanting
some type of attention.
A young, disaffected male teenager.
That's the way it's been
in an overwhelming majority
of prior incidents like that.
[Trae] There was this one kid
that would always sit by himself at lunch.
Wouldn't talk to you,
wouldn't look at you.
-It sounds bad, but--
-Finger-pointing.
Yeah, you're finger-pointing
to that kid first.
[sirens wailing]
[Mike]
We're coming up to the house.
Senses were on high alert.
A thousand things
was running through my mind
about who, what, when, how, where.
You know, what has made us
get to this point?
-[police radio chatter]
-[tense music playing]
The door's open,
and I could not believe my eyes
when I saw who the actual
Flomo Klown was.
-[unsettling music playing]
-[eerie vocalizations]
A young lady named Makayla Smith.
[music fades out]
[reporter]
We have some breaking news.
An arrest has been made
in Escambia County, Alabama,
involving Flomo Klown.
Twenty-year-old Makayla Smith,
along with three teenagers,
now face charges of making a terroristic
threat against Flomaton schools.
Dude, I had a better chance of winning
the fucking lottery before guessing that.
It didn't, it didn't
cross my mind one bit.
Not at all.
[somber music playing]
[Makayla Smith] It makes me emotional
because that's not the person I am.
It wasn't supposed to be nothing evil
or nothing scary or nothing like that.
It was supposed to be just one big prank.
I was six weeks pregnant,
and I had just moved in with this family
when I was running from my boyfriend.
And they had two teenagers,
a boy and a girl.
And while I was there, the boy
was receiving messages from a clown page.
[notification pings]
We found out that this clown
that was sending him messages
was a girl that he grew up with,
and they were friends and stuff.
So, we decided to create
a clown page to get back at her.
We're going through
the internet and stuff,
looking for pictures,
and tried to pick out a name.
One of 'em suggested, "How about Flomo?"
He started adding friends
and people we knew, and messaging them.
[notification pings]
It wasn't anything serious, just funny.
[notification pings]
We thought it was just
gonna be a, a big joke,
and we were all gonna go to bed
and just forget about it the next day.
[sirens wailing]
But, it turns out, the boy stayed up
all night messaging people.
-[pounding on door]
-[police radio chatter]
They were very aggressive.
Because I was the adult in the situation,
they were saying stuff like,
"You fucking did this,
and you're gonna go down for this shit."
It made me feel like
a little scared girl sitting there,
helpless and hopeless.
Just thinking about how people
would think that I would hurt kids,
it-it really digs deep down
and brings out old wounds.
As a child, I was hurt a lot.
So, how could anybody see me
as somebody who would want
to hurt children, you know?
I was charged with terroristic threats
because a school was involved.
It was a felony charge.
And here I am, barely six weeks pregnant,
and I was like,
"Fuck, my life is over, isn't it?"
All over a clown page.
Is she a terrorist? No.
Should we ruin her life? No.
Is she the person primarily
responsible for this? No.
She's an adult.
She's a young adult, not 12.
And in our country,
school shootings in 2016
are a known commodity.
You know what you're doing when
you threaten to conduct a school shooting.
[Makayla] I believe that law enforcement
were in a hurry to catch a clown,
and they used me as the scapegoat.
They used me as the example.
I'm sorry for my part in the page.
I'm sorry for my part in any of it.
But give me a chance.
You know, look at my story,
and don't see me as the Flomo Klown.
See me as the person I really am.
[dramatic music playing]
[Ben] At this point,
people start to realize
that there are no killer clowns.
The problem is...
you can't put the boogeyman
back in the bottle.
[person 1]
Blake is a fucking savage, though.
-[crosstalk]
-[person 2] That shit's not cool.
-[person 3] Are you good?
-[person 4] Wait, what the fuck?
No, this is not fucking happening.
-[person 3] What the fuck?
-[person 4] What the fuck?
-No, no, no, no!
-[person laughing]
-This is not fucking real!
-[clown hisses]
-Whoa!
-[person 3] Hit it! Hit that bitch!
-Hit that!
-[person screams]
[all screaming]
[person 1] Oh, shit!
Ah! Oh, my God, dude!
What the fuck?!
[screaming continues]
[Zac Morris] When I first heard
about the clowns in 2016, I loved it.
I was entertained by it.
I was fascinated.
There's just something interesting to me
about seeing people get scared.
Like, the same way that
you might see someone crying
and feel empathy for that person.
[person 4]
Oh, my God! Stop!
[Zac] I feel like I feel the same thing
when people get scared.
[person 4]
Lock the fucking doors!
And because I love being scared,
I love seeing people get scared.
[funky music playing]
Welcome to "Horror History".
When I set out to make this video...
I've always been on YouTube
since pretty much the beginning.
I am a YouTube content creator,
where I'm known for doing
deep dives into horror.
And I will see you in the next one,
assuming we both survive.
The way that the clown sightings
started to spread
was kind of like a biological virus...
with Greenville, South Carolina
as patient zero.
Creepy clowns continue.
So-called creepy clowns.
Is a killer clown
coming to your neighborhood?
[Zac]
In the beginning, it spread slowly
from community to community
via traditional media.
All of a sudden, a face like that
jumps out to scare you.
[Zac]
But then, once it hits social media
and they could spread
at lightning speed...
Now there've been spottings
in Wisconsin, South Carolina,
North Carolina, Georgia,
Pennsylvania, Mississippi...
[Zac]
...that's when it went insanely viral.
[person] Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!
[person screams]
[playing upbeat music]
Ouch, Charlie!
I'm old enough to remember
that when the internet started,
it was actually kind of a lovely place.
[Zac] A lot of the viral content
on the early days of YouTube
were just one-off, be there at the right
place at the right time kind of thing.
I like turtles.
[person] Double rainbow
all the way across the sky!
[Cenk] But what started happening
is it started to devolve.
And when we get to 2016,
social media is a dark and scary place.
By 2016, the algorithms
had already taken over,
and it drives
our worst instincts, in a way.
[person] Oh, my God!
[Cenk]
Because the algorithm then says,
"Oh, people like this.
It scares the hell out of 'em.
Let me give it to 'em more."
"Ooh, they're staying longer.
"Great, let me give 'em
more clowns and more clowns,
until they're so scared
they can't get off the platform."
[person]
What was-- What the fuck is that?
[Cenk] Next thing you know,
we're all frightened to death.
[person]
Oh, my-- Oh, my goodness!
[screams]
Every time I'm looking
on Facebook, Instagram...
[chainsaw whirring]
...I see nothing
but these damn clown videos.
You couldn't create a scarier,
more viral event.
[person] Holy shit!
[Ben]
Fear, danger, clowns.
[driver]
Get the fuck outta here!
It's all there.
There's a story, uh, I've avoided
talking about for months now
because it contains
a disturbing level of clown.
Things got so big
that even Stephen King himself
started to get wind of what was going on.
[Cenk] In a situation where
you have intense virality
and you've got algorithms
that then create these vicious circles,
when you inject
the right kind of phenomenon
that captures the zeitgeist...
I don't know where that thing went,
but I'm scared as shit right now.
[Cenk]
...it's going to create a perfect storm
that unleashes something larger.
[teens screaming]
[person] Oh, shit!
[Cenk] And the larger part
was not the clowns themselves,
it was the fear that it created.
[overlapping screaming]
[eerie music playing]
-[soft piano music playing]
-[vocalist singing]
What makes most humans afraid?
Fear of the unknown.
-The unknown.
-Yeah.
Not knowing who's behind something,
not knowing what the next move is,
not knowing what's around the corner.
[person]
Yo, dude, what are you doing?
What the fuck?
It's a fucking children's park,
man, it's like...
Oh, holy shit! Dude, he's fucking real!
This guy's legit!
When I'm really scared,
it feels like I'm, like, being crushed.
My adrenaline shoots through the roof.
Heart racing, can't breathe.
[person 2] Turn the car around!
[Donna] You know, it makes me feel
like I'm gonna have a heart attack.
[person 3]
I am fucking scared right now, dude.
[Zac] What started
in this tiny town in South Carolina
and slowly spread
to neighboring communities
has now taken over
the entire United States.
[Traci] Clowns were coming
from everywhere,
-and clowns had control of everything.
-[heartbeat thumping]
Our minds, our emotions.
I mean, what the heck?
Apparently, so many of us suffer from,
and I'll say the word again,
coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.
He grabbed my wrist
and then dragged the knife on my arm.
[Gilly] One of the things that
pissed me off about this clown scare
was that the scary clowns aren't clowns!
They're not juggling, you know?
They're not-- They have no skills.
They're people in latex masks.
So, I was getting blamed
for something that I wasn't doing.
I'm not doing this, man!
Like, I don't, I don't know how
to, like, stress this enough.
I'm a clown.
They're not clowns.
I'm a clown.
Not clowns.
-[person 1] Oh, my God!
-[person 2] I don't like it.
[reporter]
Well, this is no joke.
[clown cackling and screaming]
[reporter] Tonight, one mom
told KPIX 5's Christin Ayers
the clown tried to grab
her one-year-old daughter.
[person]
Yo, he has a knife.
Dude, what-- What the [bleep]?
Now we're fearing fear itself.
And that is when fear surrounds us.
[person screams]
It becomes a cloud that hangs over us.
[reporter 2] Police say this clown
threw the man to the ground
and then assaulted him.
Hit me right here with a machete.
[Cenk] We stew in the fear.
Shh.
We stew in the paranoia.
[reporter 3]
Last week, an 11-year-old Georgia girl
even took a knife to school,
telling officers she needed it
to fend off clowns.
And it goes on and on
until you get to a point of mass hysteria.
-[horse whinnying]
-[person screaming]
[Ben]
It is a national panic.
I am completely and totally
creeped out by clowns.
There's evil clowns everywhere.
Clown costume sales are up 300%.
Hide your kids, get your gun.
The clowns are coming for you.
[reporter 4]
His accessory of choice:
a machete duct-taped to his amputated arm.
Satanic ritual of youth.
You need a doctor, you need Jesus!
[reporter 5] District police
say students started a stampede
after someone yelled, "Clowns."
[people screaming]
[police sirens wailing distantly]
Alright. Good afternoon, everybody.
I got a couple of announcements
before I get to your questions.
Shortly thereafter was one of the most
surreal moments in my life,
when a, uh, a journalist
in the press corps
asks the press secretary,
uh, if President Obama
has a position on scary clowns.
Justin.
Last one, um, on creepy clowns.
I'm wondering if the President's
aware of this phenomenon,
and if the White House
wants to say anything
to discourage these types of pranks?
Yeah, um,
obviously, you know,
this is, uh, you know,
a situation that local law enforcement
authorities take quite seriously,
and they should carefully
and thoroughly, uh, review,
uh, you know, perceived threats
to, um, uh, the safety of the community.
[police radio chatter]
[Bobby] Despite law enforcement
arresting some of the clowns,
my concern was the criminal element
that I know is so adaptable
that they can exploit almost anything,
and my fear was they were
gonna start exploiting this
as a way to disguise themselves
to commit crimes.
[reporter 1] The surveillance video
apparently shows
a knife-wielding clown
approaching a Texas home.
[reporter 2] The terrifying moment
a college student
was robbed at knifepoint
-by a man wearing a clown mask.
-[student screaming]
[reporter 3] Then in Brownstown Township,
downriver Detroit,
an armed robbery of a Walgreens.
This clown crime spree
taking everyone by surprise.
[Bobby] In the beginning
of this phenomena,
it was, it was pranks, and it was funny.
-But now, it's become very real.
-[sirens wailing]
And now for a breaking news alert,
two men armed with explosives,
one wearing a clown mask,
rob a Memphis bank.
-[gunshots firing]
-[person screaming]
[bank robber] Alright, everybody,
hands up, heads down!
I mean, this is the opening scene
of, of the movie The Dark Knight.
[tense music playing]
This is literally life imitating art.
[chuckles]
[Ben] And then, as if things
couldn't get any crazier,
as the clown panic
was reaching a peak in America,
it went international.
[chainsaw whirring]
[person speaking native language]
[speaking native language]
[Australian reporter 1]
Now it seems the craze has hit Australia.
[Australian reporter 2]
The creepy craze is sweeping the globe
in the lead-up to Halloween.
[American reporter]
Fueled by social media,
the story has taken a dark turn
as it spreads worldwide.
Do you not get that it's not very funny?
[American reporter]
Some carrying deadly weapons,
others actually assaulting
innocent people.
[Ben] It was just absolutely
fucking surreal.
[overlapping voices]
[unsettling music playing]
[clown laughter]
[wind gusting]
At this point, everyone is asking
the same question.
"What the fuck is going on?"
Part of the reason that I was able
to predict what was happening
was that it had happened before.
What we were experiencing here
was a moral panic.
Just like the Salem witch trials
of the 17th century.
[reporter 1]
This is no field day for Moscow.
[Ben]
The Red Scare of the 1950s.
The Communist Party of the United States
is the agent of a foreign government.
[Ben]
Or the Satanic Panic in the 1980s.
[reporter 2]
Nationwide, we found that cases
of satanic activity light up the map.
[Ben] Where fear and anxiety
build up in the community
to such the extent
that crazy ideas seem plausible.
Human sacrifice,
dogs and cats living together,
mass hysteria!
So, from a folkloric point of view,
this is a well-understood phenomenon.
This happens.
It's part of a broader thing here.
But the question becomes:
"Why this, why now?"
This phenomena didn't grow in a vacuum.
[attacker]
Can I see your hands now?!
[gunshots firing]
[reporter 1] Breaking news out of Orlando,
the terror attack on a gay nightclub.
[Bobby] This came at a time
when there was a lot of social unrest.
There was a lot of social anxiety.
Breaking while you slept,
a possible nuclear game changer
in the showdown with North Korea.
[Bobby] We had global situations.
[explosions]
[reporter 2]
Aleppo is a test for humanity.
So far, it's a test humanity is failing.
[Ben] Also, Brexit in the UK.
[reporter 3] Financial markets
plunged after the decision.
[reporter 4] $830 billion lost
in the US markets alone.
There was a lot going on.
[announcer]
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
-the next President of the United States.
-[cheering and applause]
[Ben] But the main thing was,
of course, in America, the election...
which was seen
as this, sort of, pivotal moment
in American history.
The Democrats are saying,
"If a Republican gets in office,
we're all fucked."
Do we want his finger
anywhere near the button?
[crowd] No!
The Republicans are saying,
"If a Democrat gets in office,
we're all fucked."
She should be in prison,
let me tell you.
[crowd] [chanting]
We want Trump!
[Ben] So, no matter which side
of the political divide you're on,
you're being told
the country's about to go to hell.
[fighting, yelling]
[all yelling indistinctly]
[Cole]
There was a big divide at that time.
Me and him was best friends,
but if he was a Hillary supporter,
-I'd cut him off.
-I'd fucking hate him.
-Yes, I'd cut him off.
-I'd fucking hate him.
Hillary Clinton is a goddamn demon!
I fucking hate Trump.
Like, I, I fucking hate him.
[Ben]
And, of course, keep in mind that
Trump was being called
a reckless, dangerous clown.
[crowd yelling]
[Gilly] Society felt like
it was just being pulled apart
to an almost untenable level.
[sirens wailing]
[firework popping]
[sirens wailing]
It was just this pressure cooker,
just this simmering up, simmering up,
simmering up, simmering up.
And it got to the point where it just--
It had to let off some air, you know?
And I think that's where, uh, we came in.
[Ben]
One of the dangers of a moral panic
is that when you have that much pressure,
that much anxiety,
society looks for scapegoats.
And the easiest thing to do
is to blame the powerless.
They're gonna blame immigrants.
They're gonna blame minorities.
[crowd]
You will not replace us!
[Ben] And in this case,
the most absurd villain
crystallizes in the public's mind.
[reporter] Well, it's not a great time
to be a clown these days.
[caller] [on phone]
Um, it appeared to be a male,
but he had full-face makeup on,
dressed as a clown,
but he appeared to have a rifle
underneath his right arm.
[person] I'm sick of this
Ronald McDonald bullshit.
You think I'm scared of a clown?
I lost my virginity to a clown.
I ain't scared of no clowns.
To all the little kids that's been scared
and affected by these clowns,
you don't need to worry anymore.
Batman's taking care of it.
[caller] They won't miss him
He's um...half red
half yellow
Ok I'm sorry
That is absolutely an umbrella
that he's carrying
Not a gun!
[reporter]
Police say he was an actual clown
honoring a friend who had passed away.
Never before have I seen
just clowns largely...
abhorred.
Parties were drying up.
Bookings were disappearing.
I had two kids.
I was suffering financially.
And it was a concern.
It was a concern for all of us.
[reporter 1] For real clowns,
those posing as creepy clowns
are turning their iconic
frozen smiles upside down.
This is my life, this is my family,
and it's been hard.
[reporter 2] Jordan Jones has been a clown
since he was 13 years old.
He started a movement on Facebook
called Clown Lives Matter.
[Jordan Jones] Yes, I'm in a clown suit,
but at the end of the day,
I'm a brother, I'm a nephew,
I'm an uncle, I have a family.
You know, it's becoming
very, very serious,
and I don't think a lot of people know
how serious it's becoming.
[Gilly] It was soon after
that Ringling Bros.,
the biggest circus in America,
basically closed.
They got rid of the clowns.
The end of an era for many of us,
including many of us
right here on this desk.
The Greatest Show on Earth
is coming to an end.
And all of those clowns were out of a job.
And then, as if things
couldn't get any worse for the clowns,
Ronald McDonald was fired.
[reporter 1] Ronald McDonald, a fixture
of the McDonald's food chain since 1963,
is, uh, going to take a little vacation.
[reporter 2] Fast-food giant McDonald's
releasing a statement
that they are keeping their mascot
under wraps for now.
They are mindful of the current climate
around the clown sightings
and communities,
and as such, are being respectful.
When McDonald's fired Ronald McDonald,
we knew that we were in
a new moment in American culture.
And before, we were trusting,
we liked clowns.
Now, we don't trust you anymore, Ronald.
You're scaring the kids, and you gotta go.
[Gilly] It was, um...
[sighs]
...catastrophic, for all of us.
For all of us.
I just-- I-I-I don't know why people
want to kill joy, you know?
-[dog barking]
-[somber music playing]
[Traci] The community was fed up
with this clown shit.
If it's a clown
trying to take one of our kids,
we ain't gonna go down without a fight.
So, I decided that we need to step it up.
We need to put together
a community patrol.
You know, we out here with our people.
We gotta check on everybody.
Look like they ain't need nobody
to check on them, though.
We had walkie-talkies, uh,
megaphones, strobe lights.
Just looking and hoping to find something.
Freedom fighters salute.
That's what's up.
Like, we was for real,
for real the clown busters.
I know we scared as hell right now,
but it's time for us
to show up and turn up.
[Bobby]
Fear permeates through a population
even quicker than a virus.
And that fear can drive behavior.
And that behavior can hurt people.
-[person] What?
-[crowd] We are Penn State!
[U.A. Thompson]
When you are afraid,
that emotion has the ability
to push you to limits
that you might not have
thought you could get to.
[student]
This is a real movement.
Where are the actual clowns, though?
[Ben]
People fought back in different ways,
but probably the pinnacle
of the backlash was at Penn State,
when there were rumors on Twitter
that there were clowns
running around campus.
-[crowd] We're Penn State!
-[sirens wailing]
[Bobby] As you move
through this phenomena,
you get to the point where, you know,
people are no longer just scared.
Now, they're gonna be aggressive,
-and now they're gonna take action.
-[crowd shouting]
[person] I want you to know,
no matter where you come from,
no matter who you're voting for,
no matter your color,
your religion, your creed,
we can all agree on one thing...
Fuck that clown!
[crowd yelling]
[reporter] Hundreds of students
at Penn State University
launched a late-night manhunt
after a clown was reportedly
seen on campus.
Some are so upset
by the perceived threats,
they're ready to take the law
into their own hands.
Let's fucking go.
100% we wanted to take
matters into our own hands.
Stocked up on some caffeine.
-Now we're going to--
-We're gonna go hunt this guy down.
We even tried to form
a killer clown posse.
-Yeah.
-We was gonna kill the killer clown.
[student]
Well, we heard one of our classmates
got, uh, chased down by a clown,
so we're trying to find it.
[Nat] A lot of the guys
in the neighborhood
ran into the woods with their guns.
[person] I didn't know that so many people
in America had a death wish.
Clowns, I'm ready.
[Traci]
They had baseball bats, knives, bottles,
and they were determined,
if I find anything
that even looks like a clown,
it's going down.
Oh, my God.
This is, like, crazy.
[person] TJ, TJ, stop!
If there had been one out there,
I'd probably grabbed him by his throat
because I love using that and jerking.
Stop clowning around.
Stop trying to scare people.
We had our, you know,
shotguns or pistols or whatever, and rope.
I got a whole box of solutions
for this situation,
even something for the baby clowns.
[U.A. Thompson]
If a clown had threatened me or mine,
it would probably end
in, in that clown being in the morgue.
[person] You weren't expecting this,
were you, buddy?
As a society,
when we don't have a solution
to a problem,
we create a solution.
[group yelling]
We have to make a sacrifice.
Let's find somebody.
Who can we all agree on?
"Well, I don't like clowns."
"I don't like 'em either."
"You know what? It's the clowns."
The escalation had just
ratcheted up so much.
I was legitimately concerned,
and I said this to several
of my clown buddies,
that if this continues on,
someone's gonna get fucking killed.
[unsettling music playing]
[Tonie] When it all started, there was,
like, one or two clowns far away.

Then, there's more and more,
and they're getting closer and closer.
And then, of course,
it finally hit Reading.

[rain pattering]
[car honking]
Reading is famous for crime
and more crime.
This place went downhill.
People need money.
There's no jobs.
-[dog barking]
-Houses abandoned.
And that's where the anxiety kicks in
because people are sitting down thinking,
"How am I gonna make it through tomorrow?
Where am I gonna get money
to pay my bills?"
The city's always on the edge,
just waiting for a spark
to set something off.
New this morning, more parents
and children are being rattled
by clown sightings,
this time in Pennsylvania.
[Tonie]
And then the clowns came to town.
...half of Trump's supporters into
what I call the basket of deplorables.
[crowd laughing]
[Tonie]
Avery, my oldest...
he was just scared of clowns.
When he was a child,
if we went to a birthday party
and there was a clown there,
he would cry, scream.
"Nope, let's go home."
He didn't want no parts of it.
We would get invited to parties
and I would have to ask,
"Is there gonna be clowns there?"
[shrieking]
He would not deal with it.
I told my son to be careful.
You defend yourself at all costs.
[Janesa] It was all over Facebook,
Snapchat, Instagram.
[person] [in video]
Oh, my God, oh, my God.
-[shrieking]
-[laughter]
It felt like it was thousands of them
everywhere you go.
I didn't want to go outside.
When I would go to school,
I would be scared.
Hated it.
But my oldest brother, Christhian...
he thought it was funny.
Christhian was crazy.
My aunt, my one aunt,
she has a phobia of clowns.
My brother found out,
and he would think it's hilarious,
and keep messing with her,
wearing a clown mask,
and jump out and just kind of scare her.
[laughter]
It lit up his whole world
seeing us scared.
[Tonie] Eventually, something was
gonna happen, I knew it.
I knew it.
I just didn't think
it was gonna happen to us.
[tense music playing]
[Janesa]
The night everything happened,
me and my sisters
were playing on the sidewalk.
Christhian was riding his bike.
[Tonie]
I was washing dishes.
I heard kids across the street screaming.
[children screaming]
So, I went outside with my son
to see what was going on.
I didn't know what was going on.
There was somebody
riding around on bikes...
with a clown mask on.
Was it somebody just playing a joke
or is it some maniac?
And then... the arguing
and everything started.
[angry shouting]
I heard the fight.
I heard everything
from where my house was.
And just started running.
Everybody was screaming.
[angry shouting]
It was just so much chaos going on.
And that's when I heard somebody say,
"Oh...
he's bleeding."
[tense string music playing]
[sirens wailing]
[Janesa] I remember seeing
the blood on the floor,
grabbing my hair and just screaming.
They said Christhian
was stabbed in the heart.
And they said my son did it.

[music fades out]
[reporter 1]
In Reading, Pennsylvania,
a 16-year-old was stabbed
to death in a dispute.
And he was wearing a clown mask.
[reporter 2]
Police have not made any arrests,
but investigators are now looking
for 29-year-old Avery Valentin-Bair,
described as a person of interest
in the case.
[rain pattering]
[somber music playing]
[Janesa] [crying]
And he was never trying to harm anybody.
He was just trying to be a regular kid,
driving on the street, riding a bike.
He just had a mask on top of his head.

Christhian was the light of all of us.
And to lose that...
I couldn't feel nothing.
I didn't want to eat.
It was hard to sleep because I'm not
gonna wake up to my brother.
[sniffles]
[Tonie]
I actually blame myself a lot...
'cause I feel like I did something wrong
by teaching my son to defend himself.
But I know it didn't...
'cause if he ain't gonna
defend himself, who is?
When he got sentenced
to 22 and a half to 50 years,
my first thought was...
"I'm never gonna see
my son again on the outside."
You're able to see your son still.
We're able to go see
Christhian at a grave.
[somber music continues]
[Tonie] When I cry for my son,
I cry for theirs too.
We lost...
two people over a clown mask.
One is dead,
and one is alive but dead.
[tense music playing]
[sighs]
I feel like the level of hysteria...
created an atmosphere where,
like, that was even possible.
It shouldn't be possible.
You know, there's real-life
ramifications for this stuff.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And I-- that kid could have been me.
That kid could have been anybody,
you know?
[reporter]
Another turn in the twisted clown saga.
A threat was posted on social media
claiming that clowns
are going to purge cities
across the country on Halloween Eve.
[Bobby] There were rumors that
there was going to be a Halloween purge.
If you saw the movie The Purge,
for 12 hours every year,
every crime was forgiven.
You could literally
do anything you wanted.
And so, the fear was that, you know,
people were gonna emulate that movie.
I mean, that's when it's gonna
reach its pitch, right?
[police radio chatter]
There's gonna be clowns out there
that attack people.
We think there's gonna be
people out there that attack clowns.
Ooh. Not good. Stand by.
[Traci] People were frantic.
I mean, they was making
their kids come in the house.
They was calling,
"Hey, hey, bring your ass in the house.
Let's go, let's go, let's go."
You know, I don't even want
my grandkids out
going trick-or-treating now.
I want 'em home.
It was scary, like,
you don't know what's gonna happen.
We need to live through
clown purge night,
so please, be safe.
[Bobby] You know, oh, my God,
this could be horrific.
-[tense music swelling]
-[gunshots]
[music fades out]
[birds singing]
[Traci] Halloween came...
and there were no clowns, at all.
Damn clowns disappeared.
That shit's crazy.
[tense music playing]
[Ben] In some ways,
people were panicked out.
Donald Trump will be the 45th
President of the United States.
[Ben] Not only had
the news media moved on...
social media had as well.
-[clown cackling]
-Boo!
[director] And cut.
[Ben]
And the tragic irony of all this
is that the crazy clown stories
that had gripped the country
were based on nothing.
[director]
Happy guys. Thank you so much.
[tape whirring]
[Ben] It was all just
a toxic mix of hoaxes.
We were just trying to make a really bad
viral video with our cell phone.
[Ben] Misunderstandings.
[caller] [on phone] Okay, I'm sorry.
That is absolutely an umbrella, not a gun.
Go, go, go!
-Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!
-[Ben] And viral videos.
[panting]
-[person 1] No!
-[person 2] No, this can't be real.
[Ben] Yes, some people did actually see
creepy clowns in their communities.
[person] It's a fucking clown!
Get the fuck out of here!
[Ben]
But behind these clown masks
were usually just bored teenagers
and pranksters.
[teen] There was a lot of different
videos online and stuff like that.
Just kind of looked exciting.
[reporter] The worst part is,
they left their four-year-old at home
just so they could go out
and scare people.
They're now being charged
with child neglect.
[Ben]
Even the backlash against the clowns
was often performative.
[person]
Think it's funny, dude?
-Fake! It's fake!
-It's fake!
-[shrieks]
-[person] Oh!
We are a production company,
meaning we make films.
We don't actually kill people.
And one of the most viewed videos
of the entire craze...
[person 1]
Hit that bitch! Hit that!
...the one with the clown
attacking those kids
in that lonely road
in the middle of the night...
[person 2] Oh, my God, dude!
He's on the car!
[Zac] ...even that turns out to be
some guy just pranking his friends.
[person 1] You're an asshole!
I remember! You're...
Oh!
[clown] You fucking ran over my foot,
you fucking prick!
-[person 2] Wait, what?
-[person 1] I'm gonna kick your ass!
So, there are no killer clowns.
But even though the clowns
themselves weren't real...
the fear about them was real...
and the consequences were real.
A nation was panicked.
Lives were ruined.
A kid died.
This is what happens when fear takes over.
[U.A. Thompson]
The story of the clowns...
is the story of modern America...
in live and living color.
[reporter 1] The aftershocks
are rippling here again today
with new losses...
[reporter 2] Growing protests
tonight in Minneapolis...
[reporter 3]
A series of attacks just hours apart.
Investigators say children ripped
from their families at the southern border
-have drawn outrage across the nation.
-[officer] Shots fired, officer down.
[person 1] I think this is
the most polarized time...
[person 2]
The anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant...
[person 3]
...rising, rising, rising.
[person 4]
...actually happening in our country.
[person 5] ...liberty, justice for all.
-[unsettling music playing]
-[vocalist singing]
[interviewer] Do you think
the creepy clowns are gone for good?
[laughs]
I don't think they are.
Why, like, why--
what would make them come back?
[Bobby] As long as people
still like to be scared,
then scary clowns are gonna be around.
[Cole]
I don't think it's over necessarily,
but I wouldn't put it past America.
Fuck, Cole, I gotta piss, man.
I'm so sorry. Excuse me.
I mean, there'll be
an irony of this movie,
which is that after we're watching it,
my guess is there'll be
a couple more clown sightings.
It will happen again, absolutely.
So, if you're--
If you're afraid of clowns,
watch out because they will be back.
[Nat] If I could say anything
to the clowns now,
I would tell them
that they were just fucking stupid.
I hope that y'all rot
in the pits of hell when you die.


[music fades out]