Stephen King comments on creepy clown sightings
BANGOR, ME (WOIO): Horror author Stephen King, whose 1986 book "IT" crafted a terrifying clown image that will live in reader's minds forever, has spoken out on the rash of creepy clown sightings in the U.S. in the past few weeks.
MORE: Man in clown mask chases boy at Columbus bus stop
"I suspect it's a kind of low-level hysteria, like Slender Man, or the so-called Bunny Man, who purportedly lurked in Fairfax County, Virginia, wearing a white hood with long ears and attacking people with a hatchet or an axe," King told The Bangor Daily News. "The clown furor will pass, as these things do, but it will come back, because under the right circumstances, clowns really can be terrifying."
Clowns have been reported across the country recently, with sightings near an apartment complex in South Carolina prompting a warning letter to residents and a boy in Columbus calling the police after being chased by a man in a clown mask while waiting for the bus. There have also recently been reports of creepy clown sightings in two cities in North Carolina.
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King offered some insight as to why the clown phenomenon is this so scary.
"I chose Pennywise the Clown as the face which the monster originally shows the kiddies because kids love clowns, but they also fear them," King said. "Clowns with their white faces and red lips are so different and so grotesque compared to 'normal' people. Take a little kid to the circus and show him a clown, he's more apt to scream with fear than laugh."
Despite being responsible for one of the most terrifying clowns of all time, King says that he still fears the children's entertainers himself.
"If I saw a clown lurking under a lonely bridge (or peering up at me from a sewer grate, with or without balloons), I'd be scared, too," he said.
King's "IT" is set for a film adaptation starring Bill Skarsgard. It will be released in 2017.
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