‘Clown Panic’ Review: A Shallow Doc That Fails to Get the Last Laugh

“We lost two people over a clown mask. One is dead. And one is alive but dead.”

Many constants in the horror genre have become evergreen totems of terror. Clowns, meant to be innocent mirth makers, have acquired a sinister edge that’s only grown sharper over time. They’re a fascinating pop culture and horror phenomenon that’s seeped into reality in a weird, uncomfortable way. It’s reached a tipping point where clowns are now feared more than loved. They’re scorched-earth that have been reborn as something to fear.

Director Ed Perkins’ Clown Panic scratches the surface of something intriguing that presents plenty of tantalizing food for thought. Unfortunately, it’s empty calories for the most part. What follows is amateurish and erratic, and it operates as if the audience has never heard of killer clowns before. It spends too much time on remedial and redundant material before this decent idea gets buried under layers of pancake makeup until it’s barely recognizable.

Clown Panic provides a broad, free-floating crash course on evil clowns, both fictional and real. However, it specifically keys into a disturbing period between summer and Halloween of 2016 when creepy clown sightings were on the rise, and there were repeated accounts of children being lured into the woods. Arguably the boldest thing that this documentary does is that it positions this craze as representing the country’s breaking point and a result of all the anger and tension that was going on at the time. 

Clown Panic boldly claims early on that “The story of the clowns is the story of America” and then struggles to make the point for the rest of the movie. It’s an interesting angle that jumps to some conclusions and tries to politicize something that doesn’t necessarily require it. That’s not to say that valid points aren’t made on this front, like how clowns were only appearing in low-income poverty areas that were already at a disadvantage and used to being ignored by the police. This still becomes a powerful focal point that brings something original and timely to the whole killer clown angle.

The documentary charts the domino effect of this moral panic, like the many “good clowns” who suffered from their kind’s negative press, Ronald McDonald’s infamous “firing” and the Clown Lives Matter movement. Some of most interesting material involves its limited psychological examination of why people like to scare others and be scared in kind. A mounting sense of tension is created as these attacks become increasingly intense, reach their apex, and ultimately break free of containment and expand on an international level. successfully reflects the broadening scope of this “epidemic,” even if it’s done in a scattershot manner.