Remember That Deranged Killer Clown Hoax From 2016? There’s a New Documentary About It

So much has happened over the past decade you’d be forgiven for forgetting one of the weirdest things to emerge out of that pivotal, discombobulating, deranged year 2016: Killer clowns. 

Late that summer, a spate of alleged clown sightings in Grenville County, South Carolina snowballed into a social media-fueled firestorm, which now feels like a very distinct indicator of exactly where we were headed as a country. Now, to commemorate the unsavory anniversary of this portentous clown show — and dig into what the hell exactly happened — Hulu is prepping a new documentary, Clown Panic, set to arrive Oct. 12. 

A new trailer for the film, directed by Ed Perkins, teases the film’s scope, starting with testimonies from some of the people who claimed to see these alleged killer clowns (and aren’t too self-conscious to recreate the eerie, clanging, and guttural sounds that these clowns allegedly made mid-rampage). Very quickly, the trailer descends into chaos, with ostensible “reenactments” of killer clowns lurking in the woods and terrorizing motorists mixed with real archival video of college students forming ad hoc clown-hunting posses and self-styled vigilantes loading guns. 

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Funniest of all, in the midst of all this mayhem, there are snippets of interviews with an actual professional clown, who defends the honor of his brethren and bemoans the effect all this had on his business. “The scary aren’t clowns!” he says. “They’re not juggling, they have no skills. I was getting blamed for something I wasn’t doing!” 

“I mean, I don’t know any clowns that want to go kill a bunch of kids — that’s your customers!” he added. So true, sir, so true.