These Clowns Are More Terrifying Than Pennywise

Some say that Stephen King's It made kids afraid of clowns, but clowns were terrifying people long before Pennywise came along, and the evil clown as an archetype has a reach that's much wider than It's particular story of an extra-dimensional monster in the shape of a clown that haunts a small Maine town. 

And even though Pennywise brags about being everything you're afraid of, some clowns may even be scarier than him. After all, a murderous human whose motivations make no sense can often be scarier than an abstract Lovecraftian terror. And even in the realm of the supernatural, there are more frightening ideas. So with that in mind, here are 11 other clowns guaranteed to give you nightmares.

The Joker is a force of pure chaos, which is why he's the greatest enemy of Batman, whose purpose is to maintain order. He's had various origin stories over the years and they tend to involve falling into a vat of chemicals while trying to escape Batman, but who he was before that is up in the air. 

In his original origin he was already a supervillain known as the Red Hood. In the influential Batman: The Killing Joke graphic novel by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, he was a young aspiring comedian who had only turned to crime to support his pregnant wife, who was killed in a freak accident that same day. But even within that book, this sympathetic backstory is called into question, with the Joker saying that he prefers his past to be "multiple choice." In Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, he's a hardened criminal named Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson), whereas in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the chemical origin is abandoned entirely in favor of a Joker (Heath Ledger) with a Glasgow smile and multiple stories of how he got it.

The lack of a definitive origin—or even a clear identity—is key to the nature of the Joker. He's dedicated to the idea that the world makes no sense, and particularly obsessed with proving that premise to Batman. He will murder, maim, and mutilate anyone who crosses his path, not just for no reason, but to illustrate that there are no reasons. He's not just a mad clown, he's a clown that embodies madness.

What clown could be scarier than Death itself? In his influential film The Seventh Seal, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman styled Death (Bengt Ekerot) as a mirthless white clown. The sort of European clown he was building on is different from the colorful version we're used to—something more like a mime. As Bergman explained, "white clowns have a multiple, ambiguous symbolism: they are beautiful, cruel, dangerous, balancing on the border between death and destructive sexuality." 

Regardless of whether you agree with Bergman about the destructive sexuality of clowns, there's no denying that his film, in which a Medieval knight plays chess with death, revolutionized pop culture portrayals of Death. Just look at Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, where William Sadler plays a Death virtually identical to the Seventh Seal version.

Death, in this vision, is a figure who cannot be reasoned with, cannot be persuaded or won over. But he will play games with you, if you're willing to take the risk. When you think about it, that is clownlike, and creepy on a whole different level from the monsters and maniacs that make up most of this list.

Look at this photo of Pogo the Clown. At first glance, to anyone who's not a clown or an expert on clowns, he looks pretty standard. But notice the red around his mouth, and the way it comes to sharp points. If you compare that to most clowns (not the ones on this list), you'll see that's not normal. Standard clown practice is to use round edges, because it looks less creepy to kids. Pogo probably wasn't trying to look creepy, but that little detail feels significant, because Pogo might be the creepiest real clown to ever live.

As you probably know by now, Pogo the Clown was the alter ego of John Wayne Gacy, a notorious serial killer who murdered at least 33 young men and boys in the 1970s and was eventually executed for his crimes. With all the real death and pain Gacy caused, it would be in poor taste to recount his crimes on a light-hearted list like this. But no list of terrifying clowns would be complete without John Wayne Gacy, because no killer clown can be scarier than one who really existed.

Dolls, particularly old fashioned dolls, can be just as creepy as clowns. And clown dolls, like the one in Poltergeist, are twice as creepy, even before they start moving on their own and try to kill you. 

The original Poltergeist from 1982 is one of the all-time greatest haunted house movies and, as the title implies, a lot of the horror early in the film comes from inanimate objects moving on their own. So when young Robbie (Oliver Robins) notices late at night that the clown doll that was sitting in a chair by his bed has suddenly disappeared, that's already scary. Then he starts looking for it under the bed, but the doll appears in the bed with him and wraps its arm around him. It drags him under the bed as he screams, and to make matters worse, his mother hears him screaming, but can't run to help because the same invisible spirits that are animating the clown doll are dragging her across the walls and ceiling of her bedroom.

The 2015 Poltergeist remake overdoes its attempt to one-up this scene, with multiple clown dolls in a much darker room, but nothing in that film measures up to the scares of the original.

Tranquility Lane is a seemingly idyllic, Pleasantville-esque simulation of old-fashioned suburbia that exists within the futuristic world of Fallout 3. The player character, known as the Lone Wanderer, enters this world in the form of a young boy and meets a young girl named Betty, who tells the Wanderer what he must do to escape the simulation. Betty's tasks are increasingly unsettling: make a child cry, then break up a marriage, then murder a woman. But it's the final task that's truly disturbing.

The only thing that everyone in Tranquility Lane is afraid of is the Pint-Sized Slasher, a child in a clown mask who kills indiscriminately. And for Betty's amusement, the Wanderer must become the Slasher, donning the terrifying mask and killing everyone in the simulation. Pop culture is full of murderous clowns, but Fallout 3 is unique in leading its player to become the murderous clown, killing everyone in sight while they attempt to flee in terror.