Coulrophobia: Fear of Clowns

Truth is scarier than fiction. For example, the movie “Clownhouse”(above) This 1988 movie has a filming history scarier than the movie (and the movie is pretty scary). When you learn the background on this film, suddenly the trailer and the movie itself become even more sinister than the fear of clown intentions with which it was made. Some movies have reputations like the curses of “The Exorcist” and “Poltergeist,” but this movie has a reality that causes a fright.

Victor Salva, the director of the film actually molested the young boy who starred in the film and had the disgusting idea to film the molestation. Thankfully for prosecutors, he did. He served 15 months of a 3-year sentence for it. When the director went on to direct the film “Powder,” this enraged many people who decided to boycott Disney for hiring him. In fact, the young actor who had been molested at the tender age of 12 lead the protests. And, although they made sure during the filming of “Powder” that no young men were on the set, his proclivities towards young men shows in all his works. When viewing this trailer, you can see that Salva was preoccupied by homo-eroticism. He eventually went on to work in the popular movie “Jeepers Creepers” which also, like “Powder” and “Clownhouse” had a disturbing feel to them in relation to young men.

So, there’s horror and then there’s horror and sometimes, there’s horror with horror. This is one of those cases. Ironically, this was a seriously disturbing movie to watch and it did its job of scaring anyone who hates clowns and perverts.