I've been working on several ideas lately that I could do for guests when they are at my house. I was watching Poltergeist the other night and I started thinking about the evil clown that drags the kid under the bed. I started thinking about this and about the amount of people who are afraid of clowns. Anywhoo..here's my thoughts for a little after dinner freak-out:

So dinner is over and our guests have adjurned to the living room. "Show us some magic" they say. I dim the lights and light some candles. "I want to show you something that I've been working on" I say. I point out an old looking clown doll sitting on my display shelf. "I just picked this up at an anitque shop yesterday..."
"Matt, don't....just keep to the other stuff" my wife protests.
"I just want to show them, sweetie, it's okay!" I reassure her.
"I hate that thing" She says.
"I'm just going to show them, then we'll get on to some magic, okay?" I pat her leg and she sits back on the love seat with her arms folded. "Fine."
I turn back to our guests. "So, I found this at this antique shop and I couldn't take my eyes off it. It had no price tag on it, so I asked the owner how much it was. He said he'd never seen it before and if I wanted it, I could keep it. So when we got home I started to check out the doll to see where it was made. I couldn't find any tags on it. No trademarks or anything that I could find. Well, I put it here on the display shelf and went to bed last night. Well somewhere around 3:30 this morning, Holly (my wife) woke me up and said that she'd heard a crashing sound in the living room. I got out of bed and checked and found that one of the knick-knacks had fallen off the shelf and broken. I cleaned up the broken pieces and as I was walking back to bed, I noticed that the clown wasn't on my display shelf. I looked all over the living room and couldn't find it. I heard Holly say something and went into the bedroom and sitting on the bed was the clown!!! I think the cat might have grabbed him and dragged him in..."
"It wasn't the cat, Matthew!" Holly protests
"Well it certainly didn't-" Just then the candles extinguish plunging the room into darkness. I shout in surprise and pain. A scurrying noise is heard on the floor. Holly screams. I rush over to the light switch and hit the lights. The clown is gone!
"I TOLD YOU!" Holly yells at me!
"Oh my god, look!" Holly points across the room to the bookshelf, where the clown is now perched on top, looking down on us.
"You know what...I think you're right, I'm getting rid of this thing."
I apologize to my guests and offer to continue with some magic.....

It would take some good acting to pull off properly, but I think with the right atmosphere and some good timing this could be freaky!

What do you guys think?

Hire a midget for the evening put him in a large stuffed toy clown and let the fun begin. As a finale maybe you could be attacked by the knife through arm...

Matthew, I think it is good just as you describe. Adding anything would be too much. Anyway, acting is what it is all about.

Bill

Thanks Bill!
I was telling Holly (my wife) about it and the first thing she said is (and I quote) "I don't want a clown doll in my house!"
Which I translate as: "What a wonderful idea darling! I'll be glad to help!"
Heh heh heh....there's an article in this months Fortean Times about the fear of clowns! It's pretty deep routed! But I figure that the clown bit would definately unsettle folks a bit and set the mood for some more bizarre magick!

Silvertongue, the funny thing is, I had thought about doing something like that....but using a technique like Poinc's Santa Sack Monster....then I decided that a small hand held doll would be creepier....like the Zuni Fetish doll in Trilogy of Terror! OR Talking Tina from the Twilight Zone.....*shudders* That's some creepy stuff!

Coulrophobia...fear of clowns.

Coulrophobia! I knew it started with a "C"!

How about knocking the clown off the shelf with a stick and catching it in a garbage bag. As you take the bag out of the room, something inside can be seen thrashing about and a tiny clown hand holding a knife is starting to hack its way through the side of the bag. One of those grabby hand sticks from the Dollar store fitted with a little clown arm and knife on one of the fingers ought to do the trick.

Eek !



It appears that some people here have been eating a little too much peanut butter before bedtime !

Cheers

;)

John

I like that! That would definately be a great ending to that!! Do you think it would be going to far to have a small tape recording inside the bag with a demonic clown laugh?

You can never go too far when you're this close to the edge of bizarre. Try it and then pass out customer satisfaction surveys to see how they liked it.

I think I just may have to! Thanks for the idea, Prof. Spellbinder!

Its a great idea. Clowns are truly strange in and of themselves. Remember, even Jimmy Stewart's clown in "Greatest Show On Earth" was wanted for murder...and he is very lovable.

Oh man, talk about movies I haven't seen in forever! Good call, UFO!

Jimmy Stewart's character in "The Greatest Show On Earth", was posing as a clown. He was actually a doctor wanted for questioning in a death that he was related to, but not responsible for.

The Greatest Show on Earth was just on Today on Turner Classic Movies.....