I loved staying with my favourite aunt as a child (age 8) who always let me watch scary movies. None of the movies ever had that much of an effect on me, that was until I watched Stephen King’s IT.My parents didn’t get a proper nights sleep at least for a couple of years and my aunt was in the bad books for quite some time. Many times my parents had to chnage the bedding because I had constant accidents for the majority of the two years and I didn’t want to go anywhere near the bathroom through the night incase anything came up the drain. When it was raining I kept thinking that there were clowns down the stanks and if anyone waved at me or if I saw a balloon, I would freak out. The pictures and toys I had in my room that could have been mistaken for a clown in the dark were thrown in the bin.
To make the matters worse there was rumours going round my school about Killer Clowns snatching children from schools and then cutting the sides of the mouth to give the children a clown smile. They were also meant to pat salt and vinegar crisps into the cuts for extra pain. The Killer Clowns were meant to go about in a blue or white transit van. Everytime I saw a van I would run in the opposite direction.
The nightmares were awful from what I can remember. I had a reoccuring one that had a bright green river in it that had clowns swimming in the river and the clowns would get out the river and chase me. I would always go and wake my sister up in the middle of night for a cuddle because I was that petrified. Eventually my sister made me watch it again to show me that IT was destroyed at the end. But never mentioned there was an IT 2 which I didn’t find out until later years!
I didn’t go to a circus until the age of 16 and I have to say I still got a shiver when I saw those clowns. To this day I have never watched it again and I am still not keen on clowns.
