Of Madness & Urban Legends

The following is a story I accidentally stumbled upon last week. I still wish I hadn't because as it is, I have a severe phobia of clowns, and the extreme suddenness of the story popping up on the screen left me frightened and unable to sleep without the light on for several nights. Ever since then I've been itching to relay this story to someone else because when a story is able to give you such an extreme case of the chills, you know it's got good horror factor (I guess that means you'll find this a great birthday treat, Mady). However, if horror stories are not your cup of tea, DO NOT PROCEED PAST THIS SENTENCE.

Onwards...


A wealthy couple with a large house hires a babysitter to look after their children as they are going to spend a night out together. After putting the children to bed the babysitter decides to watch television. However, the television in the living room does not have cable as the parents set strict limits on their children's viewing habits.

She calls the parents to ask if she can watch cable television in their bedroom. The parents agree but the babysitter has an additional request: can she also cover up the clown statue in the corner of the room with a cloth or blanket? Its stare is so intense that it unnerves her. There is a silence on the other end of the line. The parents hastily tell her to rouse the children and get out of the house as quickly as possible. Confused, the babysitter asks why. The parents reply, "We don't have a clown statue in the house. We'll call the police."

The babysitter quickly gathers the children and they run to a neighbour's house while they wait for the police to arrive. It turns out the clown is a killer who has escaped from prison.


...seriously mind-warping, folks. I already have an intense dislike of clowns - I don't understand why children think their sinister-looking make-up and disposition are a synonym for happiness and joy.

As with most urban legends, there are some alternate versions of the story. The one I just recounted makes it seem as if the clown was targetting the babysitter, waiting for her to let her guard down before attacking her. In another version, the "statue" is located in the children's room, and they complain to the babysitter that the statue is frightening them. The clown's identity alternates between being a killer/a retarded homeless midget/a man with a disorder/sex offender. The stories always end with him being apprehended by the police, and the children and babysitter live happily ever after. Well, except for the part where the babysitter wakes up screaming at night for years afterwards because she can still feel his eyes on him. Hmm, I sense a movie at work here...

An interesting element of urban legends is that they aren't as pointless or fixated on shock value as people may assume - much like our own local cerita orang tua, these stories are meant to safeguard us or act as fables, only with more fantastical elements, as all good stories that imprint themselves in our minds do. In the case of the clown statue killer, the fact that he is always caught in the end may serve as a antithesis to the current state of the world today, where so many kidnapping/murder cases involving children still remain unsolved (JonBenet Ramsey, Madeleine McCainn etc).

*exhales* Thank goodness. Now that I've gotten all of this off my chest, I feel so much better. Be gone, demonic clowns.