13 Scary Clown Horror Movies That Will Make You Scream

There was a time when if you thought of an evil clown, your first thought would be Pennywise from "IT." That's no longer the case since Art The Clown, played by David Howard Thornton, has come on the scene. Writer, director, producer, and special effects artist Damien Leone is the person who has brought Art to our collective consciousness. "Terrifier 2" is the third feature film with Art since 2013, but "Terrifier 2" is the film which was a runaway hit. The release of the film was a pop culture moment where stories of people becoming physically ill during the film started circulating. This list celebrates the fact that "Terrifier 3" has been confirmed and allows you to catch up on the bloodspots you may have in the subgenre. Read more: Coulrophobia: The Fear Of Clowns.

Even though this isn't a scary movie centered on clowns, I would probably be dragged on the Internet were I not to include Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. The reason is the character Captain Spaulding, played by beloved genre actor Sid Haig. He's a clown, and he is incredibly frightening. Zombie has made several films with the character and even a different movie with horrifying clowns. I'm just going to say there's a lot of clown villainy in his film canon.

In all of this clownery, I bet you weren't expecting a horror movie about a clown that stars Christopher Plummer, Margot Kidder, and James Duval set in an opera house. The Clown At Midnight is a Canadian slasher from 1996, directed by Jean Pellerin. There are no direct spoilers, but it has more than one clown, so it has a higher ratio than usual. More clowns? More clown terror! Read more: Terrifier 2's Art The Clown And Co. Return To The Scene Of The Crime.

For my money, these are some of the scariest clowns because not only are they clowns, but they are also evil and hungry extraterrestrials who have come to Earth to use it as their clown commissary. Charles Chiodo and Stephen Chiodo, as The Chiodo Brothers, did an excellent job of marrying the fun of clowns with their creepier side. The look of the clowns is just so strange and disturbing, which goes a long way in scaring the audience sweepstakes. The film stars John Vernon, Christopher Titus, and yes, the comedian Grant Cramer and Royal Dano.

Circus Of The Dead stars Bill Oberst Jr. as Papa Corn and is directed by Billy 'Bloody Bill' Pon. In the movie, Parrish Randall, as Donald Johnson, is forced by a group of savage clowns to fight to save his daughters. The game that these clowns want to play is about morality. It's gory, and the clown wields several different weapons in their pursuit of the Johnson family. Read more: : Creepy Clowns Return In New Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor Trailer.

Okay, you can't write about scary clowns without mentioning the adaptations of Stephen King's book, It. There was a television mini-series with Tim Curry as Pennywise that was justifiably well regarded, but in 2017, a film adaptation with Bill Skarsgård playing the evil force disguised as a clown that only awakens once every 27 years. This new version, directed by Andy Muschietti, brought the chill of the most famous "dancing clown" ever.

Pennywise's reign of terror continues in 2025 with HBO's Welcome To Derry.

This Hungarian horror comedy directed by Balázs Hatvani stars an actor familiar to scary clown fans. Tim Curry, who played Pennywise, the dancing clown, stars as Gingerclown, an evil monster who takes the form of a clown. Other horror icons who play the other monsters in the film in voice performances are Brad Dourif as Worm Creature, Lance Henriksen as Braineater, and Michael Winslow as Stomachcrumble. Sean Young plays another monster, Nelly the Spiderwoman, in voice performance.

Rob Zombie has made a lot of movies with evil clowns, and in a second entry on this list, 31 is his tale of five carnival workers who are captured by a group who force them to face off against a gang of murderers dressed as clowns for 12 hours. The film stars Malcolm McDowell, Meg Foster, Richard Brake, and Sheri Moon Zombie. Fans talk about Richard Brake's performance and think that it is an underrated gem.

Drive Thru is a movie that went directly to video and stars Leighton Meester and Nicholas D'Agosto. The film is set in Orange County, in Southern California, at a burger stand called Hella Burger with a mascot named, and I'm not joking, Horny The Clown. As it turns out, Horny The Clown, played by Van De La Plante, is a serial killer who immediately begins murdering the teenagers as they come through the drive-thru. Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn directed this horror comedy slasher.

This comedic slasher film stars comedian Ross Noble as Stitches, a children's party clown with bad luck. Stitches dies after being tormented by the children at the last party he works at but comes back to life to get revenge at the child's sixteenth birthday party. That's one clown who is dedicated to getting back at the person he considers responsible for his death. The film was directed by Conor McMahon and partly financed by The Irish Film Board.

Art The Clown had to start somewhere, and that somewhere is this film, All Hallows' Eve. This film was Damien Leone's feature debut and Art The Clown's debut. It stars Katie Maguire, Catherine Callahan, and Mike Giannelli as Art the Clown. It repurposes footage from two of Leone's short films and is an anthology film built around a videotape with short films with Art in them. You definitely will want to see the origins of Art because of the importance of Art in this subgenre.

Clown is a movie about a dad who wants to make his child happy and puts on a clown suit that he finds, only to discover that he can't take it off. The movie was directed by Jon Watts, who is now better known for producing the three Spiderman films: Spiderman: Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home. That's an excellent recommendation for this early effort. The film stars Andy Powers and Peter Stormare. It is revealed that the clown suit is the skin of an ancient Icelandic demon called the Clöyne. This film gets points for scary clown originality.

This is another frightful clown film that is off the beaten track. It is directed by Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia, whose name means quality and guarantees a 100% wild ride. Any attempt to try and summarize the film will not do it justice. I advise anyone contemplating watching an Álex de la Iglesia film to give in and go for it. It's about homicidal clowns who will do things that no other psychotic clowns will. Is it like most of the other films on this list? No, and that's a good thing.