Clowns and horror go together very well. Many people have a fear of the colorful characters ranging from just being unsettled by them to having a full-blown phobia of them, so it’s very easy to use them in telling scary stories. We’ve seen them used in a wide variety of horrors over the years from purely terrifying in Stephen King’s It, to cheesy in Killer Klowns from Outer Space, to more comical in Stitches (which you should definitely consider watching on Netflix or elsewhere if you’ve never seen it and you’re into horrors that don’t take themselves seriously) and much more.

As for the simply titled Clown, which is directed by Cop Car and the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming director Jon Watts and produced by Cabin Fever and Hostel director Eli Roth, the goal is clearly to give people some nightmares. A trailer for the movie has been released, and you can check it out below.

CLOWN is a story of a loving father who dons a clown outfit and makeup to perform at his son’s sixth birthday, only to later discover that the costume – red nose and wig included– will not come off and his own personality changes in a horrific fashion. To break the curse of the evil outfit, the father must make grim choices with his own family facing danger.

The story of how Clown came to be is also an interesting one. Co-writers Watts and Christopher Ford (who also wrote the screenplay for the wonderful Robot & Frank) actually uploaded a fake trailer for the movie (which you can also find below) and said it was from Eli Roth. But Roth had nothing to do with it at the time. It was only after he had saw it that an actual movie began to materialize and he became a producer.

This is fitting as Roth has had a horror movie based on a fake trailer—the Thanksgiving trailer he made for Grindhouse—in the works for a long time now, and it was reported back in 2012 that Watts and Ford would be helping he and his co-writer Jeff Rendell with the script. It was also said at the time, however, that the movie could be out by 2013, so where things stand with Thanksgiving currently is unknown.

Clown has actually been out for a while now in other countries, having been released in Italy in 2014 and the UK and other countries in 2015. It will be released here in the States in limited theaters and on demand services on June 17th.

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[Source: Katrina Wan PR via Bloody-Disgusting]