For God's Sake, Don't Send In The Clowns

I did a panel at Illogicon last weekend on what makes scary horror, with M. James Blake moderating and a post-midnight crowd. This was roughly my umpty-teenth "what makes horror scary" panel, and from all those times sitting up in front of all those people at all those panels, I can draw precisely one absolute, unshakeable, definite conclusion:

Mentioning "fear of clowns" is the horror panel equivalent of Godwining. The only way it would be worse would be if it were clown Hitler, and Charles Beaumont covered that one fifty years ago. (Read "The Howling Man". Go on. I'll wait.) As soon as the clowns come out, it's over. Any useful discussion is done. It's all personal anecdotes and "I'm afraid of clowns, too" and people convincing themselves they were afraid of clowns when they weren't, and people refusing to believe that fear of clowns doesn't really show up anywhere until after Tim Curry's turn as Pennywise in the miniseries version of It. (Here's a hint, kids - if you were born after It was broadcast and you say, "But I've always been afraid of clowns", you're not advancing your argument.) 

Mind you, before the clowns came out, the discussion was pretty good. Or horrible, if you prefer, but in a good way. And with that in mind, here's a couple of horror reviews. One is the Lansdale-edited Horror Hall of Fame , and the other is Ross Lockhart's Book of Cthulhu . Enjoy.