In the empty parking lot, Lenny Marls, who had just left the night shift, found her Chevrolet Malibu from the elongated shadows of rows of cars.
Her high heels echoed in this empty field.
"Didi..." The car lock was pressed.
Pulling the car door open, sitting in, looking down at the messy hem of the trench coat, Mars smelled the familiar smell of perfume in the car, and his heartbeat gradually became calm.
To her, the late-night parking lot in Leeds city was like a horror movie scene.
However, just as she was about to start the engine, the side windows slammed into a loud noise, and the scene in front of her terrified Mars...
……
Foreplay ends.
Last weekend, Sleep watched a movie that swept North America at the box office and grossed 179 million in 3 days. Although this data is not the most powerful in the history of film, but... It's a horror... fear...... slice.
We all know that in general, horror films belong to the niche genre in the United States, after all, not everyone can accept it, so the box office is never too high. But the film left Spider-Man: Homecoming far behind, all the way to the throne of the highest-grossing horror movie in history.
Yes, as you may have guessed, the name of this wonderful horror film is "IT".
belch...... Really not a black IT dog program ape or something...
In fact, the "it" here is the English "it", and the Chinese name of this film is translated as "Joker Returns".
01 The Curse of 27 Years of Reincarnation
"The Return of the Joker" is based on the work of the same name by horror guru Stephen King, who I read in college, and is a very stream-of-consciousness horror novel full of american closed town style.
Leaving aside those bizarre descriptions, in fact, there is only one theme in this novel, and that is the horror itself.
Sleep doesn't want to spoil anything, just a brief description of the opening plot (which won't affect the movie experience): Derry, Maryland, is a small town with the logging industry as its industry. But from the day the town was founded, there seemed to be a terrifying clown here, who was by no means a good person and took pleasure in mutilating children.
There are 7 small children in the town forming a small group. These 7 children are basically the kind of people in the school called "wastewood", and their small group is called the "Nest Waste Club".
The seven children, unfortunately, were followed by the ghost of this clown. And all this is because, deep inside each of them, there is a fear of a certain thing...
Therefore, the clown in the story is actually a kind of figurative horror itself. Only in this way can we explain why "it" comes and goes without a trace, and why it can change and do evil everywhere.
Yes, sleep says so much, no more spoilers. In short, this film is very thrilling, and very real, I hope that there will be a chance to release it in China.
In fact, it is not without reason that this movie will be screened worldwide, first of all, the first reason is that this year's "Joker Returns" is actually a remake, as early as 27 years ago, Stephen King's work was put on the big screen, and it scared a vote of children that year...
And according to the setting of the work, the clown cannot be killed, and he will return the soul once every 27 years, so this year it is "returning the soul". The children in the film are indeed attacked by clowns again after they have grown up in 27 years. In reality, the children who were scared in 1990 are ready to undergo another baptism of childhood shadows this year...
Incidentally, Jonathan Brandis, who starred as the child of the first version of "Joker Returns", later chose to commit suicide at the age of 27...
The second reason is that in recent years, there have been more and more clown attacks in various places...
02 In the name of the Joker
Since October last year, there has been a wave of clown attacks in many Western countries. They all call themselves killer clowns and scare people with pranks on no particular occasion.
From empty parking lots, to secluded alleys, to the depths of the campus at night, there will be clown figures who suddenly come out scary... Like the scene in the foreplay at the beginning of this article.
These horror-smiling clowns look like they're just doing pranks, but there's no shortage of them that actually hurt people with weapons.
At Brunel University in London, students witnessed an unidentified man wearing a horror clown mask, armed with a chainsaw, ramming passers-by on the road and jumping on the roof of a parked car, behaving in a frenzied manner.
A girl named Charlotte Hulme said in an interview that many students were so frightened that they ran back to their dormitories and were afraid to go out.
A woman in Watford called the police and told her daughter what had happened to her:
"My daughter was riding on the road with my friends, and they were going to the amusement park when a clown suddenly jumped out and shouted at them, still holding a sharp knife in his hand. Several girls screamed and rode to the amusement park for help, then called the police, and the police said they would keep an eye on them, but now the girls were too scared to go out. ”
A young pregnant woman from Leicester who was eight months pregnant, after being frightened by a 17-year-old dressed as a clown, was born prematurely a month earlier, and the mother's friend later posted the incident on Facebook and loudly denounced the clown's mischief.
The bad deeds of the "Killer Clown" have spread throughout Britain.
The same thing, the United States is not a lot.
In Lancaster, north of Los Angeles, a man in a clown mask and a machete in his hand was seen walking around... When word spread about the incident, the whole area fell into panic and scared the locals into not being afraid to go out.
Residents of Greenville County called the police to report seeing an unknown figure in a clown costume lurking next to a highway trying to lure a child into the jungle with sugar and snacks.
Escambia County High School and Flomaton High School had to close schools due to threats from "Joker" posts on Facebook.
In Canada, where the sleep is located, there is also a killer clown incident.
In a small town near Vancouver, at around 8 p.m., a Chinese-American mother walked her dog with her 13-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter in a neighborhood near her home. Not far away in the woods, two men dressed in clown clothes and wearing masks grimaced at them and made malicious and terrifying sounds.
At first, the Chinese mother did not care, and then walked the dog, and then when she walked back along the way, the clown in the woods quickly approached and tried to block their way...
Thinking of previous reports about the horror clown, the family fled for their lives in fear. But the Joker did not retreat because of this, but chased after it, and finally the family knocked on the door of nearby residents for help before they were able to escape.
You have to ask Sleep if you have ever met a clown, and I usually treat them like this.
(Lying to you... Sleep is also frightened by "Joker Returns"... ）
Although except for some vicious incidents that really inflict violence, the vast majority of clowns play pranks and only take pleasure in scaring people, but there are also people who are really scared out of their minds.
The question is, why do they all choose to be scary by dressing up as clowns?
Matteo Moroni, a professional killer clown from Perugia, Italy, gives the answer:
"I've tried all sorts of outfits, from murderers to zombies to alien monsters, but the clown's intimidating effect is the most obvious.
It has a terrifying nature that strikes people's hearts. ”
03 The History of the Joker
If clowns are born synonymous with horror, they may feel wronged themselves.
After all, the first clown is a symbol of funny and joyful.
Once upon a time, clowns were just simple comedic performers who pleased others by acting both true and false, pretending to be crazy and stupid.
As early as the Fifth Dynasty of ancient Egypt in 2500 BC, there was a dwarf clown who was responsible for performing to amuse the pharaohs.
In 1818 BC, clown performances were also recorded in China, but they often had another name: Rigoletto. (There are also some called "haiyou", and the famous rap figurine is actually a kind of haiyou figurine))
According to Ouyang Xiu's "Biography of the New Five Dynasties History and Lingguan", the Later Tang even had courtiers who were bold enough to dare to slap the emperor:
Zhuang Zong tasted the drama with Qun You, looked around and shouted: "Li Tianxia (the name of the flower that Zhuang Zong gave to himself), where is Li Tianxia?" ”
Before the new grinding, he stroked his cheek with his hand. Emperor Zhuangzong lost his color, and everyone was afraid left and right, and the group of people was also horrified, and they held a new grinding question together: "Ru Why should you criticize the cheeks of the Heavenly Son?" ”
Xin Mo said to him: "Li Tianxia is only one person, and who is to call evil!" So everyone laughed left and right, and ZhuangZong was overjoyed, and gave the new grind very thick.
During the Medieval period, clowns played an important role in European courts. After all, those emperors will be under a lot of pressure on the affairs of the day, and they are in great need of some clowns to relieve their worries to release the pressure.
Will Somers in front of king Henry VIII's palace, and Richard Tarlton, the daughter of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, were both european household names, and they were also known as jesters.
In addition, a good friend of Shakespeare' Robert Armin is also a famous clown in the English court, who is known for his funny humor, full of witty words, and often composes poems praising the king, which are beautiful and moving, very sensational, and he himself is deeply liked by the king, and finally became the "poet laureate" of Britain.
Not only in Eurasia, clown culture exists even in the civilizations of the American continent.
In 1520, when the famous Spanish colonist Hernán Cortés came to the Aztec Empire, he found that there were some hunchback gnomes resembling clowns in the area, performing ugly plays for Montezuma II. So they were bought and brought to Pope Clement VII of the Holy See.
The pope, who came from a Medici family, was very pleased, and he thought that these clowns could help satirize some of the pathological phenomena in society and religious affairs.
This is very similar to the meaning of "clown" in Chinese drama. We all know that "the ugly end of the birth is born", but in fact, "ugly" is the earliest line of origin in Chinese opera. The ugly is in the opening scene, and the other actors are not allowed to move, which shows the status of the clown. The leaders of traditional troupes are all clowns, and the first president of the China Drama Academy is Mr. Xiao Changhua.
The status of the clown is exalted for historical reasons. It is said that when Emperor Tang Ming created the Pear Garden, whenever there was a performance, he often played the clown himself, so the privileges of the clown were many. For example, An Lushan began to please his old man because of his funny image and gained favor.
If you classify clowns according to function, they can be divided into the following three categories: clowns, jesters, and fools. The relationship between the three is very delicate, and there is usually no essential difference, but the form of expression is not the same.
If divided according to the specific image of the clown, it can be divided into these five types:
White face
Typical white-faced clown, the base color of the face is white, the eyes, nose and mouth will be red or black, other decorations will be different, the color is embellished, and the size of the white-faced clown's eyes, nose and mouth will be the same as that of the average person.
The Colored Clown (Auguste)
The typical fool has a red and white background color, and the shape of the eyes, nose and mouth is a huge mouth and eyes with wide white edges.
Beggar Sex Clown (Tramp/Hobo)
This type of clown was mainly started when the driver of the train changed careers to clowns after the coal trains in the United States were eliminated. These clowns have beards, beards, freckles, vicissitudes, baldness, but they love to dress up. The most common roles are homeless or unemployed vagrants.
Character
Character clowns use a quirky type of character, such as a butcher, baker, cop, housewife, or tramp. Chaplin's image is a typicalCharacter.
Sad clown
The laughing characters who are bullied and humiliated to please the audience are characterized by teardrops painted on their cheeks.
Well, I know you're more familiar with this one~
04 From fool to wise man
So, when did the Joker begin to become a symbol of evil?
In fact, the history since the birth of the clown, whether in various civilizations, has a commonality: that is, although the clown itself is a person, it represents a deformed personality.
The earliest clowns must have had some kind of physical disability: either dwarfs, or inconvenient legs and feet, or ugly looks, and some had inherent intellectual problems. The essence of their laughter is the difference between them and ordinary people, giving those who are physically sound to a sense of psychological superiority and taking pleasure in laughing at them.
For example, in the auction of ancient Roman slaves, there was even a market for deformed slaves for their masters to entertain them.
Later, the deformity of the body was gradually replaced by the strangeness of the makeup. No matter which of the five types of clowns, in appearance, they all have very different characteristics from ordinary people, such as exaggerated and distinct dress, miserable white skin, bright red nose and mouth, exaggerated expressions, these are another reflection of "deformity", the essence or to express their difference from ordinary people.
But it's worth noting that such deformities are not without reward. The first clowns may just pretend to be crazy and sell stupid playthings, but they often win the pleasure of pleasing the object because of this, and they can often say something that ordinary people dare not say (such as the example of Zhuang Zong).
It is precisely because of this layer that the clowns are gradually given a new meaning: under the surface of the ugly deformity, they are actually very wise people, who can pinpoint the shortcomings of the times and ridicule everything. Anyway, even if their poisonous tongue is not good, it doesn't matter, ordinary people can laugh at it.
Thus, the clowns become a combination of contradictions, on the one hand they are deformed people who are different from ordinary people, they are the objects of ridicule; on the other hand, they are wise and foolish, they can see through everything, and they become mockers with privileges that ordinary people do not have.
This contradiction and duality is reflected in many literary and artistic works of the Enlightenment era, especially in tragic works. For example, in "King Lear", one of Shakespeare's four tragedies, the fool shows superior wisdom, and he can have no scruples about King Lear's stupidity, ridicule him without inferiority, and help him complete his growth.
Shakespeare's influence is also reflected in Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris": Quasimodo is a typical clown with a physical disability, ugly appearance and extraordinary from ordinary people, but extremely kind in heart and great wisdom. The same example is Gwynplaine in The Smiley Man, where the trafficker surgically destroys his appearance, leaving his face to smile forever, becoming a natural clown, but his heart is full of integrity and kindness.
Yes, Sleep knows who you have in mind, and Joker in Batman was inspired by that.
In Jostein. In Jostein Gaarder's the Solitaire Mystery, the Joker is described as a card game a family curse, but there will always be a clown who sees through the whole scam. Generation after generation, the earth will always wander a clown who will never be destroyed by time. Those who see through fate must bear the torment of fate.
Yes, in a sense, the Joker has become a radical embodiment of contradiction, symbolizing the existence of that "chaos" outside the "normal" world of order. But such so-called "chaos" often represents the truth, the true essence of irrationality and chaos under the surface world of rationality and order.
The fool in the tarot card, the order of the card is 0, which means that he sees through the ignorance of the world as an observer of transcendent things.
The Sleeping Watcher, Comedian, is also the only being who sees everything clearly.
05 From joy to fear
From the 19th century onwards, clowns became the norm in circuses, and even the Royal Opera House had to be equipped with clown actors, who were also known as "modern clowns".
Joseph Grimaldi is recognized as the first modern clown, and it is because of his name Joseph that people have been referring to as a clown ever since. Grimalti's performances have the ambivalence of the typical clown, on the one hand, he relies on colorful and grotesque costumes to gag, on the other hand, he satirizes and attacks the social ugliness through pantomime performances.
Not many people know how tragic the 19th-century king of comedy had, with his manic father taking pleasure in beating him as a child, his wife dying in childbirth, his son dying of alcoholism at a young age, and his own early disability from performing difficult ugly moves day after day.
As he said in his autobiography, "I spend every day in pain, but I want to bring joy to the world at night." ”
It was based on him that Dickens created a retired clown in Pickwick, who destroyed himself to bring laughter, showing the essence of chaos and pain beneath the surface of joy, which is regarded as the earliest origin of the horror clown image.
Along with Grimalti is the French Jean-Gaspard Deburau, revered as the father of modern mime, and his appearance is even more terrifying when performing, with a pale and bloodless face and dark eyeliner as his hallmarks.
In 1836, when a boy was insulting him in the street, Dubra became angry and violently beat the boy with a cane in his hand and killed him on the spot. This may be the first close connection between horror clowns and children.
In the United States, on the other side of the ocean, clown performances are also in full swing. From the beginning of the country clown performance, and then to the later clown TV Show, compared with the social significance of European clowns, the greater role of North American clowns is to please children.
In the 1950s, the United States gave birth to a famous clown image: Bozo the Clown , in his time, bozo clown is no less than today's Peppa Pig or SpongeBob SquarePants. Children's dramas featuring him are popular throughout North America.
It was because of this influence that the fledgling McDonald's company bought the rights to a character on Bozo's clown show, Ronald McDonald, and has been acting as its own brand ambassador.
In the United States at that time, clowns were equated with joy, equal to children's favorites. All of this coincides with the background of the story in "Joker Returns". It wasn't until the appearance of a pervert that the image of the Joker underwent a subversive change.
This man, John Wayne Gacy, was a brutally inhuman serial killer.
Between 1972 and 1978, he sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 boys and young boys aged 14 to 21. Gacy buried the bodies of 29 victims in the power supply pipe space of his home, and the other 3 buried elsewhere near his home, and discarded the remains of the last 4 known victims in a nearby river.
You may have to ask, why did he lure so many boys?
Because he often pretends to be a clown, participates in the birthday of local children, and takes the opportunity to lure them to his home. In addition, he has created a large number of works of art with the theme of clowns. After his arrest, he uttered the following words: When I put on the clown's coat, I became another me.
It was because of Gacy's influence that the image of the "killer clown" or "horror clown" began to penetrate the hearts of the people. Because of the good image of the clown before, they can easily approach children, so it has become the best choice for many perverts to commit crimes. Similar stories were adapted into novels and TELEVISION series, bringing parents at the time to the point of clowns.
Stephen King's "The Return of the Joker" was also created in this context.
Since then, a new psychiatric term, Coulrophobia, has been born. Countless American children in the 80s were shrouded in the shadow of clowns, and even convulsed unconsciously when they saw them. The most famous example is Johnny Depp, who admits that his greatest fear of life came from the Joker.
With the outbreak of clown phobia, a large number of film and television works with joker as the horror villain also appeared. Take this one from American Horror Story:
And this one from The Clown at Midnight:
Of course, the one who combines the Joker's insane temperament and guilty horror to the extreme is undoubtedly the Joker in Batman The Dark Knight.
Finally, if you ask which is the most influential clown in history.
Sleep can guarantee not to say Joker in "Batman", not even Uncle McDonald is ranked first.
Only it is the deserved king of clowns.