Beyond even the psycho killer as a modern icon of terrifying madness lurks the evil clown. In masterpieces such as Stephen King's novel It, and in eye-poppingly bad films such as Killer Klowns From Outer Space, the evil clown has staked out his territory as the official emblem of everything that society fears. The image of the clown as messenger of chaos and the uncanny goes back a long way, back even before Punch, the murderous clown-puppet of British lore.