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Just in time for Halloween, Hulu is revisiting one of the stranger cases of mass hysteria in recent memory. 

Clown Panic, which began streaming on October 12, explores the bizarre wave killer clown sightings that occurred across the U.S. in 2016. Directed by Ed Perkins, the movie begins in a small community in South Caroline where kids report clowns are hiding in the woods. But what starts as a strange local story quickly becomes a national phenomenon thanks to viral internet videos, social media posts, and news reports. The result?  School lockdowns, police investigations, and even groups of vigilantes hunting the mysterious killer clowns.

In this clip from the movie, a woman recalls how her community reacted to reports of killer clowns in their neighborhood. 

“The community was fed up with this clown sh*t,” she says. “If it’s a clown trying to take one of our kids, we ain’t going to go down without a fight. So I decided that we need to step it up. We need to put together a community patrol.”

“We had walkie talkies, megaphones, strobe lights, just looking and hoping to find something … We is for real, for real. The clown busters,” she continues. “I know we scared as hell right now, but it’s time for us to show up and turn up.”

But were the woman and her neighbours hunting real clowns? Or was the whole thing just a mass delusion? Clown Panic explores a “moment of deep national anxiety” and “how a bizarre urban legend spiraled into a global moral panic that has echoes that resonate today.” 

Clown Panic is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers in the U.S. and on Disney+ Internationally.

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