Wrinkles the Clown

Have you heard of Wrinkles? He’s an unidentified man who has been popping up all over Florida in ominous-looking clown costume (seriously, you wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley). A short film in which he emerges from beneath a sleeping girl’s bed went viral, and Wrinkles even made the pages of The Washington Post. In reality, he isn’t dangerous at all. He’s just a clown for hire but not the sort that makes children laugh; instead, he frightens them if they’ve been naughty. He bought his mask on eBay because, as he puts it, it was somewhere between Michael Myers and my grandfather. Michael Beach Nichols takes a look at the Wrinkles phenomenon. His portrait of a man who found an unusual way to earn money is accompanied by reflections on the pop culture fascination with evil, the mechanisms behind urban legends and viral myths, and violence against children. The result is a fascinating documentary—Nichols once again reveals a piece of unknown America. And Wrinkles really isn’t the scariest at all.