Scary Clowns, Ranked

We have high expectations whenever this Batman villain makes an appearance, so Jared Leto's over-hyped performance in Suicide Squad left us somewhat dissatisfied. He was all but irrelevant to the story, and his on-screen persona seemed decidedly less sociopathic than the horrors he put the cast through during filming.

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

The DC villain (played by Margot Robbie in the 2016 Suicide Squad film) has a history that's almost as tortuous as the mayhem the character causes.

Harley is an incredibly fun character, but she rarely delivers a solid scare.

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Can't sleep. Clown will eat me. Can't sleep. Clown will eat me.

(Image credit: 20th Century Fox)

It's hard to stay scared at the smiling extra terrestrials that hail from this 1988 sci-fi cult comedy — even if they do eat people.

They're still better than Jared Leto's Joker, though.

(Image credit: Media Home Entertainment)

Clowns training dentists. Dentists training clowns. What could possibly go wrong?

(Image credit: Netflix)

Don't let the creepy clown mask creep you out (much). Underneath, the percussionist from the Grammy-winning heavy-metal band is just a "grumpy old man."

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Nothing terrorizes our hero (Jesse Eisenberg) in this 2009 comedy-horror hybrid more than "f---ing" clowns.

In the end, he fells one (Derek Graf) easily enough. All it took was courage. (And a blow to the skull.)

(Image credit: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)

Look at this clown. Lurking. Watching. Waiting.

Classic Scooby Doo villains typically don't unnerve us, but we are so not here for a creepy clown that uses mind control on meddling kids (and their little dog, too). You can catch clips of this freaky episode (Bedlam in the Big Top) on YouTube.

(Image credit: Worldvision Enterprises)

This Bozo-faced psychopath is "the most aggressive competitor" in the car-combat franchise. For extra-creepy measure, he occasionally tools around in an ice-cream truck.

(Image credit: Sony Computer Entertainment)

This gaming favorite, first seen in Final Fantasy VI, is a stylishly and devilishly mad war criminal.

Few clowns on the list have a body count anywhere near as high as Kefka's. (RIP Doma Castle.)

(Image: Square Enix)

This mild-mannered mall clown loses his mind (but gains a couple of chainsaws) during this game's zombie apocalypse.

(Image credit: Capcom Entertainment)

In this 2016 horror flick produced by Eli Roth (who also appears as Frowny the Clown), a dad (Andy Powers) lives everyone's worst nightmare: He dons a clown suit, and then can't get it off (because it's possessed).

(Image credit: Dimension Films)

A corpulent clown is the most notorious guise for this demon (played by John Leguizamo in the 1997 Spawn film) who, in addition to being a maniac, is a "real bastard" too.

(Image credit: New Line Home Video)

Though this Gotham City clown can be fun, he's usually downright disturbing. Few people captured his dark, twisted insanity quite like Heath Ledger ... though Jack Nicholson's take in the original Batman (1989) is a close second.

(Image credit: Warner Home Video)

The ghost of this cigar-smoking clown, killed in a spookhouse fire long ago, won't come after you ... unless you take something that belongs to him.

When some trouble-making punk stole his nose, it set up the most terrifying episode of Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark?, ever.

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Tell this guy you hate clowns, and he'll threaten to murder your entire family. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed finding a fictional clown who is more into murder.

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Kid! Behind you....! Behind you!

Oh, good grief, we can't look. The toy-clown scene in 1982's Poltergeist isn't merely scarier than the same bit in the 2015 remake, it's the "scariest thing ever." (Especially if you watched as a child.)

(Image credit: Warner Home Video)

This Illinois man who performed shows at children's parties (as depicted by Mark Holton in the 2003 movie, Gacy) was a real-life "killer clown."

Gacy was executed in 1994 for the murders of 33 people.

(Image credit: Lions Gate Films Home Entertainment)

Stephen King's kid-killing terror is played by Bill Skarsgård (shown) in the new big-screen adaptation. Tim Curry's portrayal in the original 1990 TV movie, meanwhile, still causes us to lose sleep.

Bottom line: Never trust a clown in a sewer.

(Image credit: New Line Cinema)

When Ryan Murphy approached actor John Carroll Lynch about playing Twisty, the TV bigwig said "he wanted to create the most terrifying clown in the history of television."

Murphy definitely succeeded.

(Image credit: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)