The Entertainer by Edgar J. Hyde (1999) [Review]
By the late nineties, clowns were to horror what sharks had been to the seventies.
The ‘90s saw a surge in killer clowns as a horror staple. Stephen King’s Pennywise (Tim Curry), brought to life in the 1990 IT miniseries, became a defining horror icon. Insane Clown Posse (ICP) pushed clown imagery into hip hop/rap with their controversial “horrorcore” style, sparking parental panic. Demonic Toys (1991) found success on home video and spawned a crossover sequel, Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993). Even Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1992–96) introduced the Ghastly Grinner to a generation of gateway horror viewers, a “monster of the week” achieving cult status.
By this point, the evil clown had plunged a knife into the horror zeitgeist… and twisted. The clown had stopped being a novelty and had become a reflexive image of horror. That shift did not go unnoticed by the writers of Creepers (1997–99), the lesser-known Scottish children’s horror series often positioned in the shadow of Goosebumps.
Alan J. Henderson’s (who shares the pen name Edgar J. Hyde) The Entertainer (1999) is refreshingly close to being a pitch-perfect addition to the Creepers book series, but it proves too little too late for the franchise. Henderson, who was also among the original publishers of this collection, seems to have at least started to remedy the lack of awareness of the intended demographic with this late entry.
A persistent issue that plagued the series is its irritating use of vocabulary that would be considered the norm for middle-aged readers (maybe thirty-somethings at a push), rather than its pre-teen demographic.
Despite these shortcomings, Creepers clearly left an impression on at least some readers. The series has remained obscure compared to Goosebumps, but Flower Pot Press’s decision to acquire and republish selected entries suggests there is still perceived value in these books, decades after their original release.
The Entertainer is proof that being less tone-deaf needn’t come at the expense of the creep factor. Main character Darren’s second dream encounter with the titular Entertainer is particularly terror-inducing for a children’s novel, twisting the familiar imagery of a magician’s sword-box trick into something genuinely unsettling. However, the atmospherics start to ebb in favour of increasingly gory scenes as the novel builds towards its bloody, albeit rushed, finale.
It isn’t until the novel reaches its climactic (or anti-climactic) finale that The Entertainer crosses the line from homage into imitation. Its final conflict echoes Stephen King’s IT (1990) so closely that it risks feeling less like inspiration and more like a shortcut. The same criticism cannot be levelled at the novel’s debt to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). While the dream sequences clearly draw inspiration from Wes Craven, they diverge enough to avoid being derivative.
Other issues with the story involve the main protagonist flip-flopping from being scared shitless to somewhat of a Scrappy-Doo persona with no character development whatsoever. This is a minor issue, as you cannot expect much character development in a kid’s horror book that is fewer than 130 pages long. What is less forgivable is that the novel also shows its age by its use of the pejorative “midget”.
Additionally, this is the second novel in the Creepers series I have read that centres on a theme of outsiders moving into the neighbourhood and disrupting the status quo (see my review of Creepers: Soul Harvest). This dynamic is further emphasised by the circus’ Commissar, who is described as having “a thick Russian accent” (p.62), as well as rumours earlier in the book about the circus’ previous visit, during which pets were allegedly stolen. I suspect that motifs like these would be ironed out in the editing process if the book were published today, as they could be read as displacing adult anxieties about the ‘foreign’ onto narratives aimed at appealing to kids, rather than fears intrinsic to childhood itself.
Flawed and occasionally dated, The Entertainer delivers enough effective scares to justify its place in the Creepers series.
