Remember when clowns used to be fun characters for children? The last clown I saw like that was Bozo the Clown. Now all clowns are either nasty or evil, and it has been like that for the last 30 years. I think the irony of an evil clown is well past dead about now. That being said, this is Stephen Kings It, maybe the first evil clown, so I will give this one a pass due to age of source material.
Actually, when I think about it, the first evil clown I can recall was John Wayne Gacy's 'Pogo' clown character, but sadly, that was real.