Basic Trope: A circus gets Played for Horror.
- Straight: The Bigtop of Thrills and Chills has a troupe of Monster Clowns and sinister performers, and the ringmaster tends to "recruit" new faces by force or trickery wherever it goes.
- Exaggerated: All circuses are evil cults trying to bring about an apocalypse.
- Downplayed:
- The Bigtop of Thrills and Chills has one nasty performer, but he's more of a bully than a psycho.
- The Bigtop of Thrills and Chills isn't really "evil", as all of the performers are Creepy Good. It's still very bizarre and surreal to the point where it's rather creepy and unsettling to visit.
- Justified: The ringmaster explains that there are creatures that feed on souls following them, so he makes his circus dangerous to find worthy warriors to fight the creatures.
- Inverted: The Bigtop of Thrills and Chills tends to make everyone better wherever it goes.
- Subverted: When Bob and Alice enter the circus grounds, they hear Creepy Circus Music and meet a clown with a too-wide smile...but it turns out that the place is safe and happy; even the clown is Accidental Nightmare Fuel.
- Double Subverted:
- The next circus that comes through, though, turns out to prey on its customers.
- The Bigtop of Thrills and Chills performs normal shows at the daytime, but they dole out VIP cards to random customers. That's the real front which it uses to prey on them.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Parodied: ???
- Averted:
- The Bigtop of Thrills and Chills is played just like a regular circus.
- There is no circus.
- Lampshaded:Bob: What a creepy circus!
- Defied: A circus rolls into town, and Alice thinks the ringmaster is planning something. However, he is just preparing for his grand finale, and Alice nearly gets arrested trying to find otherwise.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Bob and Alice's Uncle Charlie suffers nervous breakdowns whenever he hears calliope music, and their Aunt Eva tells them that he's never been the same since one summer when the circus came to town.
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