The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, last in the news for taunting MRAs with women-only screenings of Wonder Woman, is back with a new exclusive event. This one is a September 9th screening of Andrés Muschietti’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel It, and you can only attend if you are a clown.

Here’s the event description from the Alamo Drafthouse website:

“For this special screening of It, all attendees should arrive dressed as a clown in order to attend. Please arrive early and join us in the Barrel O' Fun beginning at 5:30pm for an It pre-party where we will have face-painters available for clown "touch-ups", a photo booth, raffles for prizes, and other terrifying merriment. Please arrive in your own Pennywise best and be ready to float with us.”

(This movie is rated R, and according to this event page, you are not allowed to bring children younger than 6. In my opinion: don’t bring a 6-year-old either. A 6-year-old dies in the first 10 pages of the book!)

So would you go to the clown-only screening of It?

Bear in mind that It will be released on September 8th, so you would be missing an entire day of screening opportunities in order to wait and attend with clowns.

Another issue: wouldn’t sitting in a theater full of clowns make the evil clown onscreen a lot less scary? It’s just going to be more of what’s already happening around you. There won’t be any contrast. But maybe you don’t like feeling scared, and you only wanted to see the film It for other, personal reasons, such as feeling a kinship with Mary McDonnell’s character in Donnie Darko. In that case, the clown-only screening might help you out a little.

Last question: how does dressing up as a clown prove that a person is a clown? It doesn’t. This isn’t an exclusive screening, it’s a screening with a dress code… and face-painters, photo booths, raffles for prizes, and other terrifying merriment. So if you attend, be sure to have a nice time, but just be aware that not everyone around you is an actual clown.

Remember last summer, when there were sightings of clowns all over the place, and people were freaking out? Now we’re inviting them to go to the movies with us. Time flies, and life is a funny thing.