The Making Of: The Clown Returns
The revival of Hertford’s now-famous clown didn’t start as a horror gimmick—it began as a creative response to a town centre that felt like it was fading. Filmmaker Lewis Andrews, alongside collaborators Richard Akam and their small creative collective Morbid Tales, set out to capture that feeling through a character that was already part of their history.
In 2016, the team had released a short Halloween video featuring a lone clown wandering Hertford’s streets. It was shot quickly, purely for fun, but it struck a nerve locally and reached over 5,000 views. Years later, as Bircherley Green Shopping Centre slipped into long-term disrepair, the group realised the clown could return with a new purpose: to highlight what the town had lost.
Pre-production was simple by design. Rather than build sets or create artificial atmosphere, Lewis wanted Hertford itself to tell the story. The team filmed deep into the night, choosing hours when the high street was completely deserted. That emptiness became the project’s backbone—every closed shutter, every silent streetlamp feeding the sense of unease. Crew noise was minimal; Lewis recalls hearing the internal hum of the camera because the surroundings were so still.
The direction of the clown was intentionally understated. Instead of jump scares or chaotic movement, the character wanders with curiosity, as if trying to understand what happened to the place he once knew. The emotional pivot comes when he reaches the locked entrance of the former Bircherley Green site and stops, confused, before breaking down. The moment plays almost childlike, designed to reflect the town’s own lost identity.
Richard Akam’s sound design completed the piece—quiet, sparse and built to echo through empty space. With this return video, the team achieved a small but pointed statement: Hertford at night feels like a movie set waiting for something to happen.
Lewis and Morbid Tales plan to develop bolder, more elaborate projects around the town—and possibly beyond.
In the desolate heart of forsaken, chilling realms, where the macabre takes its haunting shape, we find the fervour for crafting cinematic nightmares. These tales, spun from the thread of eerie obsessions, materialise like ghostly apparitions upon the threshold of human consciousness.
“Tiny hamlets and quaint villages, microcosms of our world, become the uncanny stages for these spectral protagonists. Here, nestled within the familiar, they toy with the sanity of men, sending shivers rattling down the spine of humanity. They conjure a dread so profound; it breathes life into the shadow of mortality that lurks in every soul.
Beware, for these are not mere stories. They are the chilling whispers of fear, the embodiment of your darkest thoughts… and they are closer than you think.“
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