Overnight, the circus came to town. But something's wrong -- very wrong. The circus music, which should be cheerful, seems menacing. The attractions (especially the freak display) seem off, the cotton candy is a sickly shade of green, the knife thrower doesn't miss, and the clowns...well, the less said about the clowns the better. And people are disappearing, either consumed by or turned into the circus denizens. This trope is the brother to The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday, and often used in context with freaks, providing instances of either Red Right Hand or The Grotesque.