We strive to have a positive attitude about things here at Nerdist, but that can be challenged when it comes to movies like The Cat in the Hat. After all, it is the movie that persuaded Theodor Seuss Geisel’s widow to declare that there’d be no more live-action adaptations of Dr. Seuss books allowed (sorry, anyone who was hoping for 5,001 Fingers of Dr. T). And it’s definitely the moment when pop culture decisively turned on Mike Myers, who inexplicably chose to play the Cat like a fur-covered version of his mother-in-law-inspired Linda Richmon character from Saturday Night Live.

What if we got it wrong, though? What if Myers’ Cat was, in fact, a manifestation of our fears, designed to “salt the meat” before devouring us? He might be better at it than even a vintage clown, and in this trailer mash-up for Stephen King‘s It that we first saw at io9, he takes Pennywise’s place with aplomb. It works so well we’re tempted to suggest that if he came back as a horror villain, Mike Myers could give his Halloween namesake Michael Myers a run for his mask in the scares department. Pain’s world! Carnage time!

Hey, maybe Thing 1 and Thing 2 are actually the John Carpenter shape-shifting alien adapting to a Dr. Seuss world. It makes so much more sense now.

Is the Cat in the Hat as scary as the Clown Under Ground? Party on to the comments and tell us which one is more excellently terrifying.

Image: YouTube/But Without