Halloween kicked off early at a Homewood elementary school, where students were greeted by one of the horror’s most disturbing characters Tuesday morning.

A person dressed as Pennywise, the child-killing clown from Steven King’s 1986 horror novel “It”, greeted students at Shades Cahaba Elementary School near the carpool dropoff on Tuesday, according to a social media post from a local parent.

A photo posted to Facebook shows a costumed individual standing near the front parking lot of the school wearing the character’s signature ruffled coat and pants, as well as a mask with the clown’s iconic slicked red hair and evil grin.

And yes, they’re holding a red balloon.

“This is so epic, and wrong, and wonderful,” one user wrote. “It’s a total ‘bravo’ and ‘how could you’ at the same time.”

The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jeven Sloan, the author of the post, told AL.com that he and other parents had no idea who the person was, but it appeared that school officials quickly shooed them away.

“I was filling up at the gas station when I took that picture, and by the time I filled up, they had already walked off and were walking back down Hollywood [Blvd.],” Sloan said, laughing. “So it definitely was not a school sanctioned thing at all.”

In the novel’s 1990 TV miniseries, neighborhood kid Georgie Denbrough encounters the clown while looking for his paper boat that fell down the storm drain on a rainy day. Pennywise tries to entice him to join him in the sewer by telling him the circus is down there.

“Oh, come on bucko, don’t you want a balloon?” the character says to Denbrough, before grabbing his arm and biting it off, leaving the child to bleed to death.

Despite the gruesome nature of the film, Sloan said reactions from parents have been pretty positive.

“I think everybody thought it was pretty funny and harmless,” he said. “It’s a funny little way to start Halloween morning, that’s for sure.”