Clive Barker's Dread was published by Eclipse in 1992.

Quaid, a student of philosophy, is obsessed by his own nightmare of an ax-murdering clown...so he concocts a series of experiments to observe firsthand how other people react to the things that most horrify them. But while Quaid slowly unpeels the psyches of his imprisoned and tortured captives like a reeking onion, his own dread waits, just beyond his control.