‘Wait, Art the Clown was in a film before the first Terrifier?’
For anyone else who went through that exact realisation reading the headline, I assure you, I went through more or less the same experience when I came across the news a few weeks ago while preparing for our interview with Damien Leone.
The psychopathic clown has been made iconic by Terrifier and Terrifier 2, and with Terrifier 3 on the horizon with their biggest budget and marketing push yet, more and more people are becoming acquainted with Art.
Despite this, his first appearance actually came in a former film of Damien’s.
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He appeared in All Hallow’s Eve, a direct-to-video slasher where a babysitter comes across a VHS tape of a horrifying clown committing terrible murders.
This was discussed recently on Twitter after the trailer for Terrifier 3 seemed to imply that Art may engage in some child-murder in the new sequel.
One account tweeted: “Art the Clown, in his first movie All Hallow's Eve (2013), kills two kids. Yet the Terrifier 3 trailer has folks in a tizzy. I got nothing.”
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While we simply can’t show you the accompanying image of two children with their heads lopped off, I’m sure if you know the Terrifier franchise you can imagine the terrifying gore.
Though it is not shown on screen as is often done with adult victims in the Terrifier films – many consider All Hallow’s Eve to be the scariest in the franchise.
One fan posted in the r/horror subreddit to say: “All Hallows Eve is the scariest film I've seen in a while.
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“Just finished watching for the first time. I had already watched Terrifier and Terrifier 2 before, but never got to watch this one. I truly believe it's the scariest in this franchise.
“It was really dark and f**ked up and made great use of sounds to induce fear. The characters were nicer than the ones in Terrifier 1, the pacing was better, the acting was better, and the way some segments were shot made it all the more grim and just terrifying.
“Im not sure why people put it down the list. It really did scare me! Not much its sequels (even though I still love them for Art and the gore).”
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Another fan replied saying: “I felt the same way! The last segment of the tape was very disturbing and haunted me for a while, you could really feel the anxiety when he started tapping on the screen too & not to mention the ending scene as well.”
Though the film continued on with the same character, it was actually played by Mike Giannelli rather than David Howard Thornton.
Whether it continues to be the scariest in the franchise is still yet to be seen, with Terrifier 3 releasing on 11 October in the UK.
Early screenings have seen a range of reactions, with nine walking out of one screening in the first scene, and one even throwing up.
Topics: Terrifier, Horror, TV and Film, Film
Michael Slavin