Creature Feature



Art the Clown from Terrifier



By AL J. Vermette



There have been a host of scary clowns over the years such as Pennywise, The Joker, and Killer Klowns From Outer Space, but there is one clown that makes them all look like Ronald McDonald and that is Art The Clown, the evil antagonist of a series of indie films created by Damien Leone. First seen in the short film Terrifier in 2011, and again in the anthology movie, All Hallows Eve in 2013, where the creepy painted manic made his feature film debut. Written, produced, directed, and even edited by Damien Leone himself, All Hallows Eve told the story of two children and their babysitter who find an unmarked video cassette and decide to play it on Halloween night. Art The Clown is among the short films watched within this feature as the killer goes on his rampage of murder. The movie uses already shot footage from Leone’s short film Terrifier featuring the mad clown in action played by actor Mike Giannelli plus scenes from his earlier short film The 9th Circle as well.


In 2016 Damien Leone turned his Terrifier short into a feature film with Art The Clown in center stage. Here the creepy white-faced clown is now played by actor David Howard Thornton, and with his tall slender frame and face make the character seemed even more frightening and sinister. Art’s very appearance is insanely disturbing and is much more menacing looking than any other clown in every evil clown movie ever made. Yeah, this creep even gives Pennywise a run for his money…..and I’m talking new Pennywise who is damn scary looking. With a pale dead white face, black lips, yellow teeth and a long crooked hook nose that in itself seems disturbing somehow. Dressed in a black and white circus clown jumpsuit with a little black hat sitting atop his head, Art comes across as threatening even when he’s smiling.




Like Michael Myers, another white face silent killer whose facial expressions are hidden under a mask, Art is shown to be very expressional since his face is seen under the phantom makeup. But like Myers he’s only presented in complete silence never making a sound and even when he laughs, he mimes the giggle in silence and only through the act of facial gestures would you know he’s having a chuckle while killing someone. The quiet theme also works because his very appearance is like a demonic mime from hell setting him apart from other killer clowns such as Pennywise or other slasher villains like Freddy.


Again like Myers, Art The Clown hunts only on Halloween night whereas in the opening of Terrifier, we see the serial killer getting ready for his long night of carnage by slipping on his white skullcap and applying his ghostly and black makeup all without really seeing what he looks like under the ghoulish face paint. Once ready, he throws over his shoulder a black sack full of all his murder tools he will use during the night's bloodbath of victims.


Now, most slasher movies have a good amount of gore when the killer takes out his victims one by one, but Terrifier Art takes the art of killing to all new levels of gore and horror. The kills are extremely…. extremely graphic in their depiction as in one memorable scene, Art cuts a young woman in half while hanging upside down legs open wide and starts at her groin and works his way down with a hacksaw. All this while she’s screaming in pain as her restrained friend is forced to watch the bloody spectacle. And the girl is still alive through it all until he cuts to her head. Yeah, now that’s how you do a kill scene!

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Terrifier was followed up with a direct sequel recently as Terrifier 2 as a two hour movie of butchery and mayhem. And it’s said that this new murder spree of Art The Clown is even much….much more explicit in its depiction of slaughter than the film before. Good God, I need to see this movie!!!


Much like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, Art The Clown has a way of coming back from the dead even after being taken out himself. To avoid cops taking him in once discovered, Art kills himself by shooting himself through his skull. Now all throughout the film, we think he’s just a human in makeup on a killing spree but he’s shown to have immortal tendencies like his slasher counterparts as he wakes up after his own death. What this killer clown reallyis, we don’t know just yet…is he human or something else?


Although Art The Clown is the new kid on the block, he is already making his mark in licensed merchandise with masks and costumes, tee shirts, action figures, games, pins, air fresheners all based on the killer clown. Next, we will have an animatronic prop standing among Pennywise and other creepy clown props for Halloween. Like Sam of Trick R Treat, Art The Clown has become a pop culture icon for the 2020’s and with the release of the new movie in 2022 as Terrifier 2, I’m sure there will be more installments within the now newly formed franchise. It seems that Art The Clown is now among the big boys in horror movie society.

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