Controversial opinion: Clowns aren't that scary. A little bit odd, perhaps, but in daylight they're just made-up comedians. But at night, in an unexpected place, when the light is low… ok, fine, clowns can be scary. Really scary.
The TERRIFIER movies from director and effects maestro Damien Leone take the scary movie clown concept to an ultra-gory extreme. These movies are not for the squeamish. They offer up the very last clown you ever want to run into — and TERRIFIER 3, coming to theaters, pushes the greasepaint demon named Art to new depths of depravity.
SIlent but Scary
Scary movie clowns have been haunting our screens since, well, the beginning of movies. Since film evolved from vaudeville and other live entertainment, clowns were a pretty natural figure to put on screen. Especially in the silent era, as the fundamental skills of clown performance mesh well with silent film acting.
So weird movie clowns crop up as early as in THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ (1914). The movie was a bomb that set up "The Wizard of Oz" creator L. Frank Baum for failure as a movie producer, but it did give a bit part to future silent superstar Harold Lloyd.
Later, there were many clown movies, but HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1924) has survived as a great film and an unusual thriller with a clown at its center. Then THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928), a gloomy romance, featured Conrad Veidt as a gruesomely grinning man who looks like a clown — and who would reportedly inspire The Joker.
But for a long time, clowns were mostly characters of fun. Ronald McDonald was an un-ironic hamburger pitchman. Bozo the Clown was so popular on TV that the character was syndicated by local stations across the country with many different actors playing Bozo. The character was on TV into the 2000s.
Killer Clowns Invade the Theater
The 1970s and 1980s saw a surge in killer clown characters. Perhaps filmmakers were inspired by the real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who worked as a clown. Maybe John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978), which opens with young Michael Meyers dressed as a clown, set things off. Or maybe Bozo had helped clowns run their course.
Tobe Hooper's POLTERGEIST (1982) turned a clown doll into one of the scariest things ever put on film until that point. Stephen King's 1986 novel "It," which became a TV mini-series in 1990, introduced the world to the demonic Pennywise. KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (1988) blended horror and comedy. By the early '90s, clowns were all but fully committed to a transition to horror.
Modern horror films have continued to exploit coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. The remake of IT (2017) kept nasty clowns in the mainstream spotlight while Rob Zombie's 31 (2016) kept things going for the dedicated horror fans. The TERRIFIER series, however, has truly pushed the boundaries of scary movie clown horror.
Created by Damien Leone for a short film in 2008, Art the Clown has been the focus of multiple short films, an anthology movie segment, and now three feature films. Mike Giannelli originally played Art, and after he retired from acting a new performer took over.
Art the Clown Takes Over
TERRIFIER (2016) is a reintroduction of Art the Clown, now played by David Howard Thornton. The actor's lanky, rubbery physique turned Art into a character whose roots might be as equally dug into Looney Tunes cartoons as they are into horror — but none of Bugs and Daffy's contemporaries ever committed extreme acts of violence like Art's gleeful murders.
The film's handmade feel (director Leone does the effects himself), extreme violence, and Art's unsettling nature quickly earned the movie a cult following.
The sequel, TERRIFIER (2022), expanded the story's on-screen mythology and garnered even more attention, with reports of viewers fainting during screenings. The out-sized level of success quickly set a third movie in motion, and there's a good chance that a fourth will follow.
We could say that the enduring appeal of scary clowns in horror is based on subversion of a traditionally comedic figure that ties primal fears to childhood innocence and fright. And you'd be right. But it's also a lot more simple: Face paint meant to be silly can just as easily turn grotesque and frightening, especially when it's on the face of a person also holding an axe.
TERRIFIER 3 opens on October 11
All images courtesy of Cineverse.