The third chapter in the grossout 'Terrifier' series lands next month D amien Leone’s Terrifier (2016) harks back to a simpler time of blood-and-guts horror cinema. Featuring eerie villain Art The Clown, a harlequin maniac wearing a Joker-style grin, the film made waves for its use of delightfully gooey special effects and extreme scenes of bodily carnage. Audiences lapped it up.
When Terrifer 2 came out in 2022, Art, who looks like a cross between Marilyn Manson and revered mime artist Marcel Marceau, was fully embraced as a new genre icon. Art may be a psycho killer with inventively nasty tricks up his clown sleeve, but the man who plays him, David Howard Thornton, conforms to the general rule that the nicest guys play the best baddies. Talking to NME over Zoom in the run-up to the release of Christmas-themed Terrifier 3 , the friendly Thornton clearly relishes the role and is slowly getting used to being in the limelight.
He enjoys the “anonymity” of performing in obscuring, heavy makeup but is getting recognised more often in “Clark Kent mode”. Achieving movie star star status is “pretty wild,” Art muses. David Howard Thornton as Art The Clown in Terrifier.
CREDIT: Signature Entertainment Thornton’s amazed Terrifier films have hit the sweet spot financially ( Terrifier 2 earned $15million from a $250,000 budget) but have also become beloved cult favourites. He believes the reason for their success is obvious though. “Hollywood has become so risk-averse i.