Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Chucky and now David Howard Thornton’s Art the Clown.
The Horror Icon label is one that is usually reserved for a horror antagonist, who has escaped the more niche consciousness of the horror fandom and has become a household name, a recognized character that you will see free of his confines of celluloid and out in pop culture, free to have a completely independent identity from the one prescribed to his by his filmography. Take Freddy for example, in the lore he’s a dead pedophile who kills kids in their dreams after being killed by the parents, who burned him alive for his transgressions. But once he broke out of his analog prison, he became this sort of burned up, wisecracking smart ass, who was the wise guy, to Jason’s hulking silent straight man.
While Damien Leone’s Terrifier 3 most definitely had a pop-culture moment, and you can now buy Terrifier merch in Five Below for their back to school campaign. These last few weeks have really started to elevate Art, who’s film exploits are pretty damn grisly and downright mean into a maniacally charming and lovable mischievous mime. This started with not only the announcement of a Hollywood Horror Nights house, which in itself is a pretty big deal. Along with that scare maze house, the property would also get a themed Clown Cafe food truck and there would be random Arts roaming throughout the event. The house itself is most definitely on brand with the franchise, and one of the most extreme offerings in years, from the yearly event thrown by Universal Studios. It boasts not only a gallery of Art’s greatest kills all meticulously recreated, but a dry and wet path filled with some very intriguing smells to go along with the visuals.
Now what completely changed everything for Art was the content that started to come out thanks to his free roaming avatars, who could have just stalked and jump scared patrons, as some scare actors do, but instead didn’t choose violence — but of all things leaned into the whimsy of the character. By doing so they created some truly viral and wholesome moments that really put the character out there in a new light for not only fans, but the general public. Some of my personal favorites are Art on his tricycle racing attendees in wheelchairs, Art making sure everyone who comes into the store walks out with a Terrifier tee and what happened when a patron gave Art a tiny hand. It’s something you can’t manufacture (See Below), as we see Art through the eyes of not only his fans through these wholesome interactions, but those he comes across. This is also a testament to the scare actors embodying this character and bringing it to life in such a way that this is even a possibility.
I was at the event earlier this week in Orlando and was lucky enough to have an interaction of my own in the house, which does this really weird thing leaning into all of this. See normally you walk through these houses conga line style and you’ll get someone lunging at you, trying to grab you or delivering a well timed jump scare. For the Terrifier house, not only do you have these recreations and re-enactments of Art’s greatest hits, but Art himself will sometimes break the fourth wall of the story of that the house – with a wave, a horn or just something a little more cheery than a woman who has been obviously hack sawed in half. It’s something that caught me completely by surprise and really offset some of the violence and smells you’re subjected to, with a bit of joy.
Now this isn’t without its drawbacks, given how popular he’s become thanks to this, groups of people trying to manufacture a moment and force an interaction, which is NEVER a good thing to do and it’s how we lose cool stuff like this. Thankfully part of the character allows him to just ignore those looking for attention. Now for me personally, this all hit me when a random colleague at work, not a horror fan or someone who would ever watch a Terrifier film, asked if I had seen those ‘funny Art the Clown videos’ coming out of HHN? I of course knew exactly what they were talking about, but this person called him by name with their only point of reference in these videos and had no idea about the character himself – did the thing in my eyes. It severed the character from his filmic tether, giving him a public persona and putting his name up there with the guys that have 7 or 8 films to their name.
