Editorials
From ‘The 9th Circle’ to ‘Terrifier 3’ – A Bite-Size History of Art the Clown
By any metric – film output, fanbase size, media attention, merchandising, recognizability – Art the Clown is quickly rising through the ranks as a horror icon for the modern generation the same way that Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers became household names in the 1980s.
Terrifier‘s humble beginnings originated in the mind of Damien Leone. Prior to making his directorial debut, the New York-based aspiring filmmaker and special effects artist envisioned a clown terrorizing a woman on a city bus.
Leone realized his vision in The 9th Circle, a 2008 short film in which Art The Clown made his first appearance as one of several evil entities. The homicidal clown returned as the antagonist in Terrifier, a 2011 short film that helped establish many of the character’s trademarks.
Terrifier caught the attention of producer Jesse Baget, who reached out to Leone about including it in an anthology alongside other filmmakers’ shorts. Leone convinced him to let him helm the entire anthology in order to create a more cohesive story. The result, All Hallows’ Eve, was released straight to DVD in 2013 by Image Entertainment (and is now coming to VHS).
‘The 9th Circle’
An extended version of The 9th Circle serves as All Hallows’ Eve‘s first segment, while Terrifier plays third. Although the wraparound story also involves Art, the middle segment centers on an alien to avoid detracting from the character’s impact.
All Hallows’ Eve went on to launch a franchise of its own. Leone joined Baget to produce 2015’s All Hallows’ Eve 2, which collected shorts from nine different filmmakers. A third installment, All Hallows’ Eve: Trickster, was released last year without Leone’s involvement.
In both the shorts and the anthology, Art the Clown is portrayed by Mike Giannelli, who had no real interest in being an actor and spending long hours in Leone’s makeup chair but was happy to oblige for his longtime friend.
When Leone decided to give Art the Clown a proper feature with Terrifier, Gianelli turned down the offer to reprise the role. He left big clown shoes to fill, but the loss turned out to be a blessing in disguise when Alabama native David Howard Thornton booked the role.
‘Terrifier 2’
Terrifier premiered at the Telluride Horror Show Film Festival in 2016 before being acquired by Epic Pictures’ genre label Dread for a limited theatrical and Blu-ray/DVD release in 2018. The gory slasher picked up even more steam when it hit Netflix later that year.
Terrifier cost around $50,000 to make, with producer Phil Falcone funding it in exchange for Leone teaching him special effects. The film’s unexpected success led to Terrifier 2 from Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting. It premiered at FrightFest in 2022 before opening unrated in U.S. theaters the same year.
Made for $250,000, the sequel grossed over $10 million at the box office, thanks in part to reports of viewers fainting and vomiting at screenings along with mainstream attention from the likes of The Howard Stern Show, The Joe Rogan Experience, and The Talk. In 2023, Pete Davidson enlisted Thornton to cameo as Art in the final episode of his Peacock original series, Bupkis.
Terrifier‘s unlikely success story is one for the ages. Although the early appearances are not considered part of the official Art the Clown canon, they remain interesting footnotes in horror history.
Art the Clown returns to the big screen this week in Terrifier 3. Looking for Terrifier merch? Head to your local Spirit Halloween for all things Art the Clown.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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