Whether it's devouring a face or wielding a deadly ax as Santa Claus, Art the Clown is constantly devising new ways to kill his victims. With even more gore expected in "Terrifier 3," let's look back at how this killer clown came to be.
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00:00Whether it's devouring a face or wielding a deadly axe as Santa Claus, Art the Clown
00:05is constantly devising new ways to kill his victims.
00:08With even more gore expected in Terrifier 3, let's look back at how this killer clown
00:12came to be.
00:14Art the Clown made his debut in director Damian Leone's short film The Ninth Circle.
00:18In it, he first appears at a train station on Halloween.
00:21From the get-go, he's silent, only making noise via his deliberately annoying bicycle
00:26horn.
00:27He also smiles and waves in menacing fashion at Casey, a young woman on her way home.
00:31As in subsequent adventures, he gives his intended victim a gift at first.
00:35In this case, it's a magician's trick flower.
00:37When Casey reacts in fright, Art grabs her and injects her with a sedative.
00:42Before she passes out, she sees his eyes glowing.
00:44It seems Art was working for a coven of subterranean demons as Casey awakens in an underground
00:49building with two other captives.
00:51As they try to escape, they encounter mutants, monsters, and deadly fates.
00:55The short film version of Terrifier plays like a condensed version of the feature as
00:59we see the beginnings of ideas that will be expanded later.
01:02This time, Art gets kicked out of a rural gas station for messing up the bathroom.
01:06On the way out, he fixates on a random, unnamed costume designer who's fueling her car.
01:10First, he hacks up the station attendant, then spends the rest of the evening pursuing
01:14her.
01:15In the commentary from the film, Leone notes that he definitely considers Art to have supernatural
01:19abilities in this one, notably teleportation.
01:22So no matter how fast the costume designer drives away from Art, he always catches up.
01:26In the end, of course, Art wins.
01:28He also debuts one of his signature weapons, a flail made from the braided hair of his
01:32victims with weapons attached.
01:34The costume designer is left a screaming, dismembered torso with more pain in store.
01:39All Hallow's Eve was originally planned to be an anthology horror movie featuring the
01:42short films of various directors.
01:44However, when Leone was offered the chance to submit Terrifier, he instead pitched that
01:48he should direct the whole thing himself, and every segment would feature Art the Clown
01:51in some way.
01:53That's exactly what happened.
01:54The film revolves around an unmarked videotape found in a kid's trick-or-treat bag.
01:58It's that bad you can turn it off.
02:00We won't tell our parents.
02:02The footage on the tape includes an unfinished trailer for a feature version of The Ninth
02:05Circle, followed by the re-edited, original short.
02:08There's also a new short involving an alien and the original Terrifier.
02:12In the finale of the film, the kid's babysitter takes a call from the costume designer in
02:15Terrifier.
02:16As the call drops, Art on tape walks toward the TV screen and materializes inside the
02:21house where he decapitates the kids, leaving his name written in blood on the wall.
02:26While nothing in All Hallow's Eve specifically contradicts the Terrifier movies, they don't
02:30appear to be part of that storyline, playing more like first drafts of ideas that would
02:33get reused in the main franchise.
02:36All Hallow's Eve is, however, canon to its own anthology sequels, which feature many
02:40other monsters, including the alien from the middle segments.
02:43Having all of those in the main Terrifier universe would dilute the premise considerably.
02:46Thus, only the Terrifier features are considered canon to the ongoing Terrifier storyline.
02:52The first Terrifier is told in nonlinear fashion, with most of it being a year-old flashback.
02:57Taken chronologically, though, Art first appears in an alley on Halloween as party girls Terra
03:02and Dawn mildly make fun of his costume.
03:04Later, at a pizzeria, Art comes in and sits nearby.
03:07Dawn takes selfies with him as he looks displeased.
03:13Later, he gives Terra a vending machine ring that, unbeknownst to her, marks her as his
03:22prey for the night.
03:23After Art is kicked out by the pizzeria owner for covering the bathroom in his own excrement,
03:27the girls go to their car and find the tires slashed.
03:30Terra calls her sister Vicky to pick them up, and then she tries to use the restroom
03:33in a nearby building.
03:34For the rest of the evening, she and everyone else in the building become the targets of
03:38the demented, silent clown.
03:41One of the residents of the building is known only as the Cat Lady, a squatter who cradles
03:45a baby doll like it's her real child.
03:47In an uncharacteristic moment of what could almost pass for decency, Art actually lets
03:51her touch his face.
03:52Remarkably, he then adopts a fetal position, letting her hold him while he sucks his own
03:56thumb.
03:57On the Blu-ray commentary track, Leonie calls this out as foreshadowing, though it doesn't
04:01seem to have paid off yet, at least not by the end of Terrifier 2.
04:04Later, Art kills the Cat Lady and wears her skin, much like serial killer Ed Gein, on
04:09whom both Norman Bates of Psycho and Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre were based.
04:14All had serious parental issues, so there's probably something dark in Art's past.
04:18But will we ever get to see it?
04:19Should we?
04:20Sometimes, maintaining an air of mystery around a monster is important, but given the way
04:24the lore expands in Terrifier 2, there's a good chance much more will be revealed in
04:28the future.
04:29After Art kills Terra and Dawn, Vicky arrives, but she's no match for Art.
04:34With the help of two pest control guys, she briefly escapes, but Art kills both men.
04:38He then starts to eat Vicky's face when the police arrive.
04:41Seeing himself surrounded, Art pulls out his gun and shoots himself in the head.
04:45He's taken to the morgue where strange power surges ensue, and suddenly, the coroner finds
04:49himself face-to-face with a reanimated killer clown.
04:52A year later, although shown at the beginning of the film, a terribly mutilated Vicky, now
04:56going by Victoria, is interviewed on TV.
04:59It's there that she insists Art the Clown is dead because she saw him die.
05:03Afterwards, she overhears the TV interviewer in the dressing room making insulting comments
05:06about her appearance, and Vicky beats her to death.
05:09Off-screen, as we will later learn, she's captured and taken to an insane asylum.
05:14Art, watching the Victoria interview on TV, suits up and arms himself with new weapons
05:18ready for more killing.
05:19As Terrifier 2 later reveals, the Little Pale Girl is watching with him, and this scene
05:23takes place during the course of the events of the sequel.
05:27Terrifier 2 begins by going back to Art's resurrection.
05:30After he kills the coroner, he takes his blood-soaked clothes to a laundromat where he's greeted
05:33by the Little Pale Girl, a macabre apparition who looks like an evil child cosplaying as
05:38Art.
05:39Winning him over by defecating black bile and playing patty cake, she heals his injured
05:42eye and brain.
05:44Though nobody else can see her yet, she's the manifestation of whatever evil force brought
05:48Art back from the dead.
05:49And now that he has resurrected, he has supernatural regenerative abilities, like a bizarre antichrist.
05:55What he doesn't know, and the Little Pale Girl does, is that the forces of good are
05:58preparing a champion of their own.
06:00A year later, shortly before a victorious TV interview in the first film, we meet Sienna,
06:05the creative daughter of a dead artist.
06:07She's preparing a Valkyrie-like costume for Halloween as her serial killer-obsessed brother
06:11Jonathan wants to go as Art the Clown.
06:13The forces of good test Sienna with a dream featuring Art the Clown.
06:17When she willingly endures multiple tests of pain to stare him down and draws a sword
06:20to block the fire from Art's flamethrower, she unknowingly becomes their champion.
06:25Later, Jonathan sees Art and the Little Pale Girl at school.
06:29Both good and evil forces now have their avatars, but neither Art nor Sienna knows
06:33what to do at first.
06:34Art continues on his merry way of killing people, not fully realizing he's being guided
06:38by the Little Pale Girl to specifically murder friends and family of Sienna in order to break
06:42her down.
06:43Stay back.
06:44Stop.
06:45Please stop.
06:46Stay away from me!
06:48Sienna must understand that Art is real, and she needs to confront him.
06:51Art kills several of Sienna's friends and her mother, kidnaps Jonathan, and takes Sienna's
06:55sword, not knowing it's actually the one weapon that can kill him.
06:58The Little Pale Girl, mimicking Jonathan's voice, calls Sienna and lures her to a nearby
07:03carnival.
07:04Her friends Brooke and Jeff drive her there, only to be dispatched by Art.
07:07Sienna continues to a haunted house attraction called the Terrifier, built over a portal
07:11to Hell.
07:12This is where the showdown must take place, as it's the only location where either Sienna
07:16or Art can kill the other.
07:18Throughout the Terrifier attraction, Sienna and Art battle each other, with Art recovering
07:22from every wound inflicted upon him.
07:24Finally, he stabs her with her own sword and throws her into the open grave in the Hell
07:28portal, leading her into her own personal hell of eternal drowning.
07:32In a Houdini-like water chamber, she appears to die.
07:34However, the wound from the sword heals, as she cannot be permanently killed by her own
07:38baptized-in-fire weapon.
07:40Now, like Art at the beginning of the film, she too is resurrected with new power.
07:44As Art tries to eat Jonathan, Sienna engages him one last time and cuts his head off with
07:49the sword.
07:50This time, his death looks legit, but the Little Pale Girl comes and takes his severed
07:53head away, cradling it like it's her baby.
07:57Terrifier 2 has a lengthy mid-credits scene that only creates more questions.
08:00In her cell at the asylum, Victoria has been puking, bleeding, and writing things like
08:05Vicky and Art on the walls in her own blood.
08:07She has apparently gone full Stockholm Syndrome, but she has also gone into labor.
08:11As she gruesomely gives birth, what emerges is not a child, but the living head of Art
08:15the Clown.
08:16How is this possible?
08:18The glow in Victoria's eye, as the last thing we see, is the giveaway that her body
08:22has now been possessed by the evil force that was in the Little Pale Girl.
08:25The apparition's bodily appearance was that of 10-year-old Emily Crane, the murdered daughter
08:29of two circus performers.
08:31The force that was using Emily's image has taken hold of Vicky's body somehow, and once
08:35again resurrected Art.
08:36Unlike the Emily form, which existed in a parallel dimension and was only ever seen
08:40by Art, Sienna, and Jonathan, Victoria has a physical body fully in this reality.
08:45The Little Pale Girl does not appear in the trailers for Terrifier 3 as of September 2024.
08:50Presumably, this means the evil force is going all-in on Victoria for victory.
08:55Art the Clown is ready for the holidays in the first Terrifier 3 teaser, but it doesn't
08:59give us much to go on since it's mostly a parody of Cindy Lou Who's first encounter
09:03with the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
09:05This time, however, it looks like Art's heart doesn't grow whatsoever, and the implication
09:09is that he hacks her up with an axe.
09:11He's scaring my kid.
09:12Yeah, he's scaring me too.
09:15The full trailer tells us a little more.
09:17It takes place five years after the events of Terrifier 2, with Art appearing as the
09:21worst mall Santa ever and following Sienna to college.
09:24Art appears to be working both with Victoria as his new partner in crime and a mysterious
09:28orc-like figure, and it looks like Chris Jericho's asylum orderly is going to get permanently
09:32choked out.
09:34Art also has a chainsaw now.
09:35Meanwhile, Daniel Roebuck has been cast as Santa Claus, though it's unclear whether that
09:39just means he's a mall Santa whom Art replaces, or the actual Santa Claus.
09:44The climactic battle once again seems like it will have to take place at the Terrifier
09:47attraction.