PopHorror Let's Get Scared
After the unexpected, lucrative success of Terrifier 2, (read our review here) and the promise of Terrifier 3, it is important to recognize the significance of 2013’s All Hallows’ Eve, and its introduction of Art the Clown. Much like Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on series, Art’s creative father, Damien Leone, nurtured this baby of his from infancy into its most polished, mainstream form. Well, at least as mainstream as a film as brutally violent as Terrifier 2 can be…
Of all the Terrifier films to date, All Hallows’ Eve is the weakest. This is unsurprising given how much of a freshman effort it is. Following a babysitter (Katie Maguire: LI Divas 2013) on Halloween whose two charges are gifted a mysterious videotape during their trick ‘r treating excursion, the film quickly transitions into three horror segments, all on the mysterious videotape that the babysitter engages with, and soon finds that the tape’s vicious clown character may be breaking into her reality.
Leone’s first projects as a filmmaker were the shorts The 9th Circle from 2009 and Terrifier from 2011, both of which were incorporated into All Hallows’ Eve as segments of the anthology along with an untitled second segment and the wraparound narrative. By this metric, it barely qualifies as a feature in the most technical sense, evident by the uneven quality regarding the tone, pacing, and style of each of the shorts (the second segment doesn’t even get a title!).
It seems as though Art was mostly developed as we know him by 2011. The 9th Circle presents him as merely a runner for a cabal of demonic entities, snatching a woman (Kayla Lian: Grimm 2014) for the purposes of breeding demons. Additionally, the makeup is not as hellish as it would later be, sporting a fairly typical clown/mime appearance. 2011’s Terrifier on the other hand showcases an Art very much like the clown seen in later films, it all his gun-toting, shit-smearing glory, and acts as a dry run for the first Terrifier feature film, pursuing a young costume designer (Marie Maser) down a deserted highway.
Art here is played by Mike Gianelli, as opposed to David Howard Thornton (read our interview with David here), who would become synonymous with the role. Gianelli’s Art is not as expressive or as physical as Thornton’s and therefore less memorable. He sports the wide grin, but there is a cold, focused nature to this version of Art. Had Gianelli not retired from acting after All Hallows’ Eve, one genuinely wonders how much of cult phenomenon the Terrifier films would’ve been with him in the role. Thornton’s portrayal was the final touch, the secret ingredient to Art’s magic, elevating him above generic evil clown and cold slasher villain tropes.
The last point to address is Art’s brief cameo in the second segment. The second segment is painfully slow, and as bland as they come. Just a woman (Catherine A. Callahan: also of LI Divas) in a dark house being stalked by an alien that moves in interpretive dance.
However, the beginning of the segment has our protagonist, discussing with a friend over the phone, a disturbing painting her husband made with no memory of doing it. At the end, when our heroine is dragged away by the alien, she desperately grabs onto the sheet, only to pull it off revealing the painting was of a grinning Art. It’s such a non-sequitur in the short, but Leone reuses the idea to greater effect in Terrifier 2, as the heroine in that film seems to by psychically linked to Art, and we see that her father had also drawn disturbing images of the clown that drove him to insanity.
Some may prefer All Hallows’ Eve, as it was the first to execute concepts seen in later Terrifier films. However, it is all over the place, even compared to other anthology films. I can’t deny though, as a Terrifier fan, it is still very much a guilty pleasure for me. The gore effects are top-notch, as expected from Leone, and Art is still very unnerving here.
Ten years later, it is fun to check back in with this film and admire how far Leone and Art have come. It is streaming now on Tubi and Shudder and is available to rent and own on other digital platforms.
