Terrifier 2 Director Damien Leone Explains Why Toddlers Love Art The Clown [Exclusive]
The featured monster in Damien Leone's "Terrifier" movies is Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), a perhaps-supernatural Halloween spirit who appears every now and again to torture, mutilate, and murder people for no reason other than he seems to greatly enjoy it. Art is a creative murderer, happy to slice victims up in a fashion that communicates a certain effort and passion for the act.
The character quite clearly taps into a widespread fear of clowns that seemingly persists throughout the modern media. Back in the 1950s, famous clowns like Bozo (Pinto Colvig) and Clarabell (Bob Keeshan, Nick Nicholson, Lew Anderson) were common, and clowns appeared in TV commercials regularly, often presented to children as whimsical vagrants or playful weirdos whose antics were meant to inspire laughter. Something about the face eyebrows and pasted-on smiles, however, seemingly terrified and traumatized a generation; it's no coincidence that Stephen King, a child of the '50s, wrote a 1,100-page epic about a murderous clown that lives in a sewer.
Over the decades, then, clowns have clearly transformed from amusing vagrants into go-to monsters and killers; there are almost certainly more horror clown Halloween costumes in the world than there are actual clowns.
Through it all, however, kids have remained fascinated. /Film's own Jacob Hall recently sat down with Leone, and they discussed why little kids, ostensibly too young to see the "Terrifier" movies, are so drawn to Art the Clown, given that he's clearly, well, terrifying. Leone had a few ideas why murder clowns might capture kids' imaginations the same way non-murder clowns once did.
Art for Art's sake
Leone pointed out that fascination with Art is a lot more common than a casual reader might assume. Some very little kids, he said, have been permitted to watch his ultra-violent movies, while other tots have likely seen iconography of Art out in the world or online. Parents have pointed out to Leone when their toddler has become drawn to the scary, grinning face of Art the Clown. He said:
"[Y]ou would be surprised. I do a lot of conventions. This weekend, in particular, it was a standout. I had a ton of people coming up to me telling me how obsessed their children are with the film. And I'm talking as young as two and three-year-olds who've either seen these movies all the way through, have seen pieces of these movies, or have just seen the image of Art the Clown, and they're just in love with the image of Art the Clown. So there's something appealing with this character to children."
A little kid's impulses toward horror, though, is something Leone completely understands and many of us may relate to. Little kids, after all, like to be scared. We like to occasionally push our limits, glimpse something that frightens us, and tell stories about death and horror just to see what that fear feels like. Thanks to unsupervised late-night cable TV, many, many youths saw films like "Poltergeist," "The Shining," or "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" at far too early an age, inspiring both nightmares and a lifelong fascination with exploring the intensity of those emotions.
The appeal of the monster
Leone also points out that many young kids admire monsters. Monsters, after all, are powerful. They are creatures who exist outside the surly bounds of rules and decency and are permitted, by their very nature, to behave as grossly and antisocially as they want. A little kid needn't even be frustrated with their own powerlessness to admire the iconoclastic individualism of a monster. Monsters are not wounded by their outsider status. They gain power from it. A toddler can easily stand in awe of that power. Leone admits that movie murderers were like superheroes to him, saying:
"I understand it, because that was me as a kid. That's as young as I was when I was really introduced to these films, and I was looking up to Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers like they were my Batman and Spider-Man as a little kid. I mean, that shaped my life. That's the reason why I'm here. There's no doubt about it. So I understand the appeal of the monster. It's a very primal thing. That has an impact on us at a very, very young age before we can even explain why. I think it's just instinctual."
If you are the parent of a young child, I would certainly discourage you from showing them the "Terrifier" movies. But I would encourage their love of horror, of monsters, and of scary clowns. If they see monsters as mere entertainment and find their power and separation from ordinary humanity to be fascinating, talk to them about it. You may just have a future horror filmmaker on your hands.