INTERVIEW: David Howard Thornton on Art the Clown not playing it safe
Photo: Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2 stars Lauren LaVera and David Howard Thornton. Photo courtesy of Cinedigm / Provided by KWPR with permission.
Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2 is ready to hit movie theaters Thursday, Oct. 6, and that means audience members should be preparing for another violent onslaught from the creepy, deadly, dastardly Art the Clown, memorably played by David Howard Thornton. This much-anticipated horror sequel, written and directed by Leone, follows in the footsteps of the original indie slasher from 2016. It has been a long wait for Art’s return, but fans will likely approve of the new film. Reviews have been solid. The new character of Sienna (Lauren LaVera) is receiving much praise, and, with the movie clocking in at nearly two-and-a-half hours, there’s a lot of horror to go around.
“We put a lot of work into it,” Thornton said in a recent Zoom interview. “It’s a labor of love for the past three years for us guys. It was supposed to be a three-month shoot, and it ended up taking three years to make.”
Thornton came to the villainous role after he watched All Hallow’s Eve, an anthology horror film in which Leone first introduced the character of Art the Clown (then played by Mike Giannelli). Thornton watched the film and remembers thinking that he would love to one day don the iconic black-and-white makeup and costume. He could do a lot with the character, even though Art never speaks in his films.
“God, that’s a character I think I could have a lot of fun playing,” he said. “And, lo and behold, in early 2015, an audition notice was put out looking for a tall, skinny guy with clowning or physical comedy experience to play Art. I was like, hey, this is it. I want to do this, and so I contacted my agents. I’m like, ‘Please submit me for this audition,’ and they did. I had the audition, and I got the part.”
Growing up, Thornton wasn’t that into horror movies, but ever since taking on the role of Art he has become an aficionado. He was late to the genre because his mother was afraid of scary films, so his first real foray into the cinematic blood and guts happened his senior year of high school when he saw Scream 2. And the flood gates have been opened ever since.
“The next year when I went to college, my roommate and I would go and rent stacks of movies at the local movie store and binge watch all these slasher movies we never got to watch growing up because he also came from a very conservative background where they didn’t watch horror movies,” the actor said. “That’s when my love for the genre started. I’m more of a slasher guy than anything else when it comes to horror movies, so I feel like this is the perfect fit for me.”
Anyone who caught the original Terrifier knows that the movie’s hallmark is excessive gore. Most horror flicks show a quick kill scene and then cut away — not so for Leone’s creation. He always sticks around for an extra uncomfortable 20 seconds. That means one has to have a solid stomach to sit through Art’s clowning around.
“I was actually really excited about that,” Thornton said about the gore level of the films. “I feel like a lot of the slasher movies in the past decade or so have really gotten away from the gore, and that’s what so many of the slasher fans want to see. They want to see these really crazy, over-the-top kills, and it seems like lately slashers have been playing it way too safe. … Horror and comedy are the two genres where you shouldn’t be playing it safe. You should always be trying to break the rules and see how far you can go with things and experimenting, so I was thrilled to see that Damien was like, ‘Hey, let’s go ahead and just show these kills instead of having them happen off screen.’ I was totally on board with that.”
Thornton added: “The gore in horror movies really does not gross me out anymore. It’s very rare. Maybe something like a broken limb or something like that, that might make me cringe, but the blood and guts, that doesn’t gross me out at all.”
One of the talking points of Terrifier 2 is how long the sequel runs (note to reader: the movie is perfectly fine at the two-and-a-half-hour length). Count Thornton with the fans who want more from their horror films. The extra length allows Leone to flesh out his characters — yes, pun intended — including Sienna, the protagonist of the sequel. She is billed as the next Final Girl, and her and her family’s plight become the main narrative thrust of the sequel. They live in a world where Art’s rampage from the original film has taken on an almost mythic status, and there’s worry that he may strike again.
“I see Damien as wanting to build this universe that Art is part of now because the first film was almost a proof-of-concept type of film of introducing Art to the world and showing, OK, this cool clown we’ve come up with,” the actor said. “Now that we have this clown established, now let’s build the world around him. You needed a bigger film to do that and really establish the character. I know a lot of the criticisms we had for the first film is it didn’t really flesh out the other characters as much, and so this film we really do, especially with the character of Sienna and her family. You need to take that extra time with that because this is a character we want to possibly last for multiple films, so we want the audience to really feel a real attachment to her and really cheer for her when she’s finally fighting Art. So the runtime really doesn’t bother me, especially in this day and age, where you have three-plus-hour Marvel movies. The last episode of Stranger Things was two-and-a-half hours. Midsommar was the same length as ours. There are so many movies like that, and it’s not really to me about the length. As long as you keep the audience engaged and entertained, I really don’t care how long a movie is, as long as I’m having fun watching it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2 hits movie theaters Thursday, Oct. 6. Click here for more information and tickets.
