INTERVIEW: David Howard Thornton, star of new Grinch parody, on his year of horror
Photo: David Howard Thornton dons the makeup again, but this time not to portray Art the Clown, but rather the Mean One. Photo courtesy of film company / Provided by press agent with permission.
David Howard Thornton has had quite the year of horror. The versatile actor returned to his beloved role of Art the Clown in the mega-successful Terrifier 2, which made more than $10 million at the box office against a tiny budget. Now he’s appearing in a Grinch parody called The Mean One, who is currently playing in movie theaters for those who like their holiday fare a little darker and grislier.
In the new movie, Thornton plays the green grump in a Santa suit, and his foil is Cindy You-Know-Who (Krystle Martin), who has returned to Newville to avenge her parents’ death; they tragically died at the hands of the monster up the mountain.
“They contacted me,” Thornton said about the role. “The director for it, Steven LaMorte, went to school with some of our crew from Terrifier 2, and he contacted them and said, ‘Hey, do you know anybody that can play the role of the Mean One?’ ‘Oh, we know the perfect guy.’”
When Thornton read the script, he loved the idea of a holiday horror film. In fact, he was familiar with the Grinch backstory because he acted in five national tours of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical. He remembers when he was performing the tour that he couldn’t believe someone hadn’t made this bizarre tale into a horror movie.
“First of all, I looked at this version of him as being more like a Bigfoot-type character, this primal beast living out in the wilderness, I guess you could say,” he said. “I also wanted to add, since this is pure parody and camp, more of a humorous side to him. I took a lot of what I have done with Art and also what I learned from our wonderful Grinch when I did the tour.”
Thornton said he has a dark sense of humor, so he loved to poke fun at the slasher genre and mash it up with this beloved children’s tale. The actor likened this new movie as similar to Gremlins, another holiday horror favorite. The movie knows exactly what it is, and it has fun with the premise.
For Thornton’s own viewing pleasure, he enjoys holiday movies, but he has found himself enamored by horror this year. No wonder — he is one of the most in-demand horror stars of 2022. “I had been watching some horror stuff, like I recently finished Wednesday on Netflix,” he said. “I’ve been watching [Guillermo del Toro’s] Cabinet of Curiosities and stuff like that. I do like a lot of horror stuff, but I watch pretty much anything that comes along, as long as it’s got a good story and characters.”
Thornton said he has no problem being known as a horror actor. He looks at roles like the Mean One and Art the Clown as employment, and he understands that many actors would give anything to appear in these horror films. “I’m happy to do whatever comes along my way, as long as it’s a fun role and something I can do something with, so if it’s horror, so be it,” Thornton said. “I look at Vincent Price, who made a great living off doing horror for most of his life. He was such a wonderfully talented actor. I also look at people like Doug Jones, who is a big inspiration, and he’s a friend as well. I like where his career has gone, where he’s done horror, but he’s able to do other things as well because he’s such a versatile character actor. That’s really what I would like my career trajectory to be, more along the lines of what Doug’s has been.”
No doubt Thornton is a master at physical comedy. In the Terrifier films, he often brings a deadpan (and bleakly dark) humor to the role of Art the Clown. One of the most iconic scenes in any horror movie this year is when Art squeezes a bicycle horn at the movie’s protagonist, Sienna (Lauren LaVera). It’s pure deadpan humor, and then it turns deadly.
“That’s really my forte,” Thornton said about physical comedy. “I grew up doing a lot of physical comedy, especially a lot of the children’s theater I used to do back home in my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama. I love having the chance of doing physical comedy because I feel like it’s almost like a dying art form. You don’t see as much physical comedy this day and age, and I want to bring a lot of that back. It’s kind of funny how it’s being brought back into horror movies of all places, but, hey, so be it.”
There’s no doubt that more opportunities are coming Thornton’s way because of Terrifier 2’s runaway success this past October and November. He remembers that month fondly, with each new day bringing more news about audiences responding — sometimes with vomit — to Art’s murderous shenanigans. One only has to look to this past weekend when legendary filmmaker Kevin Smith hosted a sold-out double feature of Terrifier and Terrifier 2 at his new movie theater in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Every seat was taken, and Smith interviewed writer-director-special-effects-wizard Damien Leone, plus the cast and crew of the films until 1:30 a.m. Thornton was able to join the discussion via Zoom.
“This was something we weren’t expecting either because originally we weren’t even supposed to go to theaters, and then we got put into a limited run of theaters,” the actor said. “That just kept growing and growing and growing. Our original run was only supposed to be three days, like an iconic event, and it just kept going and going and going. It was wild. Every single day for basically the month of October there was something new happening and something unexpected. It was almost like Christmas every single day. OK, what’s going to happen today? What awesome thing is going to happen now? Stephen King? Wow, OK. It was nuts.”
Thornton added: “I do feel like a lot of doors are starting to open, especially talent-wise. I’ve been approached by a few filmmakers for possible projects coming up in the future. Hopefully my agents are starting to get a lot more offers coming in. Who knows? I know it’s not just me. It’s everybody involved with the film, especially Damien has been getting calls from a lot of big-time people in the industry. Who knows? But also convention-wise, I noticed a huge change when I did my most recent one there in Pennsylvania for Monster Mania. I was like, wow, that was a change. I basically had the same size line as Robert Englund, and I never expected anything like that to happen in my life.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Mean One, starring David Howard Thornton, is now playing in movie theaters.
