‘Terrifier 3’: Why David Howard Thornton Should Play Art the Clown

Art the Clown manages to descend this road to being a legend in horror movies with silent ferocity. The other one is actually waiting for the opportunity to terrorize people’s lives in the real world in creepy makeup and a little top hat.

David Howard Thornton, who appeared in the “Terrifier” franchise, sometimes wears full art garb to fan conventions. There’s also the memory of being in a lift with a huge security guy who had severe coulrophobia. He is trying to fit into the wall as much as possible while he is staying in the corner, Thornton said.

With the Christmas-themed installment of “Terrifier 3,” Art has returned to the screens once again. In this episode, the demon clown puts on a Santa costume and begins hunting for the protagonist, Sienna Shaw, portrayed by Lauren LaVera.

There’s some kind of cheerful humor and levity about Art, as when he washes the dishes after slaughtering a family. Though he does the worst things to his victims, yet there is a scene which can only be described as a college guy getting a chainsaw colonoscopy.

The actor jokingly says, “He is considerate.”

Art has moved beyond the horror industry, getting his favorite spot with Funko Pop dolls, popcorn buckets, Halloween decorations, and a few more pieces showing his nightmare-ridden rictus. Meanwhile, Damien Leone’s “Terrifier” films have become infamous for the premiere walkouts and vomiting fits.

“For Art to be accepted as he has been into the cultural zeitgeist has been fantastic for us,” adds Thornton. “Art has been a key figure in our culture. At that time, we never in a million years thought that something like this was going to happen since we shot the first part of the series, called “Terrifier,” all the way back in 2015.

We had those moments when people would tell us stuff like, “Who knows if anybody is going to see this thing?” because we were an independent company with a very, very low budget.

Terrifier 3 actor is from Alabama, and his story inspires and educates many. It isn’t often that you find someone like him.

Most times, you end up thinking of the horrors he creates in Terrifier. Here, he is seen in his art makeup: sinister, terrifying. Far from the benign Southern fanboy who loves comic books, Stephen King, and Legos.

Thornton, a native and reared Huntsville, Alabama, was brought up in the faith of his parents in the church where he was introduced to theatre. It was during the middle school years that he had been bullied and it was during this time that his mother thought he should audition for a school choir production of “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” to help break out of his shy shell.

Mickey remembers about Thornton: “I found I loved acting, particularly comedy just because things were going wrong on stage, and I just started improvising on the spot and just started cracking jokes.” She recounts experiences when she played Mickey. “There, for the first time, I saw people laugh with me rather than at me in that school.”

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Thornton was attending the University of Montevallo, Alabama where he was working on his Bachelor of Elementary Education degree when his mother died after fighting illness for a long time.

Thornton comments, “that experience changed my entire trajectory.” Not to pursue things in life that you really want is a waste of time; avoid it as much as you can. At that very moment was when I ended my talk with my mother.

He moved to the city of New York in 2006, just a couple of months after graduation. Before “Terrifier” changed his life, Thornton used to wait tables, take odd jobs on television (he portrayed an orderly on Fox’s “Gotham” and a coffee shop customer on CBS’s “Elementary”), and go on tour with the musical “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. Today, He is a successful actor.

He says that song “Terrifier” was the moment that altered his life course! “Even though some of that was hard for me to experience, I wouldn’t change a thing because of it, I am in the situation that I am today.”

There are actually silent film actors as well as ‘Great horror villains’ who form a cue for Art the Clown.

But apart from playing the first Art the Clown, Mike Giannelli also was the villain in the anthology horror movie “All Hallows’ Eve,” released back in 2013. Though he refused a place for the movie “Terrifier,” which had been released back in 2016, Leone thus held an open audition, during which she was taken aback by Thornton’s physicality.

The director instructed him to play it like he is cheerfully beheading someone and “he was just doing these Jim Carrey-esque, over-the-top theatrical mannerisms and all these wonderful gestures and big grins,” Leone adds. In other words, he was meant to play this role.

In those days, when Leone was the one applying Thornton’s makeup while the two were discussing movies while yacht rock and 1980s tunes filled the background, art has developed so much as compared to how it was during the early days. The actor started his career in the physical comedy field by performing children’s performances when he was a young boy.

He brings together with that fondness of the cinematic performers: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Andy Serkis, and also with that reverence for “the great horror villains that came before,” as the words of Thornton go. I’ve enjoyed developing Art, who is “becoming more confident and more arrogant with himself,” and making him crueller.

David Howard Thornton would like to see the Joker personalized.

However, there is much more art in store for Thornton as “Terrifier 4” is in the making. And yet, he’ll have a ball playing his “dream role,” which is the Joker: Thornton wants to do the actual comic-book version of his favorite supervillain of all time, even though others have done the Batman nemesis before-now including one currently in cinemas. He must be watchful for James Gunn, head of DC Studios; he believes another clown: “He’s a fellow geek, and really respects the source material of the movies he makes.”

Yet, Thornton is having the time of his life as Art, posing for photo ops with conventiongoers who seem every inch the obsessive devotee decked out in character. This is while he continues being misinterpreted as a “pretty good” cosplayer and becomes a modern Halloween icon.
He recalls going to Shoe Carnival as a boy and seeing a pile of Freddy Krueger merchandise on display over the summer. Art the Clown slippers are back again, all these years later.

Thornton said that Art could very well be Freddy Kruger for this generation. Youngsters are creative artists. “I love doing that,” she said.

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Conclusion

David Howard Thornton played out in Terrifier 3, in which he performed the role of Art the Clown with the help of elements of physical acting, mime, and macabre humor to a perfect extent. The talent that he has shown by creating anxiety and pain without even speaking proves him and his character’s understanding. Due to the experience of theatre and mime, he can accurately capture the fear and twisted fun of Art. Art the Clown is one of the most unforgettable modern horror villains only because of the actor’s dedication to the character and his apparent talent.

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