Any horror buff knows that the slew of slasher villains the genre has wracked up over the years are far from copies of one another; Leatherface kills out of fear, Jason Voorhees kills for revenge, and Michael Myers kills out of his entirely twisted nature to do so.
But as for Terrifier‘s Art the Clown, who finally made his long-awaited and equally gory return in Terrifier 2 earlier today, he kills because he just has a whole lot of fun with it.
Indeed, the manically jovial nature with which Art delivers his gruesome slayings first impacted audiences for better or worse back in 2016, when the original film made its debut. It was enough to earn him mentions in the same breaths as Myers and Voorhees, and the sequel now captures him doubling down on the giddy gore that got him there.
But there’s a method to Art’s madness, as his actor David Howard Thornton revealed in an interview with Movie Web. To prepare for his role as the mischievous murderer, Thornton channeled none other than DC Comics’ Joker, whose own modus operandi is fueled by the glee evoked in him by his criminal activities.
“Yeah, I’ve always liked mischievous villains, like villains that have fun being villains. They embrace the fact that they’re villains, and they revel in it. It’s kind of like how the Joker is. And that’s how I kind of approached it, was like, he’s got a lot of Joker in him in that regard. He knows exactly what he’s about. And he loves it.”
Drawing on one infamous clown for another seems like a foolproof approach from the actor, who also portrayed Art in the original film, and as luck would have it, more of the same was the name of the game for Terrifier 2; after promising an unhinged gorefest and subsequently delivering on it, the reviews are off to a glowing start.
Terrifier 2 is currently playing in theaters.
