Here's How Terrifier Star David Howard Thornton Transforms Into Art The Clown

Before he became known as the sicko behind the "Terrifier" franchise, writer, director, and editor, Damien Leone was just a 12-year-old kid studying documentaries about the "Thriller" music video and legendary makeup artist Tom Savini. As Leone told Dread Central, "Those two VHSes were the first time I ever saw makeup artists creating monsters and zombies." He says he watched the behind-the-scenes footage around age eight, and was teaching himself to emulate them by age 12. Decades later, he ended up responsible for the makeup behind one of the creepiest monster designs in recent horror history: Art the Clown.

Seemingly immortal serial killing clown Art first slashed his way into fans' hearts back in the 2013 anthology "All Hallows' Eve," but his first headlining (and head-chopping) act came in 2016's "Terrifier." Actor David Howard Thornton has played Art in each of the "Terrifier" films (Mike Giannelli originated the role in "All Hallows' Eve"), including in last year's surprise blockbuster "Terrifier 2" and in the series' upcoming third installment. 

Thornton goes through an arduous process each time he sits down in the makeup chair to become the killer clown, and told Smash or Trash that in the early days, the makeup process began in the late afternoon and sometimes took over four hours. Though there's no indication that Thornton went Method with his role (or had clown-haunted dreams, like Bill Skarsgård reported after working on "IT"), he did admit that weeks worth of night shoots resulted in a weird sleep schedule.

There's a key reason for this unusually long makeup routine: the Art face mold has to be redone each and every time Thornton starts the day, as it breaks when he takes it off. "We have to take a mold of his face and then I have to sculpt the prosthetic," Leone explained in an interview with MLive. "We have to make a new one every time because when you take it off it gets destroyed, so that in itself is a process." By the making of "Terrifier 2," he says, the process had been streamlined to a brisk 2.5 hours, but was still incredibly involved. A time lapse video Leone shared on YouTube shows him gluing the rubbery-looking white mask onto Thornton's face, and then building, sculpting, and adding more details to it.

Finally, Leone paints the black clown makeup onto Thornton's prosthetics by hand, finishing up with arched eyebrows and a grody pair of fake teeth. "I definitely have much more respect in actors like Doug Jones, Ron Perlman, and Robert Englund now that typically go under hours of make up for their roles," Thornton told Smash or Trash, citing the stars of "Pan's Labyrinth," "Hellboy," "Nightmare on Elm Street," and other horror classics.

Fans hoping to hear Art finally raise his menacing voice will likely have to keep waiting, though, as the actor says the false teeth make him sound like "a country bumpkin" when he talks. "The only real drawback to them was that they made me drool a lot, so [Leone] had to [constantly] touch up my makeup around my mouth," Thornton said. Despite his silence, the actor finds ways to express himself: he told Horror Movies and Beyond that he actually comes up with lines to say in his head to help keep timing in a scene, and they often translate into visible facial expressions for Art, whose face is flexible thanks to the very thin material of the prosthetic mask.

Look closely at Art's costume and you'll find plenty of interesting details — from a hole in one shoe from a stab wound he got in the first film, to a scene in "Terrifier" where Thornton skipped wearing colored contacts after one ripped. The actor even admitted to Smash or Trash that they often had to stick Art's hat to his head with duct tape to keep it in place during action scenes.

Thornton's young co-star, Amelie McLain, also had to endure an exhaustive makeup process to become his clown girl companion in "Terrifier 2." The actor told Pop Culture With Pat that she had to wear special effects contact lenses that covered her entire eye (a common moviemaking trick, believe it or not), and needed people to guide her around on set since her vision was diminished. McLain's makeup application process was a comparatively speed 2.5 hours, but she admits it sometimes took up to 3 hours to take it all off afterwards.

Luckily, the box office success of "Terrifier 2" means that Leone will finally be able to outsource some of his countless on-set jobs for the next sequel. "One of the great things that I can do now is hire a Hollywood makeup team to come in and do all the effects," Leone told /Film in October. "That allows me to be a better director. That's a lot of pressure off of my shoulders." There's no word yet on whether or not the new effects team has broken Leone's makeup application time record, but fans will be able to see the "Hollywood" version of Art's look when "Terrifier 3" hits theaters on October 25, 2024.