Terrifier‘s Art the Clown is becoming a new horror icon and could hit a level of success that the Slender Man never quite achieved. Art the Clown has been preying on unsuspecting victims since his debut in the 2008 short film The 9th Circle, but he first began attracting noticeable attention in 2016’s Terrifier. The 2022 follow-up Terrifier 2 finally pushed Art the Clown in the mainstream as a truly infamous and bloodthirsty slasher movie killer, with the announcement of Terrifier 3 close on its heels.
Part of what makes Art the Clown a scary slasher villain is his ambiguously defined supernatural nature. This also gives him some similarities to another contemporary horror movie monster, The Slender Man. While both are underground horror movie villains who gradually rose into the spotlight, Art the Clown has a greater chance at becoming the next Freddy Kreuger or Jason Voorhees, a distinction that has unfortunately eluded the Slender Man.
Slender Man Never Caught On As A Horror Icon
The Slender Man was originally created by Eric Knudsen on a Something Awful forum, and the character quickly grew into an internet sensation. Numerous YouTube series tell the sinister tale of the Slender Man, most notably the webseries Marble Hornets. The Slender Man would also bring his brand of scares to the video game world with the games Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival. However, despite the Slender Man’s internet fame, his attempts at cinematic success in 2014’s Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story and the Joey King-led horror movie Slender Man both failed to reach similar heights of success.
While undeniably a popular character in the online world, the Slender Man’s origins might also partly explain his limited success outside the internet. The Slender Man has frequently been likened to a form of contemporary online folklore, and bringing him onto cinema screens arguably takes him too far away from the essence of his popularity. As a mysterious supernatural creature who plays by his own rules, the Slender Man might be most at home (and therefore, at his scariest) in the limitless expanse of YouTube and social media. Art the Clown, by contrast, could go beyond that.
How Art The Clown Can Use His Slender Man Qualities For More Success
While Art the Clown is a seemingly immortal character like the Slender Man, Art’s far more vicious nature suits him better for the big screen. The Slender Man rarely, if ever, indulges in violent murder, preferring instead to psychologically torture his victims. By contrast, Art the Clown has already built a reputation as a horrifically violent psychopath, with reports of audience members passing out from the extreme gore of Terrifier 2. What really adds to the impact of Art’s kills is the fact that he stalks his prey just like the Slender Man – wordlessly, spontaneously, and with little to no rhyme or reason.
While both the Slender Man and Art the Clown excel at jump scares, the former’s status as an online myth makes the parameters of his scariness more specific. Even with how many people Art the Clown has killed, he remains a master of surprise himself, but the bloodbath of his murder sprees lend themselves well to the popcorn-tossing atmosphere of movie theaters in the midst of the Halloween season. Terrifier‘s Art the Clown might be anything but a subtle slasher villain, but that could be the exact quality that sets him up for greater cinematic success than that of the Slender Man.
