Terrifier

Art the Clown didn't start out as a leading man. Damien Leone created him for his short 'The 9th Circle', brought him back in another short, 'Terrifier', and then in the anthology 'All Hallows' Eve', before giving him a feature of his own with 'Terrifier'. Leone wrote, directed and edited it and did the makeup effects himself, on a budget of around $35,000. The brief was simple: an eighties style slasher built to show off its villain and old school practical gore.

It's Halloween night in Miles County. Tara and Dawn, a few drinks in, leave a party and cross paths with a clown in black and white makeup who never says a word. Art follows them into a pizzeria, sits at the next table and talks only through gestures, like a mime, until the owner throws him out. Back at their car, they find that someone's slashed one of the tyres.

Tara calls her sister Victoria to come and pick them up, and while they wait she talks Mike, a pest exterminator, into letting her use the toilet in the empty building he's working in. The building isn't as empty as it looks, though, and Art hasn't finished with them. What's left of the night becomes a hunt in which the clown savours every kill as if it were part of his act.

David Howard Thornton took over the role from Mike Giannelli, who'd played Art in the shorts, and landed it by improvising a kill in mime at his audition. Jenna Kanell plays Tara, Catherine Corcoran is Dawn and Samantha Scaffidi plays Victoria.

It premiered at the Telluride Horror Show in October 2016, screened at FrightFest a year later and reached UK viewers through Signature Entertainment in March 2018. Critics were split, praising the effects and Thornton but not a bare bones story. It still became a cult favourite and led to 'Terrifier 2' and 'Terrifier 3', box office hits nobody could have predicted for a series that started with so little money.

• Horror