Before he slashed and gashed as Art the Clown in the "Terrifier" franchise, David Howard Thornton was a song and dance guy. "I was doing Broadway tours," Thornton told me in 2022. Growing up in Huntsville, Thornton got his start doing children's theater with Fantasy Playhouse.

With the success of the low-budget "Terrifier" films, including a recent box office-topping third installment, sadistic harlequin Art the Clown has become an iconic horror villain. It takes makeup, gnarly dentures, miniature top hat, prosthetic proboscis and puffy black-and-white suit to transform friendly Thornton into murderous Art. The series has become a sensation for its '80s-tinged filmmaking and Art the Clown's brutal kills, delivered with deft gallows humor by Thornton.