by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Terrifier 3 | 2024
The Terrifier franchise is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. It originated in a 2011 short film by director Damien Leone, about a series of murders committed by a psychotic mime named Art. Leone later used Art the Clown as the connective tissue for a 2013 anthology film called All Hallows Eve before adapting Terrifier into a low-budget feature in 2016.
For most of its life, the Cannon Group was a minor studio known for brawny B-movies like Death Wish, Cobra, Missing in Action, and Masters of the Universe. But during the 1980s, under the direction of co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who bought the company in 1979, Cannon also used some of its profits to take chances on risky auteur-driven projects in an attempt to gain some prestige. One such project was Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear, a deal Golan and Globus infamously made with Godard on a napkin at the Cannes Film Festival, where the pair were tenaciously courting filmmakers.