By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Horror fans sometimes debate if there is a modern monster who could fill the tall boots of slasher icons like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, and in our eyes, there is no better answer than Art the Clown. Creepy, captivating, and creative in his murderous mayhem, Art is the killer clown who serves as the antagonist of the Terrifier franchise. He’s created a bloody legacy that audiences will never forget, and you can now check out how his story began by streaming All Hallow’s Eve on the free platform Tubi.
The Origin Of Art The Clown
All Hallow’s Eve is an anthology horror film with a wraparound story involving two young children and their babysitter on Halloween night. The tykes discover a mysterious VHS tape slipped in with their candy, and the tape reveals three distinctly different horror stories, with Art the Clown featured in each one of them. As the night goes on, it becomes clear that this video violence goes beyond VHS, and Art might just personally deliver some tricky treats to his newest fans.
The wraparound story holds the story together and helps disguise the fact that All Hallow’s Eve is guerilla filmmaking at its best. Writer and director Damien Leone had already created film shorts featuring Art the Clown, and he embraced the opportunity to combine old footage and new footage into his first feature-length film. The result is an uneven but insanely entertaining series of misadventures anchored by Art’s eerie and ominous presence, building a kind of tension that the ending releases in the bloodiest and most unexpected way possible.
Before the arrival of the first Terrifier film, All Hallow’s Eve mostly went under the radar. It was released directly to DVD (and later, Blu-Ray), giving it no opportunity to scare up a killer box office.
Correspondingly, it didn’t even get enough critical attention to have a Rotten Tomatoes review score. However, it generated enough buzz with horror fans that director Damien Leone was able to secure funding from fans and producer Phil Falcone to bring the first Terrifier film to theaters, kicking off a franchise full of gore and practical effects that is still going strong.
Terrifier Fans Take Note
While All Hallow’s Eve got some mixed reviews, it’s definitely worth watching for fans of the Terrifier franchise. Art the Clown’s standalone movies have only grown more complex and ambitious over time, and it’s very rewarding to revisit his earliest cinematic adventure to discover the character’s bloodsoaked roots. If nothing else, the shorts of All Hallow’s Eve will convince you of one thing: that Art is a breakout icon who deserves all of the attention and pop culture status he currently enjoys.
Even if you’re not a terrifier superfan, though, it’s easy to enjoy All Hallow’s Eve on its own merits as a standalone film. That’s largely because of the entertaining wraparound story…not only does it hold the film together, but this tale serves to neatly integrate the different shorts into a cohesive narrative. That’s hard to do and even harder to do well, and while horror is full of some awful anthologies (looking at you, Campfire Tales), this movie remains the gold standard along with modern genre staples like V/H/S.
THIS IS THE ZODIAC SPEAKING REVIEW SCORE
Will you find All Hallow’s Eve as awesome as we did, or will you decide that Art the Clown is no laughing splatter? The only way to find out is to stream it for free on Tubi. Just be warned that the chill you’ll feel when the credits roll has nothing to do with our current cold snap and everything to do with the artful brutality and bloody brilliance of director Damien Leone.
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