Art the Clown's First Feature: All Hallows' Eve

All Hallows’ Eve (2013) is an independent horror anthology film written, edited and directed by Damien Leone. On Halloween night, a babysitter and two children find an unmarked VHS tape in a trick-or-treat bag. It holds three stories, each featuring a homicidal clown: Art the Clown, played by Mike Giannelli. The film combines Leone’s two earlier short films with Art, The 9th Circle (2008) and Terrifier (2011), with a new middle segment and a framing story. Katie Maguire, Catherine Callahan, Marie Maser and Kayla Lian co-star. Image Entertainment released it direct to video on October 29, 2013, to mixed reviews. Several critics singled out Art. Leone later made him the lead of his own feature, Terrifier (2016), which launched the Terrifier franchise.

At a glance

Release date	October 29, 2013 (US, DVD and digital)
Director	Damien Leone
Writer	Damien Leone (story by Leone and Jesse Baget)
Starring	Katie Maguire, Catherine Callahan, Marie Maser, Kayla Lian, Mike Giannelli
Runtime	83 minutes
Franchise	Terrifier: Art’s first feature; followed by Terrifier (2016)

Plot summary

After trick-or-treating, Tia and Timmy find an unmarked VHS tape in their candy bag. Their babysitter, Sarah (Katie Maguire), puts it on. In the first segment, “The 9th Circle,” Art drugs a young woman, Casey (Kayla Lian), while she waits for a train. She wakes up chained in a room with two other women. A deformed creature hacks one of them apart and accidentally frees Casey. She runs to a stranger for help, but he hands her back, and she is tied down before a hooded coven of witches and possessed by Satan. Sarah sends the children to bed and keeps watching alone.

In “Something in the Dark,” Caroline (Catherine Callahan) has just moved to a house in the country. One night something bright crashes nearby, and the power fails. Her phone and car stop working, and she realizes an alien is stalking her through the house. When it finally drags her away, she pulls the sheet off one of her husband’s paintings, which shows Art the Clown. The third segment, “Terrifier,” follows a costume designer (Marie Maser) driving home alone at night. At a gas station she sees the attendant throw Art out for vandalizing the bathroom.

Spoiler section: the last tape

When the attendant doesn’t come back, the woman finds Art cutting up his body with a hacksaw. Art hides in her car and later breaks into the shed where she barricades herself. She stabs him in the eye and escapes, but Art shoots the driver who picks her up. She wakes on a crude operating table, mutilated. Back in the house, the phone rings, and Sarah hears the same woman pleading for help. The TV turns back on and Art walks up to the screen, pounding on the glass. Then Sarah sees herself on screen with Art behind her. She smashes the tape, but the children scream upstairs. Art stands at their door, laughing and beckoning, then vanishes. Sarah finds the children dead and “ART” written on the wall in blood.

Production and behind the scenes

Leone created Art for The 9th Circle, shot on 35mm in 2006, which premiered at the Backseat Film Festival in 2008. He then wrote and directed the short Terrifier, released in 2011. Producer Jesse Baget saw Terrifier on YouTube and thought of using it in an anthology with shorts by other filmmakers. Leone said: “I wasn’t having that, and talked him into letting me shoot everything.” Baget agreed, and Leone wrote new material to tie the two shorts into one film. The 9th Circle, with added footage, became the first segment, and Terrifier became the third.

Leone deliberately left Art out of the middle story, except for the painting. He said that “if I gave people another 15 or 20 minutes of him killing someone, it would take away from the impact of ‘Terrifier.'” He had planned to make the alien a puppet, but because of time and money it became actor Brandon deSpain in a costume. Leone was also the film’s editor and makeup artist. Giannelli plays Art throughout. David Howard Thornton took over the role in the later features.

Release and reception

Image Entertainment released the film on DVD and digital on October 29, 2013. It came out on Blu-ray on September 9, 2014, as a double feature with Mischief Night. A 2016 DVD paired it with All Hallows’ Eve 2, and a standalone Blu-ray followed in August 2019. RLJE Films released it on VHS in September 2024. That year it was released in Japan as Terrifier 0 to coincide with Terrifier 3.

Reviews were mixed. Rod Lott of the Oklahoma Gazette said Leone made up in “pure passion” what the film lacked in production value. One critic called Art “somewhat iconic” and “pretty terrifying” but found the story “paper-thin.” Madeleine Koestner said the first segment “makes absolutely no sense” and the second was “inexcusably uninteresting.” She called the third “easily the best of the three.” Brad McHargue gave it 3.5 out of 5, writing that Art could “be destined to become a horror icon.”

Legacy and influence

Art did get his own feature, Terrifier, in 2016, followed by Terrifier 2 (2022) and Terrifier 3 (2024), with Leone directing all three. The All Hallows’ Eve name continued separately. All Hallows’ Eve 2 (2015), from producer-director Jesse Baget, is a standalone anthology of nine segments by different directors. It was followed by All Hallows’ Eve: Trickster (2023) and All Hallows’ Eve: Inferno (2024). Art’s character page, Art the Clown, covers his full history.

Trivia

Giannelli also plays the demon in the first segment.
Michael Chmiel plays the gas station attendant and voices Caroline’s husband, John.
Adrian Halen called it “easily one of the scariest films I’ve seen this year.”
Leone also designed the effects and makeup, which one review commended along with the character designs.
The children’s names are Tia and Timmy.