While the movie is great on its own, part of what makes Terrifier so awesome is the story of its creation. Art the Clown had already memorably appeared in the anthology film All Hallow’s Eve, and director Damien Leone leveraged the popularity of that movie to launch a failed crowdfunding campaign for Terrifier on Indiegogo. While the funding was ultimately provided by producer Phil Falcone, the success of that first film helped the crowdfunded sequel to easily earn over four times the amount of money Leone was asking for.
Speaking of money, the first Terrifier film earned quite a bit of cash relative to its production cost. The movie had a budget of somewhere between $35,000–$55,000, but it went on to earn a comparatively respectable $416,322. More importantly for Leone, the success of this film created a successful Freddy Krueger-style franchise for Art the Clown, and a third Terrifier film is coming out on October 11.