The Terrifier franchise has spawned plenty of blood-drenched kills, but one stands above the rest: The death-by-sawing butchering in the original where Art the Clown bisects a victim hung upside down.
Since the film’s 2016 release, the ultraviolent killer-clown slasher has become an unlikely hit, unexpectedly breaking into the mainstream and earning millions at the box office. But Catherine Corcoran, the actress in the iconic scene, alleges she hasn’t seen her cut of profits from the franchise. She filed a lawsuit on Sunday in California federal court accusing the producers of the film of breach of contract over her backend deal for one percent of all profits.
“This case presents an all-too-common story of low budget film producers taking advantage of a young actress through fraud, sexual harassment and, ultimately, betrayal,” states the complaint.
The three Terrifier movies are one of horror’s biggest modern success stories, with the low-budget films garnering around $100 million at the global box office on a combined budget of less than $2.5 million. They follow Art, a demonic serial killer who inventively tortures and kills his victims in increasingly sadistic ways. Ascending from the horror underground, CBS daytime show The Talk covered theater-goers hurling at screenings.
Starring in one of the series’ most enduring scenes, Corcoran, who plays Dawn as one of Art’s first on-screen victims, was hung upside down by her ankles. She agreed to the then-SAG minimum daily rate of $100 but reached a deal that pays “1% of profits generated from Terrifier,” which includes box office, streaming, live events and merchandise, among other things, according to the complaint.
After the sequel premiered in 2022, Corcoran says she began receiving intermittent royalty payments. Thus far, she’s been paid roughly $8,300 under her 2015 deal, which notes it “shall remain in effect for a period of two years,” the lawsuit claims. When she confronted director Damien Leone and producer Phil Falcone, Corcoran was allegedly “brushed off” and was told that the production “doesn’t keep records.”
An attorney for Leone, Larry Zerner, stated: “Damien and Phil deny the claims in the complaint and will vigorously defend this lawsuit.”
Art has emerged as possibly the only slasher-killer in recent years to break into the mainstream with Ghostface, Freddy and Jason, among a few others featured in movies that came out decades ago, when mass appeal was easier to generate. This year, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orland Resort featured the franchise as part of its Halloween Horror Nights event.
Corcoran’s lawsuit brings several claims for and related to breach of contract, as well as some alleging violations of laws over the distribution of sexually explicit material.
Per the complaint, Corcoran wasn’t told ahead of shooting that she would be fully nude in the scene in which she’s killed in violation of SAG rules, which require producers to obtain written consent from talent for such sequences.
The lawsuit, which names Leone and Dark Age Cinema, also details allegedly grueling working conditions during filming. To mitigate the pooling of blood in her head while suspended by her ankles, Corcoran shot the scene in 40-second increments across ten hours, with a platform placed underneath her at some points so she laid horizontally. She says her doctor had told her that she suffered cranial swelling and eardrum damage as a result of being upside down.
“Were it not for Corcoran’s willingness to take a risk on this production and receive her compensation on the back-end, the series would not exist as it could not have been made on a shoe-string budget otherwise,” writes Devin McRae, a lawyer for Corcoran, in the complaint. “However, when it came time to pay what was owed, the producers chose to cheat her.”
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