Art the Clown first appeared, unnamed, in Leone’s short, “The 9th Circle.” Though he does feature a latex application on his face, it’s minimal and merely serves to disguise performer Mike “Sid” Giannelli’s features. He has no explicit supernatural powers in it; just the rotten, sadistic sense of humor that moves him to give a young woman a fake flower containing large insects. It’s all a distraction so he can actually drug and kidnap her, but he’s not acting alone. Hell — literally! — he’s not even the main event.
Art’s merely the servant here, bringing his victims to a subterranean lair where monsters and demons, including Satan himself (Eric Diez), perform a terrifying sexual assault ritual, and to put it euphemistically, give their female victims the Sharon Tate treatment, with a hint of “Rosemary’s Baby.”
On the Blu-ray commentary for “All Hallows’ Eve,” Leone admits that the idea for Art and his crimes came from nightmares he had, due to his sister telling him all the details of the Manson family murders at a too-young age. With a big monster, bird monster, several witches and demons, and the Big Guy from Hell himself, Leone intended “The 9th Circle” to showcase his makeup skills as well as his ability to scare, and he planned to make it his first feature. Instead, that darn clown was what everyone remembered most, so he ran with that.
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