A Horror Icon Put a Dark Spin on DC’s Most Terrifying Story in a Brutal Movie You Probably Missed

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Among DC Comics’ more iconic storylines, “A Death in the Family” is one of the most memorable. The 1980s event was mired in controversy, but it helped shape the Bat-family for years to come. That story saw the Joker kidnap Jason Todd (aka Robin) in Ethiopia and beat him with a crowbar.

The Clown Prince of Crime used Jason’s mother, Sheila, to bait the Boy Wonder in, proving he could adapt on the fly. It led to Robin being killed due to a bomb after fans called a hotline and voted for him to die. In 2025, a horror movie superstar has placed his own spin on the iconic Batman story, complete with gore and terror.

David Howard Thornton Becomes the Joker Again

Thornton’s Joker Maims and Mangles Red Hodd

David Howard Thornton is most famous for playing the demonic Art the Clown in the Terrifier slasher series. He’s a supernatural killer there, who goes after adults and kids. Like Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers, there is a mystical essence to him in that he can’t die. Even when he’s decapitated, he gets reborn, which has fans eager to see Art’s origins in Terrifier 4.

Thornton has also appeared as the Joker in the Nightwing: Escalation webseries in 2016-2017. He even had a minor appearance in Fox’s Gotham. But his claim to fame is indeed Art, who is most famous for some of the horror genre’s most gruesome kills. Many felt like Art was the role that matched him more. His wide-eyes, smiles and cackles reworked the Joker in a way that Thornton felt more natural in and could taper to his own style.

The Joker Comic Details

Interestingly, the actor becomes the Joker again in a fan film written and directed by Aaron W. Bennett: Jokers Wild. Here, the Clown Prince of Crime has kidnapped Robin, but he keeps him in a Gotham warehouse for torture. It’s much worse than the DC animated movies and what the Titans TV show did when retooling this story. The Joker starts off by revealing he just hasn’t beaten and cut up Jason; he has plucked out his eye, and it gets worse from there.

David Howard Thornton’s Joker Sadistically Murders Jason Todd

Thornton’s Clown Prince of Crime Guts and Kills Robin

The source material’s Robin was beaten by the Joker and his goons. Joker used the crowbar to have some fun, and didn’t care for anything except making the Boy Wonder suffer. But it was a bomb that killed Jason and left his body for Batman to bury. Joker locked Jason and his mother in to ensure Batman would find corpses. The short fan film, however, deals in a slow burn that has the Joker coming off like Jigsaw from the Saw movies. He mixes in that laugh like Mark Hamill, cracking jokes such as Robin’s favorite bar being a crowbar.

The villain wants to learn Robin’s civilian identity, which is an idea that played off in Sean Gordon Murphy’s Batman: White Knight. However, Jason is resilient. It leads to Joker cutting his tongue out, only to realize Jason can’t speak and spill the truth anymore. Joker, however, has a dire punchline. He knows Jason’s secret and implies he may know Bruce Wayne is The Dark Knight.

He eventually uses Robin’s batarang to cut him open and leave his innards on the floor when the Caped Crusader arrives for a showdown. Joker escapes, leaving Batman cradling Jason the same way from the comics. Joker laughs and dances his way out, homaging actors Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and even Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck. Batman’s screams are guttural, painful and really add an extra layer of pain to how merciless and graphic it is.

It has fans hoping this creative team will make a sequel. Some think Batman could go dark, especially since there are DC Elseworlds where the Caped Crusader takes on a Punisher-like role. Others think the clown could keep tempting him to break his one rule: the no-kill policy seen in stories like Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke. Either story could invite other members of the Bat-family like Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and Barbara Gordon to guide Bruce from breaking his moral compass in the name of revenge.

Ultimately, this is a short that Zack Snyder audiences would love, reminding fans that Thornton is an expert in the slasher horror genre. It whets the appetite for when he plays an evil Mickey Mouse in Screamboat later in 2025 — a role many expect him to channel his inner-Joker once more.

Jokers Wild is free to stream on YouTube.

“}]] Passionate Batman and Joker fans may have missed a fan film that takes their most iconic arc to even more gruesome heights using a horror icon.  Read More