An actor from the original “Terrifier” movie filed a federal lawsuit against the franchise’s filmmakers, accusing them of shortchanging her on promised residuals and using on-screen nudity without written permission.
Catherine Corcoran, who played Dawn in the first of those hit low-budget slasher movies, accused producer Phil Falcone and producer/director Damien Leone of paying her $8,341 in what’s just a fraction of what she’s contractually owed, the lawsuit said.
The actor reached an agreement with the filmmakers to work on the film for a very low per diem rate in exchange for 1% of the profits of film and any future films in the series, as well as 1% of profits from merchandise related to the film, the suit said.
The movie became an indie hit and spawned one of the most successful horror franchises in modern cinema, but Corcoran never received the full amount she was owed, according to the lawsuit.
“Terrifier” is “one of the most popular and profitable independent horror films series produced in the last 25 years,” plaintiff’s attorney Devin McRae wrote in the lawsuit.
Representatives for Falcone and Leone did not respond to NBC News requests for comment on Wednesday. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, a lawyer for Falcone and Leone said, “Damien and Phil deny the claims in the complaint and will vigorously defend this lawsuit.”
The suit also accuses the filmmakers of distributing sexually explicit material without consent.
Any nude and topless scenes must have prior authorization under the rules of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the suit said.
A SAG collective bargaining agreement required “producers to obtain the informed written consent from an actress before filming any scene involving nudity and/or simulated sexual activity,” according to the complaint.
The SAG-AFTRA website states that actors in nude scenes must be offered “an opportunity to provide meaningful, written consent free of pressure or coercion.”
But producers never got any such clearance from Corcoran when she was topless and “suspended upside down by her ankles and sawed in half by the film’s antagonist, Art the Clown,” according to the civil complaint.
Corcoran was supposed to be nude for that upside-down scene, but ultimately convinced Falcone and Leone to allow her to don briefs, the lawsuit said.
“However, she was still required by Falcone and Leone to perform the scene topless without having been provided with the informed consent and disclosures required by her SAG Agreement,” according to the complaint filed over the weekend in Los Angeles.
When asked on Tuesday why Corcoran waited 10 years to request more money and object to these topless scenes, her attorney, McRae, would only say she was within her statutory rights.
“There are legal ramifications flowing from the failure to obtain the written consent required under the SAG-AFTRA collective bargaining agreement, regardless of what the actor knew or didn’t know,” he said in a statement to NBC News.
The lawsuit added that, to “make matters worse,” the filmmakers were selling “Terrifier” merchandise bearing Corcoran’s nude image.
“The defendants, to this day, continue to sell merchandise and make money from exploiting images of Ms. Corcoran’s nude body, which requires a separate, additional nudity rider,” he said. “She is well within the statute of limitations for her claims, which are righteous.”
Even though Corcoran’s character was killed off in that first “Terrifier,” the franchise owes the actor for working under such trying conditions in the winter of 2015 of the first movie, according to the suit.
“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,” according to her lawsuit. “However, when it came time to pay what was owed, the producers chose to cheat her.”
The lawsuit is seeking compensatory damages for what it says is Corcoran’s share of revenues from the film and its merchandise, to be determined at trial, and also seeks an injunction preventing the further use of her nude images.
The humble beginnings of the gory “Terrifier” planted seeds for it to become a wildly popular cult favorite franchise that has earned over $100 million at the box office.
“Terrifier 3” played in 2,762 U.S. theaters a year ago and earned nearly $89 million globally, debuting at number one its opening weekend and becoming the highest grossing unrated film of all time.
Pennywise the clown was spotted across New York City promoting HBO’s upcoming series “Welcome to Derry,” a prequel to Stephen King’s “It” that explores the origins of the terrifying clown.
