An actress who rose to fame in the original movie of a slasher film franchise is now suing the director and producers for fraud and sexual harassment.
To date, the Terrifier franchise has grossed over $100million (£75million), with the three films being made on a combined budget of less than $2.5million (£1.8million).
Created by Damien Leone, the story centres on a young woman who is ‘destined to defeat the enigmatic Art the Clown’, a serial killer operating in the fictional Miles County, New York.
Beginning in 2016 with the titular film, it was then followed by Terrifier 2 in 2016 and Terrifier 3 last year, which became the highest-grossing unrated film of all time.
However, nearly a decade on from the original’s release, an actress has detailed alleged incidents on set that she said left her being taken advantage of.
This week Catherine Corcoran has alleged there was a breach of contract and the distribution of sexually explicit materials without consent.
In a suit filed in California federal court on Sunday, her lawyers said the case was defined by the ‘all-too-common story of low budget film producers taking advantage of a young actress through fraud, sexual harassment and, ultimately, betrayal’.
The lawsuit includes seven claims for relief, including distribution of sexually explicit materials, breach of contract and promissory fraud, as reported by Variety.
It also names production companies Dark Age Cinema and Fuzz on the Lens Productions as defendants, as well as Leone and his company Art the Clown, plus producer Phil Falcone.
In the movie, Corcoran played Dawn Emerson – who was hung upside down, topless, and slaughtered by the villain.
The actress has claimed that filming the infamous scene required her to be hung upside down by her ankles for ‘over 10 hours in below freezing temperatures’.
The suit also alleges that Corcoran agreed to appear in the film on an ‘extremely low up front per diem rate’, earning $100 (£75) – the Screen Actors Guild’s daily minimum.
It was allegedly agreed that she would later receive 1% of the profits from the film, as well as potential future franchise entries and related merchandise, including other licenses of the intellectual property.
But, in the years following the original film’s release and the franchise taking off, her royalty payments ended up becoming ‘more and more sporadic and dwindled to amounts nowhere near commensurate’.
Chelsea Guglielmino/ FilmMagic)
She now says she’s only received $8,300 (£6228), with payments also ceasing in July last year.
Although she’s claimed to have spoken to Falcone and Leone, she was ‘brushed off’ and told that the producer ‘doesn’t keep records’.
The scene in which Corcoran’s character meets an untimely end also ‘required’ her to be nude; however, she wasn’t told this ahead of filming.
The actress said that she asked to wear underwear during shooting but still ended up doing the scene topless without written consent, which was required by SAG.
She also alleged that Falcone did not obtain her consent to take ‘numerous still photographs’ of her nude body while she was glued to a piece of plywood while filming.
The lawsuit also details how Corcoran faced ‘long hours in below freezing temperatures in condemned buildings, all without heat and some without bathrooms’, having ‘prosthetics with actual rat faeces put on her skin and duct tape over her mouth’, as well as facing a ‘long, painful process’ to be removed a piece of plywood she’d had to lie on to create a silicone body cast.
She also claimed that between takes she was ‘wrapped in a blanket, but it became so saturated with fake blood that it ceased providing any warmth’.
After filming, she then fell ill in the subsequent days and was diagnosed with cranial swelling and eardrum damage.
The lawsuit also claims the defendants have profited from merchandise depicting Corcoran’s nude body.
Her lawyer Devin McRae said that if Corcoran was bit ‘willing to take a risk and receive her compensation on the back end’, the franchise ‘would not exist as it could not have been made on a show-string budget otherwise’.
‘However, when it came time to pay what was owed, the producers chose to cheat her,’ he added.
Metro has contacted Fuzz on the Lens Productions and representatives for Damien Leone for comment.
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