By Nell Geraets
Warning: Graphic content
When Terrifier 2, the second film in Damien Leone’s slasher franchise, premiered in 2022, people were vomiting and passing out in cinemas. It was filled with so much blood, guts and mutilation, that an ambulance was reportedly called for one particularly traumatised viewer.
For most directors, this isn’t an ideal reaction. But for horror directors like Leone, it’s music to their ears.
Art the Clown (played by David Howard Thornton) returns with even more creative and disturbing ways to kill in Terrifier 3.Credit: Cineverse
“I obviously don’t want anyone getting hurt, but horror audiences always like to be challenged to see how far they’re willing to be pushed,” Leone, who began as a special effects make-up artist, says. “Everybody expects us to one-up whatever scene was the most graphic in the last one.”
So, when creating Terrifier 3, which premiered on Thursday, Leone knew he had to up the ante. And he seems to have succeeded. Around the world, cinema-goers have reportedly been fainting during screenings, while some others have walked out after just the opening scene. Early responses to the slasher movie have been so extreme that France’s Classification Committee moved to ban it from being shown to anyone under 18 – the first ruling of its kind in France for a horror film in nearly 20 years.
Damien Leone (left) on the Terrifier 3 set with David Howard Thornton (centre), who plays Art the Clown.
Much of the distress centres on Art the Clown (deftly played by David Howard Thornton), the franchise’s psychopathic, oddly charismatic, mute serial killer. Since first appearing in Leone’s 2008 short The 9th Circle, Art has come up with increasingly creative and disturbing ways to butcher his victims, from chainsaws and hunting knives to scissors and broken mop handles. In Terrifier 3, the clown wreaks havoc during the Christmas season, even dressing up as Santa before mercilessly killing a family with an axe.
The violence is beyond perverse, yet audiences lapped it up. Terrifier 2 grossed more than $23 million worldwide from a budget of just over $370,000. Its surprise success meant that the budget for Terrifier 3 was lifted to about $3.7 million, and it’s projected to make upwards of $13 million this weekend.
“We’re quite niche, but we’ve proven there’s a much broader audience for slashers than some think,” says Leone, who is not a fan of blood in everyday life.
“We’re all trying to deal with the fact that violence is still very prominent. There are assassination attempts, wars, so many crazy things. It’s an ugly, unfortunate thing to discuss, but it’s everywhere. We’re aware that violence could hit us at any moment and there isn’t much we can do about it.”
That is essentially what Art represents, Leone says: uncontrollable danger that appears to randomly target its victims. However, as much as the franchise highlights violence, it simultaneously offers collective catharsis, he argues.
“We’re putting the absurdity of it all on screen and sort of making a mockery of it,” he says. “It’s like looking the devil in the eyes. It’s a showing of strength, and the more intense reality gets, the more we need an extreme, cathartic release.”
Terrifier 3 is in cinemas now.
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