Terrifier 3 Director Teases Art The Clown's Controversial Path To Terrifer 4 - Exclusive Interview

When "Terrifier" first came out in 2016, it stayed firmly within the underground. Horror enthusiasts may have caught on to the gory crime spree of Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), but it would take until 2022's "Terrifier 2" for the franchise to start gaining mainstream attention. News started breaking of people fainting and vomiting during screenings, which undoubtedly made more people intrigued to check out the film. "Terrifier 2" grossed over $15 million at the box office, which was astonishing for a movie with only a $250,000 budget. 

Now, writer and director Damien Leone is back with "Terrifier 3," already blowing people away at its Fantastic Fest showing. There's even a kill scene in "Terrifier 3" to rival the one in the previous entry that made people sick to their stomachs. For a film series that largely foregoes mainstream sensibilities to offer something utterly diabolical, Art the Clown has risen to status of slasher icon along the likes of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. And the good times aren't over yet, as it's been confirmed "Terrifier 4" is in the works.

Looper had the chance to sit down with Leone to talk about his latest voyage into Art the Clown's depravity. He talks about those "Terrifier 2" news stories as well as the decision to make "Terrifier 3" a Christmas movie. 

Congratulations on "Terrifier 3." I heard it was played wonderfully at Fantastic Fest.

Damien Leone: It did. It did, man. I was relieved. I was very nervous going into it, but the reactions were pretty fantastic, so thank you.

You originally said a while back that "Terrifier 3" might be the end, but then it was announced that you're working on "Terrifier 4." Was there a certain moment maybe while working on "Terrifier 3" where you were like, "Oh, I want to do at least one more of these?" Or what was the genesis of "Terrifier 4"?

Well, when I started writing ["Terrifier 2"], I knew the scope of what I was going for and I knew where it was going to end, where it will end eventually. And then it just becomes how much story is there to tell between ["Terrifier 2"] and my final one. Because so many interesting things I want to do with the Sienna character [played by Lauren LaVera], and now that we've opened up the doorway to the supernatural, and so there's a bit of a supernatural detour now that Art the Clown took. But it's going to be a bit of a circle where now he's got to work his way out of the supernatural realm and go back to where he started at the beginning because it was something I was so interested in exploring as to why did these boogeymen become supernatural? They almost all either start or become supernatural, but it's never quite explained why.

How does Jason [from the Friday the 13th series] come back over and over again? What is that evil? How does Michael Myers [from "Halloween"] just keep coming back? They just tell you he's supernatural. They don't really explore what is that force? What is that evil? So I thought that could be exciting. It hit for some people. Some others, they'd rather it just be classic stalk and slash.

But to me, we're always going to have that in the movies. You're always going to have that element. We're never going to lose Art just being a traditional slasher, stalking and slashing. But that, to me as an artist, gets very redundant and dull. So I wanted to explore more and I wanted to bring in a benevolent counterpart to Art the Clown that's sort of going on the same metaphysical journey of where she's transforming, transcending, and she's becoming something else.

And have her still grounded, and how she responds to what's happening to her, which is so fantastical and so terrifying, was interesting from a drama perspective. So it just made it a lot more interesting for me as an artist instead of simply just having another group of people that Art the Clown is just killing with no real goals or anything. It's just an opportunity to kill people over and over again.

For "Terrifier 2," there were all those news stories of people fainting or vomiting during the screenings. What was your reaction to that, and did that create any sense of pressure of, "For 'Terrifier 3,' we really have to do something that'll make people nauseous for this one?"

Well, not at first. At first, it was a sense of pride. I was like, "Wow, what we did is effective. It's working." Especially from a special makeup effects standpoint, because that means what you did had that visceral impact. And it's a credit to the quality of the makeup that me and my partner Phil Falcone ... created because we spent years essentially creating all those effects.

It took us almost three years to make "Terrifier 2." So it was rewarding and it was validating, and it was crazy to hear because that's not typical. You hear it a lot more now post-"Terrifier 2." A lot of movies come out, it's like, "Oh, people are fainting, people are puking," and stuff. And that wasn't something that you heard up until "Terrifier 2."

There were a handful of movies where that hype started coming out, so that was exciting to be a part of that. But then, yes, then once that dust settles and you go in to make a sequel, then it's like, "Oh boy. Now expectations are 10 times higher." And you have to try, at least try, to go in there and surpass what you did previously.

And it's become even trickier because you can cross over into a level of extreme bad taste. I could think of the worst stuff to show you, it's not hard, and I can really show you every bit of that, but then you're going to really just turn off the audience if you go too far and you're just rubbing it in their face and saying, "Here, take that. Can you take that?" That's not cool on one level. And it's like my job as an artist, I always was with these movies to maintain some level of mass accessibility while showing you things that are more extreme than you typically get. At least that's the experiment in my head. That's what I'm always trying to do.

I'm not saying I succeeded that. I'm sure these movies are probably still ultimately too off-putting to a lot of people, but they could be way worse. Trust me, they could be way worse.

What went into the decision to make "Terrifier 3" a Christmas movie, and were there any Christmas films, horror or otherwise, you used as reference points?

Yeah, big time. So first question, it wasn't my idea originally. We were shooting ["Terrifier 2"], it was me and Phil Falcone, my producer, because three years making that movie. So holidays, seasons just flying by. It was Christmas season. We're driving to set, all the decorations were up, and he just said, "Wow." He's like "You know what we should do? Art the Clown Christmas." He goes, "That would be crazy." And it immediately clicked. I wasn't even thinking of the next movie. I'm just trying to get through "Terrifier 2." And I'm just like, "You know what? That would actually be fantastic."

Not only because it just seems fitting for that character to be put into all those classic Christmas trope situations where they could just be hilarious and on one level, on the other end of the spectrum, they could be really disturbing and freaky, but I knew it would make the franchise fresh again. He doesn't have to be bound to Halloween. He could basically be put in any situation. Art the Clown would be hilarious.

He'd pull out the ridiculous nature of any situation you put him in. And I always loved the Christmas horror sub-genre. So "Black Christmas" is my favorite Christmas horror film, the original. But my favorite Christmas horror episode, which I love even more than "Black Christmas," is the "Tales from the Crypt" episode called "And All Through The House." And I grew up loving that, and it's about an escaped mental patient who dons a Santa Claus costume and tries to break into this woman's house in the middle of the night and slaughter her, like chop her up with an axe.

And I just loved the marriage of the frightening and the cozy simultaneously. There is nothing cozier to me than Christmas, but that situation of somebody trying to break into your house and hack you up with an axe is the most terrifying thing ever. So I always loved that since I was a kid. And now this gave me the opportunity to take a crack at the maniac Santa Claus trope and also now put Art the Clown in that costume, which makes Art the Clown fresh. And it makes sort of the maniac Santa Claus that we've seen a million times, it makes that character fresh again. So it just all seemed organic and it wasn't forced.

It was just one of those things where you hear it and it clicks, and it's like, "That's a no-brainer. Let's do that."

Tom Savini acts in "Terrifier 3." I was delighted to see him. He's a special effects legend. Did you tap him for any advice as far as developing your own special effects, or did he offer you any words of wisdom working in this bloody arena?

No, I didn't need to at this point because he's my biggest inspiration. I probably know more about Tom Savini than Tom Savini knows about him. I'll tell him stories that he's told that he doesn't even remember telling them. You know what I mean? He's the biggest influence in my life in terms of a filmmaker and makeup effects artist, because I would've never become a director if I didn't fall in love with makeup effects first.

And I discovered who he was and what he did at a very young age, probably 7 or 8 years old. And then when I was 11, 12, my mother took me to meet him at a horror convention, and I decided from that moment on to really take makeup effects seriously. And I said, "This is what I want to do with my life. I want to do this for a living."

So I've virtually learned everything that guy had to teach and how he did almost every effect he ever created. So by the time I got to meet him again years later, post-"Terrifier," we were at horror conventions and I re-introduced myself and I made a little Art the Clown figure that I gave him and told him what an inspiration. And then when I won a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for my work in "Terrifier 2," I thanked him for it.

Then he called me and he said, that was so sweet of me that I thanked him and it meant a lot. So we just became friendlier as time went on at these horror conventions, and I said, "I'd love to just get you in here somewhere." He wanted to be in it. I told him that would be an honor to get him in there somewhere. So it was a great full circle moment that he's got this very cool cameo in "Terrifier 3" because I do owe that guy almost everything.

I'm very excited to see what you do with "Terrifier 4." Art the Clown Valentine special? I don't know what you're going to do, but in a Reddit AMA a while back, you mentioned also working on an epic zombie script. Is that a story you're still trying to get produced, or is "Terrifier 4" what you're doing in the immediate future?

The zombie script is kind of on the back burner, unfortunately, because I wrote it so long ago. I had the idea before "Walking Dead" because the zombie subgenre is my favorite horror subgenre. "Dawn of The Dead," "Day of the Dead," those are my two favorite horror movies. And years have gone by now, and so many things have been done. And almost the heart of my script was basically "The Last of Us." It was exactly, it was those two lead characters were basically the lead characters of my script.

There are still awesome set pieces in my zombie film. I feel like I could approach zombies where the way I took the cliche killer clown and I made something fresh with him, I think I could do the same thing for zombies. Put a unique spin on them. That's very frightening.

But ultimately, I'd have to change so many things in that script. So that one's on the back burner. But I have something amazing in the works with Sam Raimi's production company, Ghost House Pictures. It's an original story of mine. We were developing it for months, they loved it, but then the writers' strike hit, and we had to basically pens down, papers in, we can't talk anymore. And then I went and just focused on "Terrifier 3."

So that's still in the background. It really depends on how well "Terrifier 3" is received and if people are really hungry for the next one. Also, it's better for me to make these movies quicker because I don't know how long the window is going to be open. Are people going to be excited for Art the Clown or slasher films? Slasher films have a very small window. They dip in and out of popularity.

So it's like the horror genre is always consistent, but the subgenre within the horror genres, they're very cyclical, and slashers were gone for a really long time. So I think I have to perhaps strike while the iron's hot with "Terrifier," but we'll see. It'll make sense in the coming months of what direction I decide to go in.

"Terrifier 3" will release in theaters nationwide on October 11.