Damien Leone doesn’t want you to start feeling comfortable in the company of Art the Clown.
The writer/director of the Terrifier series opens the third instalment with the franchise’s most brutal serial killings to date, with none of the dark physical comedy we’ve come to expect from his antagonist’s elaborate murders. He knows it’s the biggest risk he’s taken with the franchise so far, and that it could alienate some viewers right out of the gate.
Leone explained to Zavvi: “I wanted this cold open to feel like the first time the audience had ever encountered Art the Clown. When you get very familiar with a slasher movie villain, you get too comfortable with them to the point you’re rooting on them to kill everybody – you want to see Freddy or Jason kill as many people as possible, and you stop finding them scary.
“I knew people would want to see Art the Clown do that again, and so I’m giving them what they want, but in a way that’s awful and horrifying to witness. It’s a risk, but it’s also early enough that I hope people will still be curious to see where this is going to go – and if they stay on board after that, they’ll see that this has the funniest scenes Art has ever been involved in.
“It’s the funniest he’s ever been, as well as the cruelest and most sadistic he’s ever been, and that balance is so important to the franchise. Whenever I speak to (actor) David Howard Thornton, I maintain that we must always revert to him being scary; if we lean too heavily into the aspect of Art that’s a jokester, then we’re dead.
“Having such a brutal opening is vital to maintain the integrity of this character”.
If you can stomach that festive family massacre, then you’ll be rewarded with the bloody slapstick violence fans of this franchise long for. Picking up five years after Terrifier 2, we’re reintroduced to Sienna (Lauren LaVera) as she’s still battling PTSD and survivor’s guilt after her previous head-to-head with the Miles County Clown.
Unfortunately, she returns to her family home for Christmas just as Art makes a reappearance – and yes, he is looking to finish the job this time.
After media reports of people throwing up and passing out in cinemas following the release of Terrifier 2, Leone consciously approached this project knowing he had to up the ante even further this time. But even his self-declared sick mind understands that there are limits to what fans will be able to stomach.
“You always want to try and push the limits of what's acceptable to audiences, but it’s a tricky line – and one that gets more difficult, as when planning big kill scenes, I wonder how many nasty things I can do to the human body before it gets too distasteful! It’s easy to come up with atrocious things, but if it’s not palatable to the audience, then you’re just going to alienate everybody.
“You want to keep it accessible and fun as much as it is repulsive – it's all about finding the balance that steps over the line that Hollywood is too afraid to go in, but making sure you can still enjoy Art the Clown at the same time.”
There’s an assumption that Leone’s scripts are light on the comedy, and that the Vaudevillian gags are found on set. This isn’t quite true, he insists.
“I have a pretty great sense of humour, all those scenes are like that by design!” he laughed. “But once we’re on set, we like to explore further possibilities with what’s on the page to see how far we can push them.
“I allow David to improvise all the time, as he brings a wonderful theatricality to the role, and we have so much fun with it. For example, in Terrifier 2, there’s the scene with the glasses in the costume shop, where Art is wearing a new pair of glasses each time Sienna turns round to see him.
“The script wasn’t specific, and in terms of props, I only had a generic box of glasses to work with. But when you unleash David on that, you get tons of footage to work from as he’s trying out material with every pair – what hits the cutting room floor is just as wonderful as what makes it in.”
But whilst the movies wouldn’t be the same without Art, it’s the character of Sienna who Leone believes to be the “heart and soul” of the franchise.
“If you don’t have a worthy adversary to combat your villain, then you don’t have anything interesting to offer – and this series is as much about her journey as it is Art’s at this point. She’s going through such an emotional, metaphysical transformation, but she's completely grounded in reality; she has reacted to these fantastical horrors like any of us would.
“She’s suffering the most severe trauma imaginable, both physically and emotionally. It’s a darker chapter in her story, but it’s the organic extension of who that character is and where she would be now.”
Picking up five years after the previous film means that there are plenty of people wanting to mark the milestone anniversary of the Miles County Clown killings. One of these is a budding true crime podcaster desperate to get interviews with Sienna and her younger brother Jonathan (Elliot Fullam), and based on her characterisation, I assumed this was Leone expressing his hatred for the exploitative nature of true crime media – this isn’t exactly the case.
He explained: “I hate using the word meta, but this plays into how the fandom of Art the Clown as a character is growing. True crime podcasts are a relatively new phenomenon, and I’ve always found it interesting that it’s women, more so than men, who are obsessed with them, and I thought it would be a natural next step for the franchise to explore that.
“However, if you think there’s some disdain from me towards true crime, that’s not the case – all the human characters in this film are nice, and you can hang out and get along with them. I needed someone who, whilst not completely reprehensible, you might not be rooting for to survive as much as you would for the others if they happened to meet Art...”
I have been strictly instructed not to spoil any kills in the movie, but the Clown Prince of Gore gets even more inventive with his dismemberments this time around: you will see chainsaws visit places you wouldn’t expect, is all I will say.
But remembering this is a festive movie, Leone still wants to spread some seasonal cheer – and here, that comes via the form of Art the Clown’s very own Christmas song, which I can only hope will be available to stream after the movie is released. The soon-to-be Christmas Number 1 arrives courtesy of a songwriting duo who previously wrote an off-Broadway musical adaptation of The Silence Of The Lambs.
“I can’t take any credit for the song, that’s from the Kaplan Brothers, who are absolute geniuses. My friend’s older brother knew them when we were growing up, and I’d always followed their work – we first worked together when they wrote a simple Happy Halloween jingle for All Hallows Eve, inspired by the Halloween III Silver Shamrock jingle, and it left an impression on me due to how good it was, even though it was just three seconds.
“They knew I was making a Christmas movie and surprised me with Terrifier Christmas. I didn’t ask them to write a song, they just made it for fun and asked if I wanted to use it, with no hard feelings if I didn’t want to – I thought they were out of their minds if they thought I wouldn’t want to use it, it wasn’t a case of if I COULD use it so much as how many times I would!
“Without spoiling too much, it first appears at the end of a big kill scene, and during the editing that moment was getting a bit stale. It needed a button on it, and I realised that putting the song in there would transform it into a nightmarish music video; the kill goes on for so long that an audience might want to walk out, and then this jolly, pleasant Christmas song kicks in and they’re laughing again, even though what’s happening is despicable.
“It’s the perfect example of what the franchise has become: an unpredictable balance of dark humour and the most extreme horror.”
Leone has the story for Terrifier 4 planned but is yet to start writing the screenplay; he does cryptically tease that one character’s fate may not be as sealed as it looks here, which is very much by design.
He also suggests that Art’s next rampage won’t be set around a holiday next time.
“I don’t want to get hung up on that gimmick – Halloween and Christmas are my favourite holidays, and I’ve done those, so I don’t think I’d need to base the next one around another. Thanksgiving would have been a fun one, but Eli Roth’s taken that, so it’s sacred ground for him, I can’t touch it!
“Honestly, at this stage, I might just throw Art into a completely different environment nobody will expect. I could just write a time machine into the script – I won’t be happy until I get to show Art riding a dinosaur!”
Terrifier 3 is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 11th October.
