Fans of Terrifier 2 who thought they’d seen it all with that bedroom kill apparently haven’t seen anything yet, as director Damien Leone is warning us all to “be prepared” for an even gorier segment in Terrifier 3 that promises to be Art the Clown’s most gruesome kill yet. Premiering in theaters on October 11, the third entry in Leone’s popular horror franchise shifts the focus from Halloween to deliver a Christmas-themed massacre that sees the enigmatic clown return to terrorize the residents of Miles County, with his sights fixed firmly on Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera), the final girl from the previous movie.
Sitting down with Screen Rant to discuss all things Terrifier, Leone touched on the scene in question, which takes its inspiration from Alfred Hitchcocks’s seminal 1960 horror movie Psycho. It’s a film that the director says he watches “twice a year,” and one that – if given the chance – he’d love to remake. However, since he doesn’t believe that’s ever going to happen, he instead decided to put his own spin on the infamous shower scene, replacing Norman Bates with Art the Clown, and the knife wigth a chainsaw. The results, he warns, are something that we should all brace ourselves for.
“Since no one’s going to let me remake Psycho, I’ll just say, ‘Well, I’ll make my own shower kill scene, and I’ll make it as crazy as possible. And instead of a knife, I’ll give Art a chainsaw. Instead of it being one person in the shower, I’ll put two people in the shower.’ And that’s sort of how a scene like that is birthed in your head.
“That’s the inception, and then it just becomes, ‘Well, what could we do? How many gags could we fit into this sequence? How many limbs could we show him chopping off? What are some interesting things he can do with that chainsaw? Et cetera.’ That’s how a scene like that unfolds, so I think when you do see Terrifier 3, and you get into the shower scene, be prepared.”
Daniel Leone Talks the Challenges of Always Having To Top Himself
Considering how things played out in the bedroom between Art the Clown and Allie (Casey Hartnett) in Terrifier 2, Leone’s warning has us all wondering how he manages to keep topping himself kill after kill. Viewers thought nothing would even come close to that hacksaw death in the first movie, but were pleasantly surprised when Leone’s sophomore outing proved to be even more grisly. The challenges, he says, keep mounting, as there’s “only so many things to do to the human body.” As such, he finds that he’s not only in constant contention with himself, but with every other horror movie that came before.
“It’s always difficult, because the pressure is always mounting. The expectations get higher and higher as we go on […] So, I always aim to try my best, and I try and hope inspiration strikes when I’m writing these scenes. You never know where it’s going to come from. There’s only so many things to do to the human body. We’re not just competing with ourselves in these movies, we’re competing with every other Saw movie, every other movie that comes out with these brutal kill scenes. Almost everything’s been done.”
With Leone teasing Art the Clown’s most ambitious kill to date, we can’t even begin to fathom how he’ll manage to top things in Terrifier 4. However, if we’ve come to learn one thing from the franchise, it’s that you can’t keep a good clown down, and somehow Art, Leone, and all involved in the series will find a way to continue to push the boundaries of acceptable taste to furnish fans with even more blood, gore, and the most creative kills in the history of cinema.
Terrifier
is available to stream on Peacock, and
Terrifier 2
on Prime Video. Look for
Terrifier 3
to open nationwide on October 11 from Ciniverse, and check out the NSFW red band trailer below.