The most talked about horror movie of the season is almost upon us, but before the release of Terrifier 3 this Friday, director Damien Leone and Art the Clown actor David Howard Thronton are revealing why the threequel decided to go where not many horror movies have gone before. Long known for pushing the limits of extreme gore, Leone’s Terrifier franchise is once again exploring just how far they can take things by not only featuring bigger kills, but by putting kids in jeopardy, a taboo subject that many mainstream directors have shied away from over the years save for a few outliers, such as Andy Muscietti, who directed the latest incarnation of Stephen King’s IT.
Speaking with Total Film (via GamesRadar), Leone says the reason that Terrifier 3 has kids getting killed (albeit off-screen) is simple: it’s what Art would do. “Everything I write has to be true to the character and organic,” he says of the hooked-nose clown that has since become an icon to many horror lovers. He adds that when he’s writing a grisly scene, he’ll regularly try to come at it from Art’s perspective, allowing the sadistic killer to speak through him in a way, and not shy away from whatever the moment calls for.
“I kind of feel that sometimes with Art, where I might reach a scene or a taboo subject, and I’m like, ‘Oh, what if that’s a little much, that’s gonna freak people out.’ And he’ll be like, ‘I would do that.’ And I have to say, ‘You’re right, you would do that.’ And I have to put it in there. That becomes a really kind of exciting challenge; can I dabble with these taboo subjects and keep the audience in their seats? We’ll see.”
Even David Howard Thornton Has His Limits
The subject of kids getting killed in horror movies has long been a thing of controversy in the genre going as far back as we can remember, though it really became a hot button issue in 1931 when The Monster tossed young Maria into the lake in James Whale’s Frankenstein, appalling audiences who were shocked at the directors’ audacity. Since then, we’ve seen everything from a kid getting eaten by a shark in JAWS to Charlie being decapitated in Hereditary, and let’s not forget about the aforementioned IT, a movie that at its core is about children being terrorized by an otherworldly entity that takes that form of a demonic clown.
Sound familiar? It does to Thornton, who cites the film as an example of a taboo subject. Though he also admits that even he might have had a problem should Leone have decided to take things too far with Art the Clown.
“I mean, that was the whole premise of Pennywise. He kills kids, he eats them. It’s just like, it’s a certain trope. I think what’s important is that we’re not doing some kind of like, you know, alley kill with children in these movies, where I’m not going to be sitting there torching a child, and that’s something I would have a problem doing.”
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That only makes us want to see even more!
As a former teacher, Thornton was also weary of how the young cast members of Terrifier 3 were reacting to what they had to perform in front of the camera, making sure to comfort them in between takes so as not to traumatize them with hefty therapy bills later in life. The results, he says, proved fruitful when he asked a child how she was doing, to which she replied, “I’m doing great.”
Of course, anyone who knows the whole history of Art the Clown is well aware that this is actually not new territory for the Terrifier icon. In his first major appearance in the anthology movie All Hallow’s Eve, Art is responsible for killing two children in grisly fashion, and while those deaths also take place off-screen, the horrifying aftermath is revealed for everyone to witness in all its gory glory.
You can witness all the new carnage for yourself when Terrifier 3 opens nationwide on October 11 from Cineverse.