Two years after Terrifier 2 rattled theatergoers with its gruesome scenes, the third installment in the series is taking things up a notch. Terrifier 3, which follows relentless serial killer Art the Clown as he terrorizes a town before Christmas, made some audience members walk out within five minutes of its U.K. premiere.
Writer-director Damien Leone knew the first scene was so over the top that he’d never get it financed by a major studio, and the film’s PR team confirmed in a statement that there were at least 11 audience members who left in total and one who vomited. For theaters in the U.S., where it will open on Oct. 11, the film has been labeled “unrated,” and France has banned minors from seeing it in theaters.
Leone told Yahoo Entertainment that he had to “push the envelope” after the unexpected box office success (and fainting audience members) of Terrifier 2.
“You want the next thing you do to be better,” he said. “It’s become a staple of the franchise that we really have to have delivered the goods with at least one epic kill scene … [it’s] sort of built on controversy and exploitation and shock value.”
The first two Terrifier movies have standout murder scenes: The first one involves a dingy basement and a hacksaw, and the second involves a bedroom, salt and bleach. Art the Clown does unthinkable things to people, silently laughing through the whole act. That’s what the actor who has portrayed him since 2016’s Terrifier, David Howard Thornton, says is his appeal.
“He’s doing horrible things, but he’s doing it in such an entertaining way,” he told Yahoo Entertainment. “He’s fun! I think people like that he’s fun.”
With a bigger budget for practical-effects lover Leone to indulge in, Art the Clown pulls off several barbaric murders in Terrifier 3 — so many that Leone wasn’t even sure which moment would be the standout for this film, though he knew the first scene would be controversial.
The team released a teaser in November 2023 that implied that Art the Clown might kill a child at the start of the movie — something that had some viewers up in arms, saying Terrifier had gone too far. Leone responded that he “liked stirring up controversy.”
“I like to push it up to the line, then maybe step right over it and see if I can get away with something that you don’t typically see,” he said. “But [I’m] conscious not to go too far in that direction, because then you could really lose yourself in a world of extreme distaste and alienate a large majority of the audience.”
Leone said that as an artist, he doesn’t consider anything “off limits,” so long as there’s no actual harm done because “everything’s fictional.” The teaser was accurate — a child is brutally murdered in Terrifier 3, but the act itself happens off-screen.
“The audience doesn’t have to watch it if they don’t want to,” Leone said. “It’s their choice. Nobody’s strapping them into a chair like A Clockwork Orange and forcing them to watch these films.”
Thornton said he’s constantly checking on the actors who are on the receiving end of Art the Clown’s violence to make sure they’re comfortable and safe, but as a former elementary school teacher, he’s especially concerned about the kids on set.
Ahead of a different scene in Terrifier 3 involving children — this one sees Art the Clown wreaking havoc at the mall in a Santa costume — Thornton got all the child actors together to talk.
“I did a whole Q&A session with the kids just so they could get to know me as me,” he said. “I don’t want them freaking out about the makeup or anything like that.”
A horror icon is born
Thornton has played Art the Clown for years, but he’s still not used to seeing his heavily made-up face everywhere.
“It definitely changed my life. I was waiting tables for 13 years being treated like crap on a daily basis by people over the smallest, most insignificant things, like not having enough ranch [dressing] on the side of their salad,” he said. “[Now I] walk into a store and see a whole section dedicated to my character and it’s mind-blowing.”
Art the Clown first appeared in a few short films that were included in the horror anthology film All Hallows Eve in 2013. Thornton took over the character for 2016’s Terrifier after the original actor retired. The story of his audition is now infamous: Thornton showed up without a script, mimed the act of killing someone, tasting them and adding seasoning, then happily skipped away.
To Thornton, it’s Art the Clown’s joyful clownery that gives him “personality and charisma.” Everything he does is a joke, but it’s still a terrifying “amalgamation of every single iconic horror villain that came before.”
More than just a slasher
Though each movie takes the gore up a notch, it also adds more plot and characterization. Leone said the first Terrifier is a showcase for Art the Clown, but the second introduces a final girl, Sienna (Lauren LaVera), who has by the third film become the “heart and soul” of the franchise and is “just as important as Art,” according to Leone.
Sienna begins the second movie as a high schooler with a passion for cosplay. She realizes through a series of encounters with Art the Clown that she might be the only person who could defeat him. In the third film, she’s older and more traumatized, but triumphant. What Art the Clown really is and how they’re linked together is revealed along the way.
Just as Art the Clown has entered the canon of legendary movie villains, Sienna has become an iconic final girl. LaVera told Yahoo Entertainment that what sets her character apart from others is how “she has a lot of flaws” constantly on display.
“I love a messy woman, and I love being able to infuse my own messiness that’s inherent in me into this character,” she said.
LaVera does “around 98%” of her own stunts for the Terrifier movies. She’s been a stuntwoman and has 20 years of martial arts training.
“I started off as an actor wanting to be Jackie Chan or Michelle Yeoh,” she said. “I love being physical in roles, but [Leone] doesn’t let me do every little thing. … On some stuff, he’s like, ‘No, if you get hurt, we’re screwed, so you’re not doing this.’”
Leone plans to keep the franchise going for at least a fourth film, which is already in development. It’ll have to be even wilder than this one, though.
“I think the crazier things are in reality, the more of a cathartic release people yearn for in movies,” he said. “So when there’s nasty things going on and people are divided in this country and animosity is reaching a fever pitch, people need a more intense release.”
Terrifier 3 is in theaters nationwide Oct. 11.
