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The Terrifier movies truly live up to its name. Ever since headlines reported the sequel had people vomiting in theaters, it helped mainstream audiences know all about a whole new level of creepy horror clowns– Art the Clown. If you can believe it, a mainstream studio actually tried to convince director Damien Leone to tone down the gore of the Terrifier franchise and I happen to think that’s hilarious!
Other than making people vomit in their seats, one thing that makes the Terrifier movies a huge standout is not playing it safe with character deaths. Art the Clown has a twisted sense of creativity killing people through methods of mutilation, torture, and bludgeoning. Director of the Terrifier movies, Damien Leone, told Total Film (via GamesRadar) that his independent slasher series was almost picked up by a big mainstream studio who had a rather bizarre request:
They were so curious as to what I did with so little money. They wanted to reboot it for a wider audience. That’s not what I was interested in. They would say, ‘It’s gotta be rated R, it can’t be as gory as you made it.’
A studio was asking one of the goriest horror movies not to be too gory? Why not ask Ghostface to stab with a plastic knife in the Scream series? Plus, horror movies are supposed to provide shock and scares or it doesn’t fulfill the elements of the genre. 2020 suffered through badly reviewed horror films criticized for not being scary enough as well as the mixed-reviewed Exorcist: Believer. While I’m sure having a big-named studio back up an indie horror series would have benefited budget-wise, it wouldn’t have been worth it if it compromised Damien Leone’s vision for his franchise.
While we can already imagine there being a number of vomit-inducing scenes throughout Terrifier 3, Damien Leone teases a “controversial” opening scene that based on the disturbing first trailer I can imagine being a bloody Christmas night as children at home awaken to Art the Clown posing as Santa. With the American film director knowing that particular scene wouldn’t hit well with mainstream studios, there was only one solution he could think of for his Terrifier franchise:
I knew they’d never let me shoot the first 10 minutes of what I wanted to do [in Terrifier 3]. So I thought, ‘Let’s just stay true to what this franchise is.’
Damien Leone made the right move sticking with his indie roots for his film series. That way, he only has to answer to himself and he can make Terrifier 3 exactly the way he wants. Plus, the American filmmaker didn’t have a problem bringing Art the Clown to the big screen the first time around.
The killer clown was first introduced through Leone’s short film The 9th Circle in 2006, then the Terrifier short film in 2011, and once again for the horror anthology feature film All Hallows Eve in 2013. With the goal of Art the Clown headlining his own movie, Leone raised $250,000 through crowdfunding to get the first Terrifier movie going. With Terrifier 3 having a reported budget of $2 million, it looks like the horror film director has the budget to make his upcoming horror film on his own terms.
It’s absolutely a hilarious concept that Damien Leone was asked to tone down Art the Clown’s trademark gore. It just wouldn’t be a Terrifier movie if that’s the case. As the slasher series already has a reputation for making audiences toss their cookies, I think people will go into the third movie ready to be entertained with clear gory expectations. The 2024 movie release of the holiday gore fest hits theaters on October 11th.