[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Terrifier 3]

The Big Picture

‘Terrifier 3 ‘is set at Christmas, with Art the Clown returning to haunt Sienna with bigger kills and shocking deaths.
The filmmaker, Damien Leone, talks about why Jonathan was killed off-screen, and the fan response to the decision.
Leone speaks about the time jump between the second and third installments and a potential endgame for Art the Clown.

Christmas comes early in the form of Terrifier 3, the latest installment in Damien Leone’s cult-favorite slasher franchise. The new film is set five years after the events of Terrifier 2, swapping the Halloween setting for the holiday season, as Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) returns to haunt his would-be victim Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera), all while dressed up as Jolly Old Saint Nick.

Terrifier has come a long way since the first movie premiered in 2016 and has since gained a massive following, with the second installment becoming one of the biggest box-office success stories of 2022. Now, Terrifier 3 is finally here, with a bigger budget, bigger kills, and a bigger audience. Anyone who is familiar with Leone’s films knows that these slashers aren’t for the faint of heart and are filled with some of the most gruesome kills ever put on screen.

I was fortunate enough to sit down and talk with Leone about Terrifier 3, his decision to kill off a major character in an unexpected way, why Art the Clown feels perfect for Christmastime, and if he has an end in sight for Art and Sienna’s blood-filled saga.

Why Was Jonathan Killed Off-Screen in ‘Terrifier 3’?
Image via Cineverse

COLLIDER: I’m actually a more recent fan of these movies. Literally, the day before I got this opportunity, I watched the first two for the first time, and I was just obsessed.

DAMIEN LEONE: Oh, really? Oh, thanks, man. I appreciate that.

I was a very big fan of this third movie, but as soon as I watched it I was hoping that I could ask about spoilers. You make a bold decision to have Jonathan killed off and off-screen. Was that initially something you had planned to shoot, or was that the intention all along?
LEONE: I toyed with the idea of showing it, or at least showing him encounter Art the Clown, and then ending it there, where you don’t know what transpired after that. But it was so important. There are a few reasons I decided not to show it at all. First, the most important was I needed that misdirect. Because you’re supposed to believe it’s somebody else before you find out it’s Jonathan who was killed. So, that was important. I liked that character so much, and I felt like it would be disrespectful, after everything that character’s gone through and how much Sienna cares for that character, to show that character horribly tortured. Of course, they wouldn’t have killed that character slowly. It would have been really, really brutal and really sickening to sit through. Also, it would have had to take place immediately after the biggest kill in the movie, which was a five-minute-long shower massacre. So, I think to then just throw that character on screen and have him killed directly after, I think the audience would have been completely numb to it and desensitized, and it would have had no impact whatsoever.

So, those were the reasons I decided to just have it happen off-screen. Already, I could tell by reading reviews and stuff that it’s a very divisive, polarizing part of the film. I think a lot of people wanted to see that character meet his demise, but those are the reasons why I decided not to. And I think they were the right reasons, ultimately. I think Terrifier 3 will play better, believe it or not, on a story level when people watch it a second time. I think they just go into it, there are so many expectations, there’s so much happening, so much information getting thrown at you, and all these crazy things where it’s kind of hard to take it all in upon first view. But I think there’s a lot that I’ve noticed people haven’t really touched upon yet, or they haven’t been talking about, that’s in the movie. So, I’d be curious, when the smoke clears, what people start thinking about the film.

You just brought up reading the reviews. And I’m very curious, what’s your process for reading reviews? I know some reviews believed that Terrifier 2 was too long, and this one was shorter. What do you look for in the reviews that you read for your movies?

LEONE: Well, everything. I want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want to see what people are loving, what’s not working — especially what’s not working. Because then it’s like, if you get a unanimous no to unanimous criticism, you have a responsibility to your audience to pay attention to that and try not to repeat the same mistakes to a degree.

The other end is, you can’t let the audience dictate what you’re doing as an artist either. It’s like, they’re sort of coming to you for your imagination. It’s my job to show you something you’re maybe incapable of imagining. I don’t know how you want to look at it, but these people are not making movies. That’s my job is to write the story and make the movie. But it’s invaluable information, where you have everybody giving their opinion on what’s working, so you’re going to get a consensus on some level. It’s super important to learn from that and become a better filmmaker or a better writer, if you can, to deliver the audience a more satisfying experience on the next go around. So, I try. It’s brutal. It’s not easy.

I love the comedy you mix in with Art the Clown, like in the opening scene when he’s just washing the cookie dish. I don’t know why I found myself laughing as hard as I was, but I was. I’m curious, do you have a lot of creative collaboration with David? Do you allow improv on your set?

LEONE: Washing the dishes is something I literally came up with in the moment on set. I felt like we needed more just ludicrous behavior from Art the Clown, where he just decimated the family, is covered in blood, and just now have him wash the dishes. That’s so perfectly Art the Clown. But we do things like that all the time, and we’re constantly throwing ideas at each other, David and I. But a lot of times those things are written. They’re in the script.

But then, if we have time on set, I love to just let David loose for like two or three takes, especially in scenes when he gets to make faces at the other characters. For instance, the scene in Terrifier 2 with the rack of sunglasses. It was very nondescript in the screenplay, just wacky glasses. We didn’t know what they were or what they were going to be, and then we just loaded up the rack, I let David loose, and he’s just trying on all these different glasses and making all these funny faces and amplifying whatever characteristics the glasses have. So a scene like that is perfect for him to improvise. We’re discovering how far we can push the levity in these moments.

Does Art the Clown Believe in Santa?
Image via Cineverse

I am a big horror movie freak, but I’m also a huge Christmas dork, and I love that this is set at Christmastime. How far along did you want this to be a Christmas movie? Did you know right away when creating the franchise you wanted to do a movie set at Christmastime?

LEONE: No, no. But this happened while we were filming Terrifier 2. I was driving up to set with my producer, Phil Falcone. It was just the two of us in the car. We had a long four-hour drive to set, and it was during Christmas, and he just turned to me with all the decorations and everything, and he goes, ‘We should do something with Art the Clown during Christmas. That would be great.’ And immediately, as soon as I heard it, it just clicked. And I said, ‘That would be so perfect.’ So perfect because he lends himself to this holiday, this atmosphere, this tone is so perfect for that character because it’s so wholesome. It’s holy, you know, it’s just everything that that character is not. And also, I love that subgenre so much there are some of my favorite films, especially since I was a kid. I love Black Christmas. My favorite horror Christmas episode ever is called “And All Through the House.” It’s a Tales from the Crypt episode, the maniac Santa Claus. And that’s probably the biggest sort of template for this Christmas horror atmosphere is that episode in Tales from the Crypt. So I always wanted to take a crack at the maniac Santa Claus.

And I figured now that would make that trope fresh. It would make Art the Clown new again, seeing him in that getup. And we can we can put Art into all these ridiculous situations. Like, what would it be like to have Art the Clown become a mall Santa suddenly surrounded by children? What if Art the Clown actually met who he thinks is the real Santa Claus? How much how much comedy could we pull out of that situation? So that was just so exciting. And of course, he’s already carrying a giant sack of goodies over his shoulder. I said, he’s the perfect anti-Santa Claus.

I was laughing all in the lead-up to the bar scene. He just seemed so childlike. Does Art the Clown believe in Santa?

LEONE: (Laughs) As far as I mean, he definitely lets the audience believe that he genuinely believes that it is Santa Claus when he first meets him. But you never know what’s really up his sleeve or what he’s really thinking. (Laughs)

Damien Explains Why There’s a Time Jump Between ‘Terrifier 2’ and ‘Terrifier 3’
Image via Cineverse

This movie ends on a huge cliffhanger. You’ve already said you’re working on Terrifier 4. Are you planning to do a time-jump with the next installment, like you did between the second and third films? Or are you planning on four being a direct continuation of this story?

LEONE:Yeah, well, this one has a huge cliffhanger and an in-your-face cliffhanger. This one is our Empire Strikes Back, where it just has that sort of dark chapter ending for every character involved. I didn’t even want there to be a time jump with this movie, but we started shooting Terrifier 2 in 2018, and by the time it came out, I don’t even remember at this point, it may have been 2022 or something like that, and Elliot Fulham just grew so much. He got so much older and it just wouldn’t make sense. I would have had this take place the Christmas directly following that Halloween. But it just wouldn’t make sense because he grew up so much. So I decided to have this time jump, which also has the movie finally land in real-time because we were dealing with a time frame that was keeping us years back.

So it just wound up working out. And it also allowed me to explore what has been going on with Sienna this whole time. And what has she been dealing with? How has this trauma affected her? So it made her character richer. She’s been through more at this point. And that was an exciting chapter to explore with Sienna’s character, albeit the darkest one. It was a dark chapter for that character, especially where she had to be for the finale of this film was the darkest exploration and an intensity that I’ve never had to experience Lauren go through before. And it was amazing to watch, but it was also very uncomfortable because we had to spend a lot of time in that mindset. So it was interesting, but a very important chapter in her character’s life.

Sienna is probably one of my favorite final girls, even though I’m a recent fan of this franchise. Even going into Terrifier 3, I’m like, ‘How much more can she go through?’ I feel bad. So do you have an endgame in sight for that character? Not even Art, but do you know how her story is going to wrap up?

LEONE: Oh, absolutely. I said this is just as much her franchise as it is Art the Clown. She’s my favorite character. I have a really soft spot for Sienna. Very personal character. I draw from a lot of personal people in my life. I adore that character. When I wrote part two, as I was writing it, I knew where I was going to end the entire saga between Art and Sienna. So I know where it ends. It’s just a matter of how many movies is it going to take me to get there. I can’t see it being more than two.

Every time I open my mouth, something comes out. It’s like ‘There’s going to be two more movies! There’s going to be one more! Terrifier 4 is confirmed!” So I try and be very careful because until it’s set in stone and it’s edited and ripped from my hands and it’s up on the screen, anything’s possible. Because many times I know where I’m going. But, you know, it’ll be a year later by the time I get there, and all of a sudden I’ll have inspiration hit me. I’ll be like, ‘No, no, no, no. This is the right direction to go in’ or ‘It could be a dream or a nightmare.’ And I’m like, oh, it changes everything. So I always have a plan. But that doesn’t mean that plan is set in stone until it’s up on the screen.

Terrifier 3 is in theaters now.

Terrifier 3 Terrifier 3 follows survivors Sienna and her brother as they attempt to recover from their traumatic encounter with the sinister Art the Clown. As the holiday season arrives, their efforts to find peace are shattered when Art returns, intent on turning their Christmas into a new nightmare.Director Damien Leone Runtime 125 Minutes Writers Damien Leone Studio(s) Dark Age Cinema , Fuzz on the Lens Productions Franchise(s) Terrifier

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