Last Updated on November 25, 2024 by Angel Melanson
With Terrifier 3 winding down its theatrical release (having grossed over $54 million domestically and more than $85 million worldwide), on the way to its VOD debut November 26 and multiple physical media releases December 17, filmmaker Damien Leone is looking toward the next installment. Fango caught up with him at the recent Monster Mania convention in Oaks, PA, where he and his collaborators were surrounded by adoring fans and copious Art the Clown merch and cosplay.
The fearsome funnyman has struck an ongoing nerve with followers of the frightening, and Leone describes the Art Army as “the entire spectrum of people, from literally 3-year-olds, who aren’t allowed to see the movies but just love the look of this character, to grandparents who get a kick out of Art because there’s a charm and humor to him that break the ice regarding how excessively gory these films are.”
And Leone says the reactions of those devotees to Art’s past and current adventures are definitely influencing his approach to Terrifier 4. “I try to read every review, every critique,” he reveals. “I want to see what’s working and what’s not working, and if I have to course-correct, I do, because I have an allegiance to the audience. On one level, we have a relationship; I’m giving them something, they’re giving me something in return.
“They have to be satisfied, and at the same time, they’re coming to me for my imagination and hoping that I can give them something interesting, something different. So I have to on one level trust my gut, and go where my intuition tells me the story needs to go, and the beats I need to hit. At the same time, I want to make sure I’m satisfying the fans, and delivering the things I know have been working in the prior installments.”
At the same time, he believes that the fan base still has plenty of room to grow, given that Art’s first couple of feature outings (beginning with the anthology All Hallows’ Eve) were largely consumed on video and he has only now become a box-office monster. “I think Terrifier, in the grand scheme of things, is still in its infancy. Most people who have seen Terrifier 3 are just discovering who Art the Clown is, so to them, this is still something original. In everything I do, I try to take something that’s very cliché, like a killer clown, and see if I can put my own spin on it, and make it fresh. Luckily, we’ve been able to do that with Art.”
As he has noted previously, Leone still isn’t sure whether Art’s saga will wrap up with Terrifier 4 or extend further into a Terrifier 5. “When I wrote Terrifier 2,” he recalls, “I knew where the story was going to end, but I didn’t have a final number of movies in mind. I was just approaching it like a novel, and now it’s a matter of breaking it up into chapters, and seeing how long it’s going to take me to get to the end zone.
“So right now, after Terrifier 3, I can say I’m officially going into the final chapter, but while I’m writing it, if it turns out to be a three-hour movie, or a 200-page script, I’ll know it should be broken up into two films. Or maybe I’ll do a Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 kind of thing, and split the movie up into two parts.”
Which leads to one last question: Both the Terrifier sequels pushed past two hours, so what would Leone say to those who believe that’s too long for an exploitation film? “Stay off TikTok!” he laughs.
