Terrifier 3 Director Gets Honest About The Pressures Of Building On A Fan-Favorite Film

Pennywise better watch out; there's a new killer clown in town and he's truly terrifying. 

The 2022 surprise hit "Terrifier 2" brought the greasepaint-covered bogeyman Art the Clown to the mainstream, shocking audiences worldwide and earning around $12 million at the box office despite almost no marketing campaign. Instead the film's success relied entirely on word of mouth, as fans who were horrified by the brutal sequel told their friends they simply had to see it to believe it. The first "Terrifier" took the Art character from Leone's 2013 anthology film "All Hallows' Eve" and gave him a feature-length film of his own, portrayed by actor David Howard Thornton. "Terrifier" was a low-budget limited release that earned mixed reviews and moderate attention from horror fanatics, but its sequel had more success than anyone probably could have imagined. Now, Leone has one seriously tough task ahead of him: making a "Terrifier 3" that will live up to its predecessor.

"Terrifier 2" was kind of a miracle, with its modest $250,000 budget and lack of marketing. The film's commitment to gory exploitation managed to genuinely gross out audiences, with reports of fainting, vomiting, and ambulances being called to theaters. That's advertising so good that you can't even buy it and harkens back to classic horror films like "The Exorcist," which also allegedly led audiences to be sick. That's a lot for Leone to live up to in the upcoming "Terrifier 3," and he recently sat down with Variety to share his concerns over potentially letting the fans down.

According to Variety, Cineverse Corp. announced that it has secured the North American rights to the slasher sequel "Terrifier 3," with series writer/director Damien Leone and producer Phil Falcone both returning. The film is scheduled to begin a wide theatrical release in 2024 in North America, followed by its exclusive debut on Cineverse's streaming service Screambox. (Both "Terrifier" and "Terrifier 2" are also available to stream on the service.) With the viral success of "Terrifier 2," the company is looking to go bigger, grosser, gorier, and hopefully amass an even bigger box office haul.

Leone told Variety that he has been working on "Terrifier 3" since before he even finished the second film, as he knew it was going to be a trilogy pretty early on. He explained:

"Even while I was writing 'Part Two,' I actually had scenes that I'd already written for 'Part Three' because I knew where it was going to go. I want to shift back a bit to the tone of 'Part One,' which I felt was a little more simplistic and old school, gritty slasher. I want this one to go back in that direction, and I want this to be the scariest one of the trilogy."

Going back to basics sounds like a lot of fun, but will it be enough to satisfy the bloodthirsty fans?

Part of the reason behind the wild success of "Terrifier 2" was the film's extensive gore, the kind of thing that makes your average horror flick look like an after-school special. While good gory gross-outs are a whole lot of fun, the infamy of "Terrifier 2" means that Damien Leone has a lot of pressure on him to make this one even nastier, which could be a challenge. He told Variety:

"There's sleepless nights sometimes where, 'Oh my God, I can't let the fans of this franchise down.' They always come to expect the next big kill scene, the next big gory set piece. How am I going to top the now-infamous hacksaw scene in 'Part One,' and now the second movie? I get asked at the conventions, 'How are you going to top the bedroom scene?' I always want to swing for the fences and try and see if I could outdo myself from the previous installment."

The hacksaw scene in the first "Terrifier" film became infamous in horror film circles for being truly grotesque, and most of "Terrifier 2" has been lauded by gorehounds as one of the nastiest, bloodiest horror movies ever made. In order to appease the fans and figure out how to make "Terrifier 3" even better than "Terrifier 2," Leone looked to social media. He had already learned some from the mistakes of the first "Terrifier," and the fans could hold the key to a more complete trilogy.

Many creatives avoid reading reviews or looking at criticism, but Damien Leone uses the communication he has with his fans to try and make his movies even better. He explained that he loves looking on social media and YouTube, embracing the positive responses and trying to learn from the negative ones. This might burn the egos of some creatives too much to endure, but Leone finds it to be truly helpful. He explained:

"I wanted 'Part Two' to have a 'Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors' vibe to it. That was my tone in the back of my head and I knew I was really going to embrace this supernatural and fantasy element. I also knew I was going to alienate a handful of fans going that route. I personally love it. There's a lot of people who didn't love the fantasy, or at least they need more explanation as to why that's all happening. I didn't want to explain everything in 'Part Two,' so I am going to explain as we go."

Instead of leaning into the fantasy aspects further, Leone said he's going to take fan critiques to heart and try and go back towards the slightly more realistic tone of the first "Terrifier," instead of "going further into 'Dream Warriors.'" That means that "Terrifier 3" is likely to be just as gory as the film before it, but it might be even more disturbing if it tones down the fantasy aspects. After all, the closer the film is to reality, the more people will be able to imagine Art the Clown invading their own lives.

The first two "Terrifier" films are available to stream on Screambox. "Terrifier 3" is set to premiere in theaters in 2024.