INTERVIEW: With ‘Terrifier 2’ coming back, Damien Leone spills his guts on the future of Art
Photo: Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2 stars Lauren LaVera and David Howard Thornton. Photo courtesy of Cinedigm / Provided by KWPR with permission.
Terrifier 2, the gruesome sequel that haunted movie theaters last Halloween season, is returning to cinemas for special screenings beginning Wednesday, Nov. 1. Fans are likely to turn out in droves, not only for a chance to see Art the Clown and his devilish mayhem, but also because director Damien Leone has a few surprises for his devotees: a Terrifier 3 exclusive poster and teaser trailer.
Few details are known about the third film (technically the fourth film if one counts All Hallow’s Eve, the feature-length debut of the clown in question), but in a recent interview with Hollywood Soapbox, the director promised that this teaser trailer will set up the third part and leave fans salivating for more.
For those not on the Terrifier bandwagon, this horror franchise has a long and successful career. Many years ago, Leone made a couple short films with Art the Clown, a character who is diabolical in his killing ways — made even creepier because he doesn’t talk, laughs with no sound coming from his mouth and smiles a wide grin. Genre aficionados enjoyed the shorts on YouTube, which were eventually worked into an anthology film called All Hallow’s Eve, which was released a decade ago.
Then, Art went big time with his own film, called Terrifier. This brutal exposé won a dedicated fan base, but Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) was still a fringe character in the horror world. That is until Halloween season 2022. That’s when Terrifier 2 was released for a limited run in movie theaters. Audiences responded in kind and kept going back for more.
The fans embraced not only Art, but new characters Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) and Jonathan Shaw (Elliott Fullam), a sister-brother team trying to outrun the murderous clown. This sequel did mind-boggling (and brain-splattering) business, raking in more than $10 million on a budget that was 1/40 that size. Art the Clown jumped firmly into the mainstream, receiving Twitter callouts from Stephen King and even appearing on segments on morning talk shows. Kevin Smith hosted the cast and crew for a special screening at his movie theater in New Jersey. Much of the chatter had to do with the devastatingly bloody kill scenes; Art’s exploits are not for the faint of heart, and vomit bags are a good idea. Seriously, viewer discretion is advised.
Now, with only a few days before Terrifier 2 is re-released in cinemas (with some Terrifier 3 goodies attached), Hollywood Soapbox talked with Leone about the past, present and future of the continuing franchise. He’s not only the director of the series, but he’s also responsible for producing, editing and the makeup/special effects. Here’s what he had to say …
On his excitement to re-release Terrifier 2 in cinemas …
“So psyched. Very excited because that theatrical window, that experience [in 2022] was one of the coolest things to happen to my cast and crew. We were not expecting this movie, when we made it, to get the opportunity to go into movie theaters, and then to see it sort of blow up and go viral … that first weekend where Stephen King was tweeting about it. Howard Stern was doing a segment on his show. Morning talk shows were talking about the movie that’s making everybody sick. It was almost like a dare to go and see it and see if you can stomach it, so that was a really special, exciting moment. People had so much fun, specifically in the theaters with this film, so to get that opportunity again. Of course, there were a lot of people who didn’t have the opportunity to go see it and wished they did, so hopefully they can go and check it out now with a crowd. And also now it’s going to have the teaser to Part 3 attached to it, which I’m most excited for right now. So it’s another reason to go check it out. That’ll hold you over until Part 3 comes out.”
On what he can say about the teaser for Terrifier 3 …
“It’s like a little mini short film. We put a lot of work into it. It’s very cool, and it totally sets up what Part 3 is. And you’re also going to see it’s going to be a drastically different-looking movie to a degree. I don’t want to give away why or the aesthetic, but I’m excited for people to see that.”
On whether he had confidence or nervousness before Terrifier 2’s gore was unleashed on an audience …
“I was always super-confident because [the gore has] always been one of the most popular aspects and strong suits of this franchise, and I always say, if you take away those big kill scenes and that graphic gore, if this is a table, I feel like you’re cutting two of the legs off. It’s a star of the film, the gore. I was never afraid of that. The problem is just convincing people that they need to trust you, and they need to go with that. And it’s going to be for the best. And luckily Cinedigm, now Cineverse, really believed in the vision behind me, and they were like, ‘Yeah, let’s just do it. Let’s go all in and see what happens, and let’s just not mess with this movie. It is what it is.’ And they also didn’t bother me about the runtime, which was another really controversial decision to have a 2-hour-and-18-minute slasher movie, which is virtually unheard of. It might be some kind of record, honestly, and they totally trusted and believed in my vision. So [they were] amazing people to work with, and it paid off because it was such an unprecedented type of film. It was the right film, right place, right time to have that reaction.”
On some of the influences that led to the creation of Terrifier 2 …
“I was in a bookstore one day, and I was going through a book about Jack the Ripper. And then I stumbled upon an actual crime scene of one of his victims, and it was this woman horribly massacred on a bed. And it was so disturbing, I just said, ‘Oh my God, that happened in reality. How did that woman end up there?’ I said, ‘What if Art the Clown was responsible for that? And what would he have done to her to get her there?’ So I just sort of reverse-engineered that actual photograph of Jack the Ripper.”
On whether he has a kill scene in Terrifier 3 that will top the first two movies …
“It’s already locked in. I know what it is. I wish I could talk about it, but again it’s going to be one of those scenes where the audience goes, ‘Ah, here we are. It’s happening.’ But the only cool thing I guess I could say is it’s an homage to two classic kill scenes. One is from a horror movie, and one of them is not from a horror movie. And they’re two of my favorite films, of course, and I married them together. And I’m putting my own spin on them, of course. I can’t wait for people to see this. I can’t say what the movies are because you would know right away what these kills are. I’m excited for it. It’s a lot, and it’s really pushing the boundary. But that’s something that I’m also very hesitant about because I love Terrifier, as extreme as it is, I love it being a fun experience at the end of the day. I think it’s important to have Art always be this fun, charming, quirky, goofy character to a degree so people realize this is just a fictional world. We are having fun. This isn’t meant to be taken that seriously, even though this is some really extreme stuff at the same time. I’m always trying to walk that line.”
On whether he’s planned the franchise’s evolution, or is he taking it one movie at a time …
“By the time I got to All Hallow’s Eve, I did know I wanted to make Terrifier. I had made two short films originally before they were put in All Hallow’s Eve. So the first one with Art the Clown, Art was one of many characters. He was just a supporting character in the first three minutes, and once I started getting the reaction from people who saw that, they were like, ‘Keep making more stuff with that clown. He’s crazy.’ Then I made a short film called Terrifier, which was 20 minutes, and that was solely focused on Art the Clown. He was the villain. He was the centerpiece, and that’s when I turned him into a slasher because I knew I had to do more with this character now. And I love slashers, so that was my crack at the slasher.
“Once I made that, that was my proof of concept for the feature Terrifier, so I was shopping that around and showing it to investors for years. But nobody wanted to make it. Nobody wanted to give me money to make it, so all I could really do while I was trying to raise money was throw those short films onto YouTube and just have them gain momentum or traction. And the producer of All Hallow’s Eve wound up finding them, and he talked me into his anthology. … So eventually I met my producer, Phil Falcone, who was the only one to believe in me to give me money to make Terrifier the film.”
On why he recast Art the Clown between All Hallow’s Eve and Terrifier …
“It’s one of those serendipitous things. It’s fate. I don’t know what you want to call it, but I picked David [Howard Thornton] out of about 10 people in one day. And then I just stopped the auditions. I said, ‘There’s no reason to look any further.’ The original Art the Clown, my buddy Mike [Giannelli], not an actor, I just threw the makeup on him, and I just had him sit there and smile and make goofy faces. And it worked. It was so effective, and I figured if I can have him be that effective without an actor, I don’t need much. So going into the original Terrifier, recasting that role, I wanted an actor who was just physically taller and thinner because I knew that was going to make the character appear to be much creepier because his design is built to be very gaunt and someone who is very bony. I made him very zombie-like. I wanted someone very thin and taller, and as soon as David walked in, he was about the sixth person to walk into the audition, I see this very tall, lanky, skinny guy with a big smile. I said, ‘Ooh, I know for a fact he’s going to look amazing in that makeup and that costume,’ and then I gave him the direction, ‘You’re decapitating somebody, but you’re doing it very gleefully, like you’re having a great time.’ And then David just flipped this switch, and he gave me the most amazing theatrical performance where now I saw what an actor can actually bring to the table, an actual theatrical actor and that skill set.
“He loves Mr. Bean and the classics, the Marx Brothers. He also loves Jim Carrey, and he was giving me a lot of that sort of Grinch-Jim Carrey type stuff. But you saw this whole range, this whole spectrum, and I just knew that I’ll have a lot more to choose from. And we can bring a lot more depth to this character, and David actually is going to turn him into a clown now. I probably would have gave him the part just based on what he looked like honestly, but then seeing what he could bring to the table as an actor, I said, ‘This is going to be phenomenal.’ So we saw a couple more people, and then I turned to my producer, Phil, only two of us in the room, and I said, ‘What else are we really looking for?’ I said, ‘This guy is perfect.’ We were doing all of our makeup and stuff in an apartment. I said, ‘Let’s bring him back to the apartment. Let’s throw the prosthetic on him, get him in costume, and we’ll film him doing everything he just did.’ It was a no-brainer from that point on.”
On whether anyone who died in Terrifier 2 isn’t actually dead, given that Art appears to be supernatural …
“That’s a great question, and it will be addressed in Part 3.”
On when filming will begin on Terrifier 3 …
“We didn’t even start filming yet. We’re starting in a couple more months hopefully. … It pretty much has to come out this time of next year, so it’s going to be a quick turnaround. … There’s always pressure. I know we’ll get it done.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Terrifier 2, written and directed by Damien Leone, will be re-released in movie theaters Wednesday, Nov. 1. Click here for more information.
