The What Happened to This Horror Movie episode on Terrifier 3 was written by Jaime Vasquez:
Terrifier 3 is the highest-grossing unrated film of all time. But according to creator Damien Leone, getting the movie made was nothing short of a “small miracle.” The schedule was brutal. The kills were more elaborate than ever. And somehow, Leone and his crew had to figure out how to put every disgusting idea he’d written on the screen. And they did.
So, how did they pull off Terrifier 3’s most gruesome kills? Which scene actually made Art the Clown himself feel sick? And what moment was so extreme that audiences reportedly walked out of the theater? Put on your Santa hats, because we’re heading back to Miles County to find out What Happened to Terrifier 3.
Art the Clown’s macabre journey began in 2008 with the short film The 9th Circle, where, surprisingly, our beloved killer wasn’t even the main antagonist. He returned in the anthology film All Hallows’ Eve before finally taking center stage in the original Terrifier. Made on a tiny budget, the film introduced audiences to Art’s particular brand of sadistic violence and ended with final girl Victoria Heyes horrifically disfigured.
But Terrifier 2 changed everything. The sequel went bigger in almost every possible way, expanding the mythology, introducing Sienna Shaw, and transforming Art from an underground horror villain into a genuine genre icon. It also introduced supernatural elements, including Sienna’s seemingly magical sword. But if anyone worried the franchise was getting too lost in fantasy, Leone made sure there was still plenty of bloodshed to go around.
Following the success of Terrifier 2, Damien Leone had considerably more options when it came to financing the third film. But he feared that going through a major studio could cost the franchise its special brand of depravity. Backed by Dark Age Cinema and The Coven, Leone was only asked to keep the runtime down to two hours after Terrifier 2 received criticism for its length. He agreed.
The idea for the sequel came during a car ride with producer Phil Falcone, who suggested having Art kill at Christmas. A fan of the original Black Christmas and the Tales from the Crypt episode “All Through the House,” which features an escaped mental patient in a Santa Claus suit, Leone found inspiration for Art’s latest killing spree, particularly the film’s cold opening. Killer Santas had been done before. But a home invasion where even the children were hacked to pieces? That was a road less traveled. And, well, taboo is right at home in the Terrifier films.
Despite interest from major studios, this opening was one of the things that convinced Leone to keep the film independent. He was certain those first few pages would be rejected by a major production company. He was also adamant about keeping Art scary.
Leone has noted that Freddy Krueger became less threatening as the A Nightmare on Elm Street sequels went on, thanks in part to Freddy’s increasingly cheeky one-liners. Art can certainly be silly, but Leone wanted him to remain unpredictable.
Just as important was the approach to Art’s victims. Leone wanted them to feel like multidimensional, even likable people. The goal was to make audiences frightened and shocked rather than cheering Art on as he kills.
Friends with the members of horror-metal band Ice Nine Kills, Leone was happy to have them contribute the film’s official song, “Work of Art.” Its fifteen-minute music video features David Howard Thornton as Art embarking on another blood-soaked rampage, while Leone and Phil Falcone make cameos as themselves. Lead singer Spencer Charnas even suggested having Art kill a newborn baby, but Leone rejected the idea as going too far. For Charnas, having the man behind Terrifier deem his idea too extreme was, in his words, a “badge of honor.” The song itself can be heard in the film, playing in Jonathan’s dorm room when he first meets Mia.
Lauren LaVera returns as final girl Sienna Shaw. Having survived a brutal fight with Art alongside her brother, LaVera was excited to explore a more scarred side of the character. To prepare, the actress watched content about PTSD and survivor’s guilt. She also asked Leone specific questions about the five-year gap between films, including how much time Sienna spent in a mental health hospital. LaVera said she intentionally played Sienna as more short-tempered and emotional, drawing inspiration from how Sienna’s parents behaved toward the end of their lives. It likely explains many of her outbursts throughout the film.
LaVera pulls off the panic and rage, delivering an even stronger performance than she did in Terrifier 2.
Elliott Fullam returns as Sienna’s younger brother, Jonathan Shaw. Though his role is smaller this time, Fullam still does some emotional heavy lifting with the increasingly grim material. His distance from Sienna also feels natural after what the siblings went through together five years earlier.
Filling the sidekick role is Antonella Rose as Gabbie, Sienna’s curious preteen cousin and resident investigator into all things Sienna Shaw. Leone was impressed by Rose’s ability to bring out intense emotion on command. If a scene required more from her, the young actress would walk off to a corner before returning with tears streaming down her face, ready to perform.
Gabbie spends much of the film snooping into Sienna’s past, even though Sienna tries to shield her from it. Fortunately, all that snooping leads to a nice payoff during one of the film’s most tense moments.
Jonathan’s new college life introduces roommate Cole, played by Mason Macartea, and Cole’s girlfriend Mia, played by Alexa Blair Robertson. While Cole remains relatively respectful of Jonathan and Sienna’s traumatic past, his podcaster girlfriend is considerably more fascinated by it. Mia is obsessed with the story, even requesting that both siblings appear on her show to discuss what happened. Through Mia, the film explores the voyeuristic side of people’s fascination with shocking and gruesome events. Unlike Gabbie’s genuine admiration and concern for Sienna, Mia’s interest always comes with an end goal in mind.
Samantha Scaffidi returns as Victoria Heyes, this time possessed by the spirit of the Little Pale Girl from Terrifier 2. As a villain, Scaffidi hits the mark, dialing up the insanity while bringing a more human kind of cruelty to the role. Where Art treats murder like a performance, Victoria’s viciousness feels much more personal. It makes the two an oddly effective pair.
The Lost Boys’ Jason Patric plays Sienna’s dad, Michael, in flashbacks to her childhood, with the character’s name serving as a nod to Patric’s role in the vampire classic.
Among the solid list of cameos is legendary makeup effects artist Tom Savini, who is credited as “Bystander,” a man who witnessed the mall bombing and describes it on the news. A lifelong fan, Leone was thrilled to include Savini.
Filming took place in New York between February and April 2024, with additional shooting in June. Much of the film was shot on Staten Island, with locations including St. John’s University and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden.
Leone again worked with cinematographer George Steuber, a longtime collaborator dating back to All Hallows’ Eve. The two chose Panavision anamorphic lenses to give the film the look of vintage ’80s horror, with Leone specifically hoping to capture the feel of classic John Carpenter movies.
The budget increased to $2 million, still relatively low by Hollywood standards but more than the previous films combined.
Even with the extra money, production was hardly smooth sailing. During additional shooting and post-production, Leone said some crew members worked practically nonstop from June until the film’s October release, sometimes putting in 14-hour days, six days a week.
Although this was the first time in the Terrifier universe that Leone didn’t personally handle all of the special effects, he had some incredible backup. Academy Award-nominated special effects artist Christien Tinsley, whose credits include The Passion of the Christ and No Country for Old Men, served as the film’s primary artist. Tinsley and his team worked throughout the shoot and constructed the major set pieces.
Additional support came from John Caglione Jr., whose work includes The Departed and Heath Ledger’s Joker makeup in The Dark Knight. Caglione reached out to Leone on Instagram about working together. As a big fan of his work, Leone couldn’t agree fast enough.
Jason Baker, who has long worked closely with Tom Savini, was also involved. Baker created the look of the infamous Iron Clad Demon and the Virgin Mary’s eerie face, both of which appear in Sienna’s dream. The sequence was brief, but it left a lasting impression. Many fans wanted to know more about the Demon’s connection to the story.
Even with such a remarkable effects team, Leone remained hands-on and stepped in to help with makeup effects whenever he could.
For Art’s appearance, David Howard Thornton once again spent an hour and a half in the makeup chair. This time, however, Tinsley handled the job instead of Leone. A makeup artist first prepared Thornton’s skin and glued on the rubber prosthetic before applying the eyebrows and Art’s infamous black-and-white makeup. Tinsley said the most complicated part was maintaining the contrast and continuity of the colors, since even the smallest mistake could be easily noticed.
Thornton had also worn the exact same pair of prosthetic teeth for years before Tinsley finally made him a brand-new set. Because of the limited budgets on the previous films, the old teeth were simply repaired and reassembled whenever they cracked or broke.
Also new was Thornton’s ability to properly swing an axe. The actor trained before filming, meaning that for the first time, Art the Clown officially knew how to use his weapon properly. Growing up before our very eyes and graduating to Certified Axe Murderer.
The shocking mall explosion was mostly shot on location inside the Staten Island Mall. Parents were notified of the content before allowing their children to participate and remained present on set. Leone and the crew worked to create a calm atmosphere, with Thornton casually chatting with the kids between takes. The children, meanwhile, were anything but scared. They even excitedly kept asking when the bomb would go off.
Leone would flat-out deny that any bomb was involved before filming the actual explosion shots separately in a parking lot with no children on set.
For the scenes where rats crawl around Art and Victoria’s house, live trained rats were used under the supervision of the American Humane Society to ensure the animals’ safety. But for the infamous rat tube scene, a prop was used instead.
Thornton confessed that it wasn’t the rat that grossed him out. It was the fake vomit. The crew used hot mushroom soup, which already smelled unpleasant and became even worse inside the humid house. Combined with Thornton’s empathetic nature, it was enough to genuinely make him want to vomit.He fought the urge, knowing that getting sick would mean removing and reapplying his elaborate makeup, a time-consuming process he didn’t want to put his makeup artist through.
Thornton is usually able to separate fact from fiction and shrug off the films’ extreme violence, but this was definitely an exception.
For the triple-homicide bar scene, veteran character actors Daniel Roebuck, Clint Howard, and Bradley Stryker played two patrons and the bartender, respectively. Roebuck improvised much of his dialogue, and the exchange made Leone laugh so much on set that he said the only scene he found equally funny was Art riding the tricycle in the original Terrifier.
Thornton also enjoyed the scene and named the Santa kill his favorite in the film. He compared wielding Art’s liquid-nitrogen gun to playing Mr. Freeze from Batman. Of course, Art’s version was considerably bloodier.
Leone didn’t want the frozen limbs to simply shatter like glass. Instead, he wanted them to break apart more like blocks of ice, with blood squirting out, of course. Tinsley and special effects artist Mark Killingsworth combined bloody inner fillings with more fragile outer shells. The fake body parts could then be placed on Roebuck, smashed apart, and replaced for multiple takes.
So, you might say Killingsworth made the killings worthwhile. Sorry, had to.
For the film’s cold opening, particularly the scene where Art kills the young mother Jennifer, Tinsley first filmed a profile shot using her body cast as Thornton swung his axe down. They then switched to a three-quarter angle, replacing the body cast with the actress herself wearing a prosthetic arm. Art’s weapon could then be seen aggressively hacking through the prosthetic. The shots were carefully arranged so that, once edited together, the action appeared to flow seamlessly from one moment to the next.
Enhancing the moment is Jennifer’s reaction. Leone credited actress Krsy Fox with really selling the scene by nailing her bloodcurdling screams.
The children’s deaths, meanwhile, remain off camera. But the sound design during Timmy’s death makes the moment particularly disturbing. Lauren LaVera later named it her favorite kill in the movie for that very reason. The audience doesn’t see what happens but instead hears and feels it, proving that sometimes less really is more.
Leone likes to have detailed conversations with actors playing Art’s victims before they even agree to join the films. He wants to prepare them for the extended hours, the grueling work involved in the kills, and the possibility that their elaborate death sequences might become something they’re associated with for a while.
That was the case with Mason Macartea and Alexa Blair Robertson when they signed on to play Cole and Mia. Their death scene was written as a nod to the infamous shower scene in Psycho and the chainsaw-in-the-bathtub moment in Scarface.
Having only read their dialogue, the actors were shocked to learn about their joint shower murder sequence. The idea was a little daunting, but they were ultimately excited to join the cast and agreed. Their dialogue exchange was filmed separately because of the complex staging of the chainsaw kills.
Although the crew demonstrated that the chainsaw was only a prop and not dangerous, it was still difficult for the actors not to feel alarmed watching Art swing the large weapon around them. The sequence also involved intricate choreography, all while the actors wore heavy prosthetics. And the bloodshed was no joke. Leone stated that the scene used a whopping twenty gallons of fake blood.
Of all the kills Tinsley worked on, the shower scene was the one he was most proud of. He hoped it would become an all-time favorite among horror fans and one of the film’s most memorable sequences.
Filming was tough on Macartea and Robertson, particularly Macartea, who found seeing his own prosthetic body double a little disturbing. Still, they described the experience positively and credited the crew with making them as comfortable as possible.
While Leone had two editors handling some of the footage, he said he still edited 90% of the film. The only major request was that the final cut remain under two hours. Leone came close, delivering a film that ran only a few minutes over.
He also trimmed seven pages from the finale, including a lengthy and disturbing conversation between Victoria and Gabbie that Leone described as “psychologically sadistic.”
Other material left out included more family time between Sienna and Gabbie, a scene involving Sienna and Aunt Jess, and a moment where Victoria reattached Art’s head to his body. But with so many people repeatedly requesting a shorter runtime, these scenes, like many of the characters, didn’t survive.
Terrifier 3 was released on October 11, 2024, and, as expected, reactions were strong. At one UK screening, eleven audience members reportedly walked out early, with nine leaving during the opening scene. There were also reports of someone vomiting during the same showing.
As with Terrifier 2, the controversy did nothing to hurt the film. Terrifier 3 debuted at number one at the box office, earning $18.5 million during its opening weekend. It went on to earn just under $54 million domestically and more than $35 million overseas, reaching a worldwide total of roughly $89 million against a $2 million budget.
The film also became the most successful unrated release of all time.
Critics praised the sequel, which earned a 78% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an even stronger 85% audience score. Many reviewers felt the film successfully upped the ante from its predecessors while also making excellent use of its Christmas setting.
The Blu-ray release didn’t include the alternate unrated version fans had hoped for, mostly because the theatrical version is already about as unrated as it gets.
The novelization, however, introduces some additional kills. There’s Sienna’s psychiatrist, who is killed by Art and Victoria. We’re also introduced to Zach, a distant cousin of Allie from Terrifier 2. Despite what happened to poor Allie, Zach has become something of an Art fan and presses Jonathan for details about him. Like Mia, his morbid fascination eventually earns him an especially gruesome death. The novelization also explores the theme of PTSD more deeply.
Writer Tim Waggoner stated that Leone asked him not to elaborate on Jonathan’s off-screen fate or explain how Sienna retrieved her magical sword, which had been hidden somewhere inside the Terrifier funhouse from the previous film. Those omissions leave some intriguing questions heading into Terrifier 4.
We see what is supposedly Jonathan’s skull, and actor Elliott Fullam himself has said that Jonathan is dead. Leone also explained that the death scene wasn’t shown because it would have followed Mia and Cole’s gruesome shower sequence. He worried that audiences would already be too desensitized for Jonathan’s death to have its intended impact.
But can we really be sure? Does it somehow connect to the magical sword? And what’s with Gabbie’s disappearance?
Both LaVera and Thornton have said they’re willing to return to the franchise with Leone at the helm, trusting his vision and where he can take the story. Leone has also teased that actors, particularly horror veterans, have reached out wanting to be part of the Terrifier universe. While he’s happy to include them, he wants to weave those actors into the story naturally and write to their strengths as performers.
But for now, we have the Terrifier trilogy and All Hallows’ Eve. And while Terrifier 3 leaves us with plenty of ambiguity, it’s still a satisfying watch.
Sienna remains a strong character, reminiscent of more recent final girls like Mia in Evil Dead and Erin in You’re Next, characters whose survival isn’t necessarily defined by purity but by strength and resilience. Art remains as terrifying as Leone wanted him to be, while Victoria steals her share of scenes. The expanded lore leaves the viewer wanting more.
And that, my friends, is What Happened to Terrifier 3.
A couple of previous episodes of this show can be seen below. For more, check out the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel—and don’t forget to subscribe!