ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Terrifier 2 director Damien Leone about the film’s heroine and what lines Leone won’t cross when it comes to gore. The film releases in theaters on October 6.
“Resurrected by a sinister entity, Art the Clown returns to Miles County to terrorize a teenage girl and her younger brother on Halloween night,” reads the film’s synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Congrats on Terrifier 2, you really up the ante in every way. I was curious about your approach to the sequel because horror films sometimes produce great sequels, but sometimes it all falls apart. What was your approach to going back to Art the Clown and fleshing him out?
Damien Leone: First of all, thank you, man! I’m glad you enjoyed it. My mindset was, going into this — and I’m not comparing Terrified 2 to these movies — but I was in the mindset of, “this has to be our Dawn of the Dead. Our Evil Dead 2. Our Nightmare on Elm Street 3.” It had to be that bigger sequel that sort of brings it to another level. I wanted to up the kill scenes, I wanted to up the scope … I mean, more importantly than all of that … that’s the stuff that people want on the surface. They want the kill scenes, they want Art doing his thing. But I really wanted to include really dynamic protagonists this time. I really wanted to have our hero Sienna, our final girl, someone who could really go up against Art the Clown and be a worthy nemesis, someone that the audience can really get behind and follow. This movie’s really about her journey as much as it is Art’s and where he’s going in this one. So that was it — just building a bigger scope and having more dynamic characters that you can care about. That was my goal.
Art the Clown’s been around for over a decade at this point. When you spent so much time with the character, how much easier does it make it to write about him and come up with stories about Art? Because he’s spent so much time in your head.
Yeah, it’s actually like second nature writing him, believe it or not. I mean, it’s, it’s tricky, you know? The audience, they can’t tell how much of Art the Clown is me and how much it’s David [Howard Thornton, who plays Art]. David is Art the Clown, so that’s what you see. But I write all of this stuff. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he brings so much to it with his mannerisms and I let him improvise on set all the time and I use a lot of his improvisation, but I really know how to write this character well. I know his sense of humor, his dark sense of humor, and just kind of those sadistic things that he could do, but that’ll also make the audience laugh in an uncomfortable way and things like that.
I love that almost as much as I love writing the gore and the violent set pieces. So going into this, honestly, Art was the least of my concerns. I felt like he was the safety net in this movie because I just know how to write him. Not saying I did that. It could be a disaster. I don’t know if I failed with the character or not. But that wasn’t my concern. I was more concerned about this new fantasy element that I was injecting into the movie that was really big compared to the first one. And again, writing characters and putting drama into this movie that wasn’t necessarily there in part one. So that new flip on the tone was what was making me a little nervous in regards to audience’s reaction to this one.
Lauren [LaVera] is so great as Sienna. What about her stood out and made you envision her being the franchise protagonist?
I couldn’t agree more, she’s a godsend. She was the only person I considered for the part. There was never a runner-up. As soon as I saw her reel … her acting was amazing and she was also a martial artist. So I knew the end of this movie was going to be so physical that it would be no problem for her. We wouldn’t really need stunt women or anything to come in and do most of the stuff. So I saw the reel and everything and then I wanted her to come in to do an actual audition and read with some of the other actors that I was casting. Seeing her read with Elliot Fullam — who was another amazing actor who plays her brother, Jonathan — seeing their chemistry together was so wonderful. It just made me so excited. I knew that those were my people. I knew they were going to elevate my material and make it so much better. [I’m] blessed to have worked with them. They were tremendous.
You even got pro-wrestling legend and Fozzy rockstar Chris Jericho in the film. How did that come about?
Oh man, what an honor there. He just turned out to be a huge Terrifier fan. I heard through friends of mine who were wrestling fans and would listen to his podcast. So one day I just get a text message, “dude. I’m listening to Chris Jericho and he’s talking about Terrifier and talking about Art the Clown and saying Art the Clown’s the next face of horror and all this stuff.” And I was like, “oh my God, that’s pretty freaking amazing.” Then one day he crossed paths with David Howard Thornton at a horror convention, I believe, and they hit it off. I think he had David on his podcast, and then I got introduced to him and he said, “I would love to be in Terrifier 2 if you ever do one. If you have a part, I’d love to play it.” And I actually wrote a part for him specifically. He came in and did it, and he was such a cool guy. Just so down to earth. Made me feel really comfortable because you never know what to expect, working with someone like that. He was so nice and so cool made it a breeze. He’s such a cool guy and such a huge horror fan. We could talk horror all day, which is amazing. It’s pretty much the only thing I know how to talk about anyway.
What makes art part of what makes Art such a great character is that he fits into like the silent slasher villain, but he’s so expressive, which so few are. Talk me through that element. It kind of gives you the best of both worlds there.
That’s what it is. I love those villains so much. I grew up watching them since I was three years old, seriously. So I injected a little bit of all my favorite elements from those characters. So he’s got the silent killer/silent stalker, like Michael Myers. He’s more brutal with his kills, like Jason. The movie as a whole has more of the grit, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There’s a more gritty vibe to Terrifier. I think there’s never quite been a silent Freddy Kruger. I think that’s what was missing, the last kind of combination that you can do. I think Art is very close to a silent Freddy. He has that funny sense of humor without actually speaking. You know what he’s thinking, you know what he would say to a victim. You could almost fill in the dialogue for yourself. It’s so fun to be around this character. I think Art’s very charismatic and a lot of that has to do with Dave. He brings a lot of charisma to the role, so it’s a great relationship. We have a lot of fun exploring. Every time we make another movie, we explore new little things we can do with this character that might be interesting or fresh.
This film just has some of the most gruesome kills I’ve seen in a while. When it comes to gore, is there ever too much? D you ever feel like when you’re plotting something, “oh, that would be too far?” It doesn’t seem like there’s a line.
Believe it or not. there is a line. What you see, at the end of the day, I’ve imagined where it can go five times worse. Then I always say, “we cannot do that. We have to bring it back and stop here.” That happened, I’d say, during three scenes in Terrifier 2, where I thought of taking it to a much worse place, but I was afraid of really ostracizing the audience. I know we’re already doing that to a degree. I know this gore is too extreme for some people, but it could also be way worse. I don’t want the audience leaving and just being miserable and being down, like, “well, what was the point of that? I left there just feeling like the world is so bleak.”
Because there’s such a heavy layer of fantasy, especially over Terrifier 2, I thought maybe I can get away with some more extreme gore — because the movie’s so obviously not grounded in reality, even though the characters themselves are grounded in reality. At least, that was my goal in writing it. I’m not trying to do like a corny horror movie or something like that, but it is so fantastic and over-the-top with this supernatural element that maybe it would ease the audience into the violence a little more. I don’t know if that’s the case, but to answer your question, there are lines that I won’t cross. That doesn’t mean I don’t think other filmmakers shouldn’t cross them. I think you should be able to show whatever you want in a movie, just as long as you’re not harming people or animals or something like that. But I think you should show whatever you want.
