This Is Terrifier 2 Director Damien Leone's Favorite Kill In The Series So Far [Exclusive]
In recent years, we've been treated to some standout horror efforts, with surprise hits such as "Barbarian" and "Talk to Me" proving the genre is very much thriving at a time when the movie industry as a whole appears to be in a permanent state of flux. "Terrifier 2" is one such example, causing a stir upon its release after reports of people fainting and vomiting at screenings made the rounds. A film that's too brutal for even seasoned horror fans? That's always going to get attention.
The first film arrived in 2016, and director Damien Leone took it upon himself to push the violence to absurd degrees in order to differentiate his movie from the typical Hollywood slasher. The best and most notorious example was a scene in which a woman is hacksawed in half by the psychotic Art the Clown. When it came time for a sequel, Leone had to outdo himself and pushed things even further, leading horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan to the classify "Terrifier 2" as a "MegaSlasher."
Whether or not you think we need a new genre term for what could quite easily be classified as your typically gruesome splatter effort, the result was a more than $15 million take at the global box office for a film that cost $250,000 to make. A big part of keeping production costs low was Leone's own efforts to make the grizzly practical effects with help from a few trusted colleagues. In one instance, this led to a triumph of gory ingenuity for a scene which, according to Leone, features his favorite kill of the "Terrifier" series so far.
'I really am proud of the bedroom kill scene'
By far the most talked-about scene in "Terrifier 2" is the one in which Casey Hartnett's Allie suffers a brutal death at the hands of David Howard Thornton's Art the Clown. As Damien Leone revealed to Indiewire, this kill required him to construct an entire bedroom set and build a "life-size animatronic dummy" of Allie. This dummy featured rubber gloves and tubing to make it look as though it was breathing, while rods allowed crew members to animate the legs and head. Hartnett's real eyes were superimposed onto the ghastly creation via CGI, and voila! Audiences nationwide scarred for life.
/Film's Jacob Hall spoke with Leone ahead of the theatrical re-release of "Terrifier 2" on November 1, and asked about this infamous bedroom kill, which was, it seems, his crowning achievement. The director spoke about feeling as though he'll never "top the imagery of the hacksaw scene [from the first film]," but while that original kill remains unbeatable for being so shocking to unsuspecting audiences, it isn't Leone's favorite. The director continued:
"Although it's not my favorite kill that I've executed, I think that's always going to be the one that 'Terrifier' is remembered for. But in terms of a technical level and the way it came out, I really am proud of the bedroom kill scene, the Allie kill from 'Terrifier 2.' It was harder because of the popularity of the hacksaw scene from part one. There was a lot of added pressure as to, 'How do we now top that scene and what's it going to be?' So we took a lot of time building that."
But Leone also revealed there was a lot more that went into the Allie kill scene than making a dummy and building a set.
Starting from scratch
"Terrifier 2" was as brutal to film as it was to watch, with David Howard Thornton reportedly being particularly disturbed by the Allie puppet and wrestler/actor Chris Jericho almost throwing up after having to repeatedly eat a plate of Halloween-themed gelatin. But for Leone, the Allie kill scene was the toughest. "Terrifier 2" was shot during the pandemic, which made things even more difficult than simply having to worry about practical effects and set design. As the director told /Film:
"We actually reconfigured that scene during quarantine because we were shut down. Production was cut down, of course, during Covid. We had shot a couple of days and I didn't think it was coming out good at all. So during quarantine, I called my producer, Phil Falcone, and I said, 'Listen, we have all this time on our hands now. Let's just start from scratch. I'm going to write out a list of the worst things you could ever do to a human being, we'll pick about five of them, and we'll just really take all the time to craft these special effects, and then when we get out of this lockdown, we'll go back and we'll shoot it.'"
Leone further explained how he and Falcone spent months building the required practical effects in the latter's basement before returning to shoot the upgraded Allie death scene. The director revealed that he and his crew "shot for an additional five days straight of just murdering poor Casey Hartnett in a freezing cold barn," before praising the actress as "the MVP of that scene." He added, "Not a lot of people would be able to suffer through that. She really did suffer through that, and she delivered such an incredible performance."
How's Leone gonna top that?
You'd think making people faint and vomit would qualify "Terrifier 2" as about as gory and upsetting a horror film as it's possible to get. But there were some scenes that didn't make the final cut for being too brutal to film. Now, with the runaway success of Damien Leone's "MegaSlasher," the pressure is on for the director to outdo himself once again, which means he might have to consider putting a few of those scenes that were too much for the second installment into "Terrifier 3."Â Meanwhile, Art actor David Howard Thornton wants to see Art do a "huge mass kill," which would be one way of outdoing the murderous clown's previous antics.
Whatever Leone comes up with for the third "Terrifier" (and it sounds like it will be Christmas-themed), he'll surely have a lot more help this time around, considering the success of the second film. While that will save him and his crew toiling away in basements for months, there is the potential for other makeup artists and effects designers to dilute Leone's fastidious attention to detail when it comes to designing the gory effects that made "Terrifier" and its sequel so disturbingly effective. The director told Indiewire about another instance where he and Phil Falcone took a whole week to build an "elaborate replica" of an actor's head for a decapitation scene, making sure the fake head was "anatomically correct [...] from the inside out."
While whatever effects appear in the next film will likely be as, if not more professional than Leone's, there's something cool about the fact that Leone built and designed everything himself in "Terrifier 2." Hopefully he'll keep a close watch over things on the next movie.