Damien Leone might put together an extended cut of Terrifier 3, but doesn’t think fans will like it

Writer/director Damien Leone had a budget of around $55,000 to work with on his breakout horror film Terrifier, and a budget of “a little over” $250,000 for Terrifier 2, which was a massive hit when it was released in 2022, earning $15.1 million at the box office. Since the second film did so well, Terrifier 3 has a substantially higher budget. A “couple million” went into this one – and while the reviews of Terrifier 3 were generally positive (JoBlo’s own Tyler Nichols considers the film to be the best entry in the Terrifier franchise), some fans were left feeling that something was missing. Leone has admitted that he cut the movie down to make sure it wouldn’t be as long as Terrifier 2 was (the third film is 125 minutes, the second was 138 minutes)… so is that why there seemed to be gaps in the story? Leone says that’s not the case, that he purposely made the movie in an ambiguous style. He told Entertainment Weekly that he might put together an extended cut of Terrifier 3, but he doesn’t think fans will like it because it wouldn’t contain the footage some suspect was missing.

Terrifier 3 has the following synopsis: Art the Clown is set to unleash chaos on the unsuspecting residents of Miles County as they peacefully drift off to sleep on Christmas Eve. Here’s some more information: After surviving Art the Clown’s Halloween massacre, Sienna and her brother are struggling to rebuild their shattered lives. As the holiday season approaches, they try to embrace the Christmas spirit and leave the horrors of the past behind. But just when they think they’re safe, Art the Clown returns, determined to turn their holiday cheer into a new nightmare. The festive season quickly unravels as Art unleashes his twisted brand of terror, proving that no holiday is safe.

David Howard Thornton reprises the role of Art the Clown, a character who was first introduced in Leone’s 2013 anthology All Hallows’ Eve (although Thornton didn’t start playing him until Terrifier). Also in the cast are Lauren LaVera, who’s back as Terrifier 2 heroine Sienna; Elliot Fullam returns as Sienna’s brother Jonathan, Samantha Scaffidi is returning as Terrifier and Terrifier 2 character Victoria Heyes, and Daniel Roebuck, who has been cast in the role of Santa Claus. FX legend Tom Savini also shows up, as do Jon Abrahams, Antonella Rose, Krsy Fox, and legendary character actor Clint Howard. Chris Jericho, who had a cameo in Terrifier 2, is back in Terrifier 3 – but he made sure to let everyone know that his appearance in the film doesn’t last very long.

Leone told Entertainment Weekly, “There’s a very good chance that there’ll be an extended version down the line, but it’s not something I’m so eager to do, and also, I don’t think a lot of fans would be happy. A lot of [fans], they’re expecting the extended cut to be scenes that they imagined were missing. But no, we did not shoot those scenes. So the ‘missing scenes’ they want to see [are] Sienna [Lauren LaVera] going to the Terrifier to retrieve her sword. They want to see what happened with Jonathan [Elliott Fullam], or they think something happened with Art the Clown at the Beta Bash, the big house party. We didn’t shoot those scenes. There’s nothing there that would be in the extended cut. … I love the ambiguity. I hate spelling everything out to the audience. I said this a long time ago, that I wanted to approach Terrifier, especially once I got into Terrifier 2, in a very David Lynch type of way.” Leone wasn’t comparing his work to David Lynch, but said he was following the example of the nightmarish and dreamlike logic of Lynch’s work, where nothing is spelled out. “When you’re dealing with the supernatural and all this lore and mythology, unless you have characters that come into the story to just verbally spit exposition at you,” you have to keep it ambiguous.

So fans who saw gaps in Terrifier 3 would still see gaps in the extended cut. The footage Leone does have that could be added into such a cut includes “really nice human moments with Sienna and the family. There’s a lot of great scenes with Sienna and Gabbie that I had to cut out, and I appreciate. I didn’t have to; it really just made their bond so much stronger. … I won’t spoil it, but there’s a great scene between Victoria and Gabbie in the finale. Really sadistic. But it was just padding out the finale too much, and I felt like we were going to start losing people. There’s another cool scene with Art and Victoria in the insane asylum that I had to cut out as well. There’s a handful of really cool scenes, so it is possible.”

If there’s not an extended cut of Terrifier 3, “I’m also toying with the idea that maybe they could be cool in Terrifier 4 if they’re a little bit of a flashback. I don’t want to just waste them in an extended cut. They could serve a different purpose. So I don’t know. I just have to see what makes sense.“

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