Damien Leone says his new slasher flick "Terrifier 3" is going to spark a horror film renaissance in Hollywood ... predicting his box office success will convince the major studios to loosen up.
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00:00I got to say, and I say this all the time, I can't do horror films like yours, but the
00:08way people are talking about it, I'm at least curious that I think, do I have to like see
00:13if I can actually sit through it?
00:14Charles is horror curious.
00:16I am.
00:17Yes.
00:18I'm horror curious.
00:19Here's the thing that always surprises me.
00:21It's when people, you know, they say, what's wrong with this movie?
00:24Who would go see this when they're seeing a part three?
00:26I highly recommend you see one and two before you get into this one.
00:30We don't pretend we're anything that we're not.
00:33You'll know exactly what you're in store for, especially with part three.
00:37The opening 10 minutes might be the most disturbing thing we've ever done in this franchise.
00:42So we're definitely letting you know what you're in store for right away.
00:45I remember back in the Exorcist days, I think it was 74, where they marketed it based on
00:52people passing out people, you know, just, I think somebody actually had a heart attack
00:56watching it.
00:57And it was successful that way.
01:00And you don't, I haven't seen that a lot until your film.
01:04So you are embracing the gore here and it seems to be working.
01:09Oh yeah, for sure.
01:10And the one thing I'm very proud of is that this is genuine.
01:14This is organic.
01:15It's not a marketing ploy with people passing out and fainting.
01:19These are actual accounts.
01:20And it started with Terrifier 2 sort of during COVID.
01:25It's when movie theaters just started getting going again and people started fainting and
01:30passing out in the theaters.
01:31And there's one tweet in particular at the time really took off on Twitter of somebody
01:36passed out in the lobby with paramedics coming in and the Terrifier 2 poster over their shoulder
01:41in the lobby.
01:42And that was just, we were off to the races from that moment on.
01:45But we really do push the gore with these films because we're an unrated film.
01:49And it was something I wanted to do with the first Terrifier because it was only a $35,000
01:55movie and I was a special makeup effects artist.
01:57So I knew I had to put things in my film that Hollywood couldn't really put in their films
02:02and it would hopefully get people talking.
02:03So that's been our formula ever since and we're always pushing the boundaries.
02:07I'm just wondering, these conservative studios that are struggling right now, I'm wondering,
02:14do you think you're going to be that seismic change where all of a sudden they're saying,
02:19we just got to go all in for this?
02:21Could this change movies, especially horror movies?
02:25Yeah, I really think it can.
02:26I think it's going to.
02:27I think you're going to see this now renaissance of slasher films that are extraordinarily
02:32gory.
02:33I won't mention names, but I've had now peers and my contemporaries, people I look up to
02:37who make these types of films have reached out to me and they're thanking me and they're
02:42saying, oh, you've given us so much ammunition now to go back to the studio.
02:47Because they're always restricted and they would be a lot more graphic if they could.
02:52So I think you're going to see this boom of really graphic horror films, which means now
02:55I really have to step up my game going forward.