Art the Clown might have scared “Terrifier 3” viewers straight out of the theater, but the crew behind Damien Leone’s record-breaking slasher is giving themselves a pat on the back for a job well done.
The Post spoke to two of the crew members who were in charge of making Leone’s serial-killer clown fantasies look realistic on the big screen, and they seemed to find pleasure in the reports of “11 people walking out and 1 person vomiting” during the United Kingdom screening early this month.
Christien Tinsley, the Oscar-winning makeup and prosthetics specialist for the horror film, shared, “It’s very satisfying. When you hear about people throwing up, you’re like, ‘All right, job well done on this one.’”
The special effects supervisor, Jason Baker, joked, “I’m starting to see why we won the Revolutionary War.”
Baker compared the UK screening to the Manhattan premiere of “Terrifier 3” and gave New Yorkers kudos for their strong stomachs.
“It’s a pretty high bar for the New Yorkers. You know, nothing, nothing fazes New Yorkers,” he laughed.
Baker even admitted to covering his eyes during some of the more grotesque scenes while watching the horror flick in the theater.
“There’s a few scenes where, I kind of was like, watching it through my fingers,” Baker told The Post, adding how different it was working behind the scenes of the slasher film.
“That’s half the fun of working in horror movies,” he shared. “It’s so serious seeing everything on screen. But when we’re shooting it, everyone is like almost bent over in laughter of how over-the-top and insane it is.”
As for Tinsley, he told The Post that “everybody has their own constitution” when it comes to “what they can stand on their gut.”
Courtesy Everett Collection
“I think it’s great when you have these individuals that take the context of what we’re doing,” he explained, adding that fans’ scared-straight reactions only help the flick.
“These are real people having real reactions, but it certainly helps motivate, you know, headlines. Yeah. And it certainly helps,” Tinsley laughed.
The prosthetics and makeup movie genius has worked on more films than most. His impressive resume covers everything from “The Passion of the Christ,” “Joker: Folie à Deux” and “Pearl Harbor” to television series like “American Horror Story” and “Westworld.”
“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Tinsley shared, adding, “It kind of numbs you to things like this. I personally don’t understand it.”
He went on to say that he thinks the reactions to “Terrifier 3” are “fantastic,” explaining it means “we’re delivering a visceral experience that has real implications on people, whether it makes them wheezy, whether it makes them laugh, whether it makes them scream, gives them nightmares, you know, sparks, imagination, whatever it is, it’s great to know that you’re having an effect on people.”
Tinsley gave kudos to Leone.
“He is the franchise. It’s his baby. He created this world,” he said. “But, you know, we play what I consider [to be] a main character in the film, which is this visual presentation of obviously what the movie is a lot about, which is more gore than it is story even. And it’s great to see people’s reaction to that character.”
When it comes to the most terrifying scene in the entire movie, both Tinsley and Baker agree, it’s the infamous shower scene — aka what Leone called “the big kill” — and you won’t believe how much blood they used for the gory chainsaw serial murder.
The low-budget slasher is killing it in theaters (no pun intended). “Terrifier 3” nabbed the No. 1 slot in North America during its opening weekend with $18.3 million and was released on Oct. 11 — just in time for Halloween.
