Don’t get too attached to the characters Scarer 3the latest film in Damien Leone’s viral splatter series about the evil murder mime Art the Clown. This episode provides a clearer picture of what the series mainstay Art the Clown actually is, plus more story, more background, and more character work, especially with previous survivors Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and Vicki (Samantha Scaffidi). But it’s still devoted to practically filmed, lovingly rendered, grotesque over-the-top viscera, and in most scenes anyone who comes into contact with art will probably become a buddy pretty quickly.
That’s especially true for pushy true-crime podcaster Mia (Alexa Blair) and her boyfriend Cole (Mason Mecartea), who is heavily foreshadowed in Scarer 3‘s trailer as the kind of horror movie villains that won’t be mourned if the worst happens. Mia and Cole are the center of Leone’s showpiece show: they’re having sex in a college shower stall when Art comes after them with a chainsaw.
As Leone explained in a Q&A after the film’s world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, that sequence was the most challenging part of the film. Scarer 3and the sequence most aimed at the show’s hardcore fans: “We shot it for maybe five days, and then we went back and shot it for another three days. That’s a lot of work. I mean, those effects, you could spend a whole day cutting off an arm, trying to hit it right.
Horror buffs can guess some of the scene’s obvious influences Psycho Unpleasant The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But when Polygon sat down with Leone to discuss the sequence, the big surprise was how Scarer 3‘s bloodiest scene ties in with The Passion of Christ.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Polygon: You said it at the Fantastic Fest screening of Scarer 3 that you had to keep refining and reshooting the chainsaw murder sequence to get what you wanted out of it. What did it take to plan that scene?
Damien Leone: Well, from the very beginning of course (we’re always wondering), “What’s the next big murder scene?” Everyone wants me to repeat what we did in the previous film, so I always try to find inspiration, whether it’s a medieval torture method or just something I come across, or whether I really try my best to pay tribute to a horror movie I love. If I can take something like that and put my own spin on it… That’s exactly what I did for this murder scene.
Psycho is one of my favorite films of all time, and it has perhaps the most iconic murder scene in all of horror. Before I decided to go that route for my own film, I would ask myself: That scene is so iconic and perfect, but if Alfred Hitchcock were given the opportunity to make that film for the first time today, would he make it more explicit? are about? Would he shoot the exact same way? I know that if I were given that opportunity, I would clearly demonstrate everything a knife can do to meat.
Nobody’s going to give me the chance to make a remake Psychoso I said, “Well, I’m just going to give my opinion on the shower scene.”
I know no one is going to give me the chance to make a remake Psychoso I said, “Well, I’m just going to give my opinion on the shower scene, where I’m not so shameless (imitating Hitchcock).” You need to adjust some details. So I said, ‘This time I’ll give him a chainsaw,’ because I’ve always had the chainsaw in my back pocket. It was always too sacrilegious to give Art the Clown a chainsaw, because it is so sacred to Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So I felt like we had to prove ourselves in a few movies before we could actually touch a chainsaw. And then it was also a bit of a tribute to it Scarfacewith a scene involving a shower chainsaw that really struck a chord with me as a kid. So that’s where it starts.
I wanted to make the most graphic chainsaw murder I had ever seen in a movie. Now that I’m locked up, I know we have this. I’ve never seen Art the Clown kill two people at the same time, so instead of one person in the shower, I’m going to involve two people. Then I storyboard everything like a comic book. This was the first time I didn’t do my own makeup effects, so I had to be very detailed for other artists.
Why did you want a new team for the practical effects this time?
We hired Christien Tinsley’s makeup team – he’s done Passion of the Christ, No country for old men, Westworld, Renveldhis people make big Hollywood films. I still don’t understand why they worked on this. So it’s just showing the storyboards, detailing exactly what I want to see and how we’re going to shoot these things, and from what angles, so they don’t waste their time building things they don’t need.
And then they leave and start scanning the actors’ bodies. Nowadays you can even 3D scan people. They hopped on Zoom and sent me videos and photos of what they were building, and I gave them notes, and then we just went to work and executed these things that take a long time.
What was Christien’s working method like? Scarer 3?
I especially wanted to work with him because he deals with very realistic bloodshed in dramas, and not typical slashers. I don’t think he’s ever worked on a slasher before. So I really wanted to see if we could bring that level of realism to a slasher film.
This one is still ultimately over the top, but if I could get some of that realism into it, the level he put into his other films, I thought that would be really effective – and it turned out to be effective. There’s just so much confidence and so much relief, this burden is lifted off my shoulders knowing that he’s taking care of that and I’m going to get these beautiful dolls, and the way they’re going to execute it on set is just look fantastic.
I mean, it even has a crown of thorns in it Scarer 3and it is the same artist that the crown of thorns was built for The Passion of Christ. Someone who works in their shop built that for this movie. So that was so freaking cool, and to see what it was made of – he just made that out of pipes, the crown of thorns. It’s a very lightweight, simple plastic tube and it looks so incredible.
What about the reshoots you mentioned? Where did you feel the need to improve on what you had already photographed?
Originally I don’t think we had the attack on Mia, with Art just going wild at her with the chainsaw. I think we originally filmed it where she’s crawling out of the shower while he’s hacking Cole, and then Art goes back to her and I think she cut her in half. And I felt like we were missing that moment of pure madness, where there’s just an attack, like a barrage of an attack.
We went back and filmed with a dummy and a double, maybe even putting the glasses on the dummy. That’s actually a dummy if he does that, but we digitally focused her on it. I am also very proud of that effect.
As an indie horror film trying to outdo everyone else in horror, what limitations did you face with that scene?
(Prosthetic shots) are very difficult and don’t always work. That’s the tricky part. You may only have enough money to build, say, one or two arms that you have to cut through with a chainsaw. So you only have two attempts to try to get that right. And things often go wrong, so you have to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing. And if something does go wrong, it’s a good thing that I’ve been in that situation so many times. Usually I know how to make a mistake work, or I can shoot it from a different angle if I need to, or I can fix it in the editing room with the way I cut it. So that’s a relief too. I usually make sure everything works in case of an emergency.
What’s the price tag for a believable custom replica butt that can be chainsawed from different angles?
I’ve never really looked at it in that specification, but I would say the whole makeup budget – the practical effects were maybe a quarter of our budget. It was a big part of our budget. Maybe something like that (body double) could probably cost $25,000, something like that, more or less. I mean honestly, it depends.
As you create detailed storyboards, Art’s action feels very improvised and very spontaneous. What is your on-set balance between free form and pre-planned action for David Howard Thornton, who plays Art?
It has a storyboard, but really only to block out what the shots will be. As soon as we finished shooting, I basically just let Dave go, many times. I mean, there’s a blueprint for everything – I know what I want him to do, sometimes even down to exactly what face I want him to make in the scene. As long as we get what I have for my blueprint first, and we have time, I’ll just let Dave go crazy and improvise. And of course we often get great character moments from that. So it’s so much fun. We try to have as much fun as possible and explore as much as possible on set.
That’s not always possible just because the clock is always ticking and you have so much to do. I wish I could play with the actors more and breathe a little more, especially for the finale of this film. We had to rush so quickly, and it was so important and so intense, and we had so little time to really get together and explore. So you always wish you had more time. If I could change one thing, I would like to shoot here for another ten days.
Scarer 3 is in theaters now.