Even though /Film’s Chris Evangelista called the 2016 film “Terrifier” “crap,” he at least acknowledged that Damien Leone’s ultra-low-budget slasher was “filled with incredibly practical gore.” This was arguably Leone’s strongest move in subsequent sequels, with both 2022’s “Terrifier 2” and 2024’s “Terrifier 3” pushing the gore to levels that defy explanation. /FIlm’s Jacob Hall wrote in his review of “Terrifier 3”: “The greatest credit that can be given to the effects team on ‘Terrifier 3’ is that it’s often not at all clear how they pull off these sequences.”

While the merits of Leone’s brand of ultra-violence can be argued, there’s simply no arguing with his knack for achieving practical effects. The man knows how to create a sickeningly gory scene and doesn’t seem to have lost a step since his first “Terrifier” film saw a woman sawed in half from the pelvis up. In “Terrifier 2,” the director used every tool he could find, creating murder scenes using some very unlikely (and very gross) ingredients like grease-filled sausage casings and powdered milk to make the blood less transparent. Leone’s favorite murder is the infamous Allie (Casey Hartnett) murder scene, in which Art completely decimates the young girl, skins her alive and leaves her somewhat unconscious body for her mother to discover – a scene that took several days of filming and a series to achieve practical low-budget effects required by events.

While the scene itself is about as vomit-inducing as one could imagine, the level of technical wizardry on display here is undeniable. Leone and his small team hid in a barn for five days, where they built a set for Allie’s bedroom and created the obscene sequence using a mix of makeup effects and a life-size puppet that Leone made for the disgusting final shot . But even the Allies kill scene wasn’t quite as brilliant as another “Terrifier 2” death in which Leone used a prophylactic to represent a very specific type of blood.

Damien Leone had been preparing for the “Terrifier” films his whole life, revealing on The Horror Hour podcast that he used to “do makeup in the middle of the night” as a child, adding: “You know, everyone sleep, that’s how it is.” One school night I’m melting clay on the stove to make a clay head or something. These skills, honed throughout his life, allowed Leone to realize his dream of creating slasher films that go far beyond what Hollywood normally allows, full of realistic scenes that are the result of truly ingenious technique .

Lauren LaVera, who stars as Sienna in the second and third “Terrifier” films, was asked by Dexerto about her favorite kill from the series and highlighted some of Leone’s inspired design work. The actress pointed to Brooke’s (Kailey Hyman) death in “Terrifier 2,” in which Art throws acid at the helpless teen before disemboweling her with a spiked club. The coup de grace comes when the crazy clown rips out his victim’s still-beating heart. According to LaVera, this was the kill that impressed her the most during her time on “Terrifier 2.” “I really loved Brooke’s kill,” she said, adding:

“When the acid was thrown on her face, you have to remember that it was a very low budget film and her face needed blisters. So they used a condom to make the face look like it was blistering, and that’s just what I thought.” It was hilarious and genius. They used something so cheap and it worked so well. I’ve just always been so impressed by the creativity that can be done on such a small budget.

For those interested in how Damien Leone used a condom to simulate a woman’s face being burned by acid, the director posted images on Twitter/X of the practical effects and makeup used to create this brutal scene became.

Although Leone doesn’t directly mention the condom itself, the director is said to have blown through tubes to enlarge the condom and poked holes in the mask he had made for Brooke’s face. The finished effect was another feat of low-tech engineering that looked much more advanced than it actually was. Of course, once you know how it was done, you can see exactly how the condom was used when you watch the final scene again.

No doubt more stories of Leone’s craftsmanship will emerge as “Terrifier 3” continues to make audiences vomit and flee theaters. With the threequel going even harder than its predecessor and pushing the boundaries of what’s thought possible in splatter filmmaking, we can’t wait to find out what unusual ingredients the director has used this time around.