Featured Image Credit: Signature Entertainment
Topics: Horror, TV and Film, Film
Michael Slavin
Terrifier 3 has been hit with an incredibly rare ban, the first time it has been used in nearly two decades.
The slasher film, revolving around the character Art the Clown releases today and has been stirring up controversy before it is even released – with reports of cinemagoers throwing up, passing out, and ambulances being called.
This has been a theme throughout the release of the first two films due to the franchise’s typically gory and bloody nature.
Scenes have been ratcheted up however for the threequel, and as a result it has received the aforementioned ban.
All under-18s in France have been outright banned from seeing the film.
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This means that even 17 year olds accompanied by an adult will be totally unable to see the movie legally in cinemas.
This type of ban is implemented according to the Metro due to being ‘the most extreme of films’, saying: “Horror films in France ordinarily receive the maximum of an under-16 ban, with an under-18 ban reserved for the most extreme of films.”
The last time the ban was used was for Saw 3 in 2006.
When contacted by their French film distributor, production company Bloody Disgusting said: “We can only deplore this unexpected final decision, which will seriously hamper the release of the film, awaited by tens of thousands of French viewers and scheduled for 9 October (and of course maintained).
“Terrifier 3 is a film d’auteur in the purest tradition of the slasher genre, with the perfectly ‘grand-guignolesque’ and unrealistic violence.
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“The film never takes itself too seriously and we know that viewers will have the necessary distance and maturity to understand and appreciate this artistic approach.”
The movie is, despite this setback, expected to have a massive opening weekend.
According to Variety, the film’s expected $11 million opening may even push out it's clown contemporary, Joker 2 from the top spot following the DC film’s disastrous debut.
Unsurprisingly, talk has already turned toward Art the Clown returning for a fourth film.
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Phil Falcone, a producer on the franchise, said when we asked him at the film’s UK Gala Premiere that he would consider a fourth, under specific conditions.
He said: ““I think I'm of a mind, as long as the fans find this one good and they want another, but four should wrap up the series.
“It could always go on if the fans really wanted if Damien has something, one of the things me and Damian have discussed since the beginning is we don't want it to go stale.
““We don't want it to become one of those things where you say they should have stopped at two, they should have stopped at three, they definitely should have stopped at four.
“I think as long as we could keep it fresh and keep things going in the right direction, I don't have a problem with continuing”.