A skin-crawling teaser trailer has dropped for a new movie with an opening sequence so violent Hollywood execs have refused to fund it.
Terrifier 3, which is due to be released next year, is the latest instalment in the Terrifier horror franchise.
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The film series is centred around Art the Clown, an enigmatic serial killer that terrorises young women and kills anyone who gets in his way and has become known for its gory kill scenes and extreme violence.
The first film — released in the UK in 2018 — featured a notoriously horrific murder involving a woman and a hacksaw, while its 2022 sequel included a mutilation scene so extreme it caused viewers to vomit.
And now, the third film looks to up the ante ever further - with director Damien Leone teasing an insanely violent first five minutes which made getting Hollywood funding out of the question.
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Now, an exclusive teaser trailer for the latest addition to the franchise has premiered in US cinemas after showings of the second film's re-release.
The new trailer shows the new film will be set at Christmas.
A little girl can be seen sitting up in her bed as snow falls outside her bedroom window. She climbs down the stairs, stopping halfway when she spots Santa putting presents under the tree.
Father Christmas doesn't turn out to be so friendly, however, as it's later revealed to be none other than Art the Clown wielding an axe as he turns to face the child.
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After watching the trailer, film fans have been left anticipating the many horrors Terrifier 3 will have in store for us, with one person writing: "I'm SCARED that the scene we see will actually be the scene Damien Leone said would shock everyone in the first 5 minutes of the movie and that was the reason he rejected bigger studios to develop the movie... The little girl man, I'm SCARED."
When Terrifier 2 was released last year, it was a surprise hit, raking in over $15 million from a tiny $250,000 budget.
Despite its success, Leone has revealed that the franchise's third film was made independently because mainstream film studios rejected its horrific violence.
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He said: "I got to meet with studios, like legit Hollywood studios, who wanted to make Terrifier 3.
"But before I even had a script, just having meetings and getting the feel that I was going to have eyes over my shoulders, and they were concerned about the levels of gore and this and that."
The director continued: "I knew they weren't going to let me make this movie based on the first five pages. Like that's how insane Terrifier 3 is."
He added that the film's opening scene is so horrific that a film studio would 'never' let him film it.
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"Mark my words," he said. "I guarantee you the first five minutes of this movie is going to be very controversial. But that's not even the big kill scene. So that's why I was like, I need to just make this movie on my own, because it's too insane.
"If you thought Art the Clown's reign of terror in part two was extreme, you haven't seen anything yet."
Topics: TV and Film
Bec Oakes