With the latest Scary Movie 6 trailer promising to skewer Art the Clown’s “Mall Santa” era—handing out body parts to children isn’t really that much of a Terrifier parody if you think about it—the spooky source has spoken up on social media with an update on the actual next Terrifier film. We now know Terrifier 4 will take place “around New Year’s Eve,” according to an Instagram post from director Damien Leone.
While fans would love some story details beyond the few teases Leone has given so far—he’s said the movie will be “epic, thrilling, nasty, horrifying, emotional, and utterly satisfying” and will also reveal an origin story for Art (David Howard Thornton)—that timeframe is indeed intriguing. Terrifier 3 was very wrapped up in Christmas and ended on a cliffhanger; it would make sense for Terrifier 4 to pick up right there and follow Sienna (Lauren LaVera) on a rescue mission to save her young cousin, Gabby (Antonella Rose), from the fires of hell. That would bring us to New Year’s Eve pretty quickly.
However, that would be a shift from previous Terrifier movies, which have all baked a certain passage of time into their connected plots. Part one began with Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi), one year removed from her Art ordeal, then rewound to show us exactly what happened to her. Part two picked up a year after that and introduced Sienna into the narrative; part three then picked up with Sienna five years later.
Once we start learning more about Terrifier 4, we’ll surely get a better idea if it’ll be New Year’s Eve occurring right after Terrifier 3 or if it will jump ahead like the other franchise entries.
What we can already anticipate is that Terrifier 4 will be a solid addition to the New Year’s Eve horror subgenre—it’s not as robust as the Christmas horror subgenre, but slasher maniacs do love a good holiday setting. We’ll be looking forward to a mini-festival with New Year’s Evil, Bloody New Year, Terror Train, and whatever Art brings to the party in Terrifier 4 sometime in the future.
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