Movies
‘Terrifier 3’ – An Eyewitness Account of Two People Passing Out at a Theater in Australia
I’ve been in this business a long time and can understand why it’s such a hard sell for people to believe a movie can be so potent that it physically affects its viewers.
I think one of the reasons is that we’re all such seasoned horror fans that movies don’t affect us the same way as others, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit to covering my eyes and cringing into a ball during two scenes in The Substance (now playing in theaters).
As for Terrifier, the films have proven to be highly effective on audiences.
When we released Terrifier 2 in theaters back in 2022, it was an Unrated special event release, which meant a limited run whose target audience was fans of Terrifier and hardcore horror films. None of us even thought for a second that the insanely gory slasher sequel would cause viewers to pass out and vomit – this caught us all off guard.
After the media lit the fuse, it became a challenge for the average moviegoer to see if they could handle the stomach-churning ultra gore that many of us are accustomed to. This was pure and authentic. We had photos from theater lobbies, shots of vomit on the theater floors, and witness testimonies to corroborate the reports.
Looking for Terrifier merch? Head to your local Spirit Halloween for all things Art the Clown.
This brings us to Terrifier 3, this time opening in theaters nationwide on October 11. While Terrifier 2 caught a lot of people off guard – before T2 it was unheard of to see an unrated horror movie getting a wide release – this time, people know what to expect. Still, Damien Leone‘s latest slasher is so potent that it’s knocking people on their asses on a global scale.
Just last week, 9 people walked out of the UK premiere before the opening sequence, and one person was confirmed to have vomited. In France, minors under 18 years of age have been banned from seeing the film in theaters entirely. Now, there are reports out of a screening in Perth Australia at the Innaloo Cinemas that two people passed out and fell down the stairs.
One of those eyewitness accounts comes from extremely credible Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic Emma Wolfe, who saw it happen before her own eyes.
“I had to get security twice, one [viewer] left at the start of the film, one at the end,” Emma told Damien Leone in an email statement.
“They both fainted trying to leave the film running down the stairs…I spoke to them directly,” she added. “They are okay, the girl who left at the end got a head wound from falling down the stairs but I checked on her afterwards and she had staff and her friend with her. I was a witness who got up both times to help them. I’ve never seen that before.”
Emma also shared her wild experience on both TikTok and YouTube, further explaining: “I’m not used to horror actually hurting people. So that was a really strange experience.”
@spookyastronauts Replying to @Spookyastronauts #terrifier3 #monsterfest2024 #horrormovie ♬ original sound – Spookyastronauts
This story was also tweeted by @ausdriverr over the weekend, who first-hand witnessed the two individuals passing out during the headline-making Terrifier 3 screening in Australia.
Another TERRIFIER 3 Witness
“All those reports about people fainting…it’s true. It happened in our theater.” “This movie here is on another level.”
While everyone else is setting boundaries, Damien Leone and producer Phil Falcone continue to smash through them with the Terrifier movies, and Bloody Disgusting is thrilled to bring more of their brand of theatrical anarchy to the screen later this week. Art the Clown is coming to town and he’s going to leave blood all over the studio’s sanitized floors beginning Thursday night, October 10, 2024. Dangerous cinema is back on the menu this Halloween.
In Terrifier 3, directed once again by Damien Leone (Terrifier, Terrifier 2), Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) is set to unleash another round of chaos on the unsuspecting residents of Miles County as they peacefully drift off to sleep on Christmas Eve.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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