‘Terrifier 2’ Director Damien Leone Wants to Remake This Iconic Slasher Franchise: “You need to be scared of them again”
Damien Leone’s Terrifier and Terrifier 2 are some of the gnarliest (and most violent) slasher movies around. The first Terrifier is an uncommonly assured slasher homage, and last year’s Terrifier 2 was a box office sensation, pulling in an estimated $15 million against an estimated $250,000 budget. Not bad for the little killer clown that could. Recently, SlashFilm’s Jacob Hall exclusively sat down with director Damien Leone to talk Friday the 13th of all things, and interestingly, it seems like Leone has a pretty solid idea in mind.
While Leone wasn’t formally sharing a pitch, it’s clear he’s had the idea percolating for some time. In the interview, Leone noted:
“[…] I’ve been on record for quite some time now saying if I could ever remake one slasher film, it would be Friday the 13th. Jason was always my favorite slasher since I was a little kid, and I think that there’s a way to … I mean, my approach would be to keep it in the ’80s, honestly. I would have it take place in the early ’80s. I would try and make him as scary as possible because I feel like that’s something they kind of lost as the movies went along. You just start getting too comfortable with these villains and you need to be scared of them again.”
For fans unfamiliar with the franchise, Jason was killed in the fourth entry, a copycat took over in the underrated fifth, and by the sixth, he was resurrected in zombie form, juicier and beefier than ever. Jason Voorhees even went to space at one point, getting a pretty sick Y2K upgrade along the way.
Leone has similarly noted an interest in making the violence “brutal” again, a shift away from the series’ devolution into increasingly stylistic and slicks deaths. Recently, Friday the 13th remake screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift shared this unfilmed death scene from the entry. Check that out below:
While that’s likely not the style of death Leone would be targeting, he’s likely had a chance to share his perspective with some executives. From the same interview, he said:
“[B]elieve it or not, I’ve gotten to talk to some people who are execs who are in charge of that franchise. I think I’m still a little too obscure on that Hollywood list of people that they would approach to direct that film.”
What do you think? Would you check out a Friday the 13th helmed by Terrifier director Damien Leone? If/when the series returns in earnest, what would you like to see? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins!
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