• Damien Leone confirmed Terrifier 4 will take place around New Year’s Eve, continuing the franchise’s holiday tradition.
• The film picks up directly after Terrifier 3’s Christmas setting, with Leone confirming the timeline in his post’s comments.
• Art the Clown’s origin story will be revealed in the first 15 minutes of the film.
• Leone has called it the franchise finale, though star David Howard Thornton isn’t fully convinced it’s over.
• Terrifier 4 is set for a 2027 theatrical release.

Art the Clown isn’t done ruining holidays. Damien Leone has confirmed that Terrifier 4 will take place around New Year’s Eve — meaning after terrorizing families at Christmas in Part 3, Art is about to make sure nobody rings in the new year in one piece.

Leone made the announcement on Instagram, sharing an image with the message: “Terrifier 4 will take place around New Year’s Eve.” In the comments, he also confirmed that the new film picks up directly after the events of Terrifier 3, which saw David Howard Thornton’s Art the Clown don a Santa suit for what became the franchise’s most financially successful installment yet — earning over $76–90 million worldwide against a budget of just a couple million dollars.

When a fan in the comments asked whether the film would arrive in 2026 or 2027, Leone answered plainly: 2027.

Art the Clown’s Origin — Finally

Beyond the holiday setting, Terrifier 4 is carrying serious weight for the franchise. Leone has previously teased that the film will open with Art’s long-awaited origin story — something fans have been hungry for since the character first crawled out of the 2013 anthology film All Hallows’ Eve.

“You’re going to get Art’s backstory in the first fifteen minutes of the movie,” Leone told fans at last year’s Texas Frightmare convention. “Oh gosh… I know this word gets used a lot, but it’s going to be epic. It’s not going to disappoint.”

On X, he’s been equally effusive: “The script for Terrifier 4 is in the works and it’s shaping up to be a most epic, thrilling, nasty, horrifying, emotional and utterly satisfying conclusion.”

As recently as this past February, Leone gave fans a more grounded update on where things stood. “The script is very close to completion, and I’m hoping to begin pre-production this spring,” he wrote. “This is the most precious script I’ve written for many reasons, but it’s also the most challenging. There’s a lot of material to tackle and a lot riding on this one, not just creatively but emotionally. We’ve built something special together over the years. The cast and crew who have been here since the beginning deserve a finale that honors their dedication, and the fans who’ve championed this franchise deserve something unforgettable.”

He also made one thing clear to fans: “If you don’t see it coming from or confirmed by me, then it’s not official.”

Is This Really the End for Art the Clown?

Leone has called Terrifier 4 the franchise finale — but he’s also acknowledged, with some self-awareness, that slasher franchises have a funny way of continuing regardless of what anyone says. He’s even floated the idea that a fifth film might be needed to properly close out the story. And Thornton himself, speaking with Slasher Radio, has said he’s not entirely convinced this is the end.

It’s worth remembering that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was supposed to be exactly that — and it spawned eight more films. So take “finale” with however much salt you like.

What’s not in question is how far Art the Clown has come. Thornton first took on the role in the original Terrifier in 2016, a film made for under $55,000 that earned over $421K during its limited 2018 theatrical run. Terrifier 2 turned that cult following into something much bigger — $15–18 million at the box office on a $250K budget. And Terrifier 3 made the character a full-blown mainstream horror icon. Art has since appeared in the Peacock series Bupkis, starred in his own arcade game, and become a playable character in both Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone.

Whatever 2027 brings, Art the Clown has one more holiday to destroy first.

The post Terrifier 4 Is Set on New Year’s Eve — and Coming in 2027 appeared first on Cream.