Terrifier 3's 9th Circle Book & Art The Clown Connection Explained

Damien Leone's grisly slasher sequel Terrifier 3 expands upon the lore of Art the Clown and his demented universe, and one hellish revelation confirms Art's connection to the ultimate evil. In Terrifier 3, Art expands his murderous capabilities by adding his acolyte Victoria Heyes to his blood-soaked rampage across Miles County, but Vicky is far more than just a tag-along. The ending of Terrifier 3 reveals that both Vicky and Art are much more than resilient murderers, and that their supernatural invulnerability may be a product of Hell itself.

In the aftermath of Art's final confrontation with Lauren LaVera's Sienna Shaw, there is a conspicuous reference to Art's cinematic origins, which doubles as a reference to Satan and his demon-infested eternal dwelling. While it won't be immediately obvious to all moviegoers, those familiar with Art the Clown from before the vomit-inducing violence of the Terrifier franchise will recognize it right away. In alluding to Art's past, the reference also provides a potential clue as to where the franchise, and Art himself, are headed following the events of Terrifier 3.

The 9th Circle Book In Terrifier 3 Explained

The Quick But Conspicuous Reference Comes In The Movie's Final Scene

After Sienna manages to decapitate Vicky and nail Art to a wall with her magic sword, she turns her attention to rescuing her cousin from falling into the nightmarish pit that opens in the floor. While she's preoccupied with that, Art manages to unstick himself from the wall and flees out the window. He's next seen calmly waiting at a bus stop, and shortly after he boards a bus with one other passenger. The young woman is reading a book titled The 9th Circle, which is given a significant amount of attention as she discusses it with the bus driver.

Interestingly, Art seems to be at his lowest in the scene, as he is still bleeding profusely from his impalement at Sienna's hands and looks tired. The scene ends shortly thereafter with a nice jump scare, and Art most likely kills the young woman and the bus driver even if it isn't shown. While the contents of the actual book that the girl is reading don't necessarily carry any meaning (the way she described it, it might have been a novelization of The 9th Circle short film), the title is of the utmost importance to Art the Clown's history.

Terrifier 3's 9th Circle Book Connects To Art The Clown's First Appearance

Before Terrifier, Art Appeared In A Short Film

In 2008, the creator of the Terrifier franchise, Damien Leone, wrote and directed a short film titled The 9th Circle. It started innocently enough, with a young woman in a waiting room of some sort, but she quickly meets a black-and-white-suited clown who seems innocent enough. The clown is the first iteration of Art, and while he is far less maniacal-looking than David Howard Thornton's Terrifier visage, seeing Art as a simple clown might actually be more disturbing. Art's true nature is quickly revealed, as he stabs her with a sedative and she passes out.

The girl awakens in a dank basement/boiler room, and flees from a massive, humanoid monster before being caught and tied up. She is surrounded by demonic figures, and witnesses a pregnant woman have her baby ripped from her womb. Her blood is used in some sort of ritual, as it is drunk by a figure with what are very clearly facial features meant to evoke Satan. The devilish figure approaches the tied up girl with malicious intent just before the short film ends with Art honking his now-iconic bike horn.

The 9th Circle was seen again in All Hallow's Eve, a 2013 independent film from Damien Leone. All Hallow's Eve features a babysitter who discovers a mysterious videotape in her young charges' Halloween candy bag, which she watches after the kids go to sleep. The video features three horrifying short movies, each of which features Art the Clown in some capacity; the first of the three is actually just The 9th Circle short film. The book title at the end of Terrifier 3 is a plain and obvious reference to Art's first two adventures.

The Real Meaning Of The 9th Circle

It's A Reference To Dante's Inferno

Italian writer Dante Alighieri's famous 14th-century work The Divine Comedy sees the writer himself guided through the three segments of the afterlife, Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, by the poet Virgil from Ancient Rome. The first part is known as Inferno, and it describes the tiered levels of Hell itself, with each tier reserved for different kinds of sinners who receive different eternal punishments in accordance with their sins. The Nine Circles of Hell worsen the deeper that Dante journeys, with the Ninth Circle representing the worst part of Hell.

The Ninth Circle of Hell is reserved for those who have committed various forms of betrayal, with different kinds of traitors broken out into different sections. Two of the most famous traitors in the Bible, Cain and Judas Iscariot, have sections named for them. The punishment of the Ninth Circle is to be trapped in ice for all eternity, which contrasts with the typical fiery depictions of the biblical Hell. The center of the Ninth Circle is also home to the ultimate betrayer, Satan himself, who betrayed God.

Terrifier 3's 9th Circle Book Indicates Art Is A Demon

In Terrifier 3, Damien Leone Seemingly Confirms What Many Theorized

Art's first appearance came in a short film titled The 9th Circle which featured him capturing a young woman in order to bring her to an actual devil. It's clear that Damien Leone intended Art to be an agent of Satan--a literal demon. Art's Clown Café from Terrifier 2 appears to be his own corner of Hell, but the underworld may be explored further in Terrifier 4. Sienna vowed at the end of Terrifier 3 to rescue her cousin Gabbie, and if the pit she fell into is actually a portal to Hell, then that's where Sienna will go next.

The 9th Circle book title reference coming on the heels of a possessed Vicky's blood opening up a portal to Hell is no coincidence in that sense. The demon that used Victoria Heyes as a vessel may have been defeated, but the demonic Art is still alive and ready to cause pain, fear, and humiliation. His ongoing battle with Sienna Shaw, who is the good angel warrior to his evil demonic clown, seems as though it will move from Miles County to the depths of Hell, and perhaps all the way down to the Ninth Circle itself.

The 9th Circle Book Is Terrifier 3 Expanding The Lore Of The Franchise

The Book May Be More Than A Simple Easter Egg

There have been many movies featuring Art the Clown, but it wasn't until Terrifier 2 that the demonic killer entered the mainstream. A key reason that Terrifier 2 was a much greater success than Terrifier or the Art movies which preceded it was that the second Terrifier film created a sense of deeper lore for the killer clown (although the infamous bedroom scene also helped, of course). The 9th Circle book appearing in Terrifier 3 is a continuation of this process, though is also the most significant step director Damine Leone so far when it comes to giving Art a backstory.

While the most obvious way the 9th Circle book fleshes out Art's backstory is that it all-but-confirms his demonic connections, there's also a subtler significance for the wider universe of the Terrifier franchise. The reference to the title of the original Art the Clown short film may just be a clever Easter egg, but it may also signify that the other terrifying entities in Damien Leone's anthology movies All Hallows Eve and All Hallows Eve 2 still exist in the Terrifier universe.

The 9th Circle was one of two Art the Clown segments to appear in 2013's All Hallows' Eve, with the second being titled Terrifier. Segmented between the two was Something in the Dark, which featured murderous aliens attacking a woman at a remote countryside home during a power cut (with a painting of Art revealed at a key moment, too). If the presence of the 9th Circle book in Terrifier 3 is confirmation that the Art the Clown in the Terrifier movies is indeed the same being from Leone's All Hallows Eve, it makes the anthology movies canon, which also opens the door for other entities.

This means that not only the aliens from the Something in the Dark segment exist in the universe of the Terrifier trilogy, but the entities from sequels to the 2013 anthology, such as 2015's All Hallows' Eve 2, do too. This would mean that Art is one of several demons or otherworldly beings running around in the world of Terrifier, a revelation that, of course, could have great significance for future films in the franchise after Terrifier 3.