David Howard Thornton has revealed Terrifier 4 is not "remotely" close to entering production.

The 46-year-old actor has portrayed Art the Clown in creator Damien Leone's slasher series since the original 2016 Terrifier, and while the director is busy working on the upcoming fourth film, Thornton has admitted he has heard nothing about a potential production start date.

Responding to rumors that suggested Terrifier 4 would release in October 2026 on Facebook, Thornton said: "That's news to me. We haven't even remotely started filming."

Even so, Thornton - who will be returning for Terrifier 4 alongside Samantha Scaffidi (Victoria Heyes) and Lauren LaVera (Sienna Shaw) - knows some of the story for the movie, and had previously teased the upcoming horror flick will be "insane".

Speaking on Slasher Radio, Thornton said: "I'm very excited, but I don't know a whole lot, because this time around Damien has been keeping everything very close to his vest about what's happening in the script.

"Lauren, Samantha, and I, in the past when he's been writing the other scripts, he's been consulting us the whole entire time, running ideas by us. This time, he's been pretty much silent.

"He just goes, 'Oh yeah, you're gonna love the origin story, Dave. You're gonna love how we do it.' And he said also, 'The finale is bat-s*** insane. You're gonna have a lot of fun with that.'

"Other than that, I don't know, but that makes me excited."

While Terrifier 4 is being set up as the grand finale of the slasher franchise, Thornton would not be surprised if Leone chose to revist the series later down the line.

He said: "I feel like this might be the finale of this story arc that [Leone's] going with for right now and might give it a rest for a few years and might return later on to it. I have no idea, but I'm excited nonetheless.

"I have so much faith in him."

Leone had also teased he was taking some "bold swings" with Terrifier 4.

During an appearance on the Talk is Jericho podcast in October 2025, he said: "It's going to be a really tough one to shoot, especially what I want to do in the last half hour of the movie … it's going to be really intense and experimental and really out there.

"Like crazier than anything I've done before. It's going to have some really wild stuff in it. I'm taking some bold swings."

The All Hallows' Eve director added Terrifier 4 was his favorite chapter in the slasher series, and confirmed he was currently "fleshing out" the story beats for the movie.

He said: "The script is like halfway there. Well it's pretty much … cause I don't write until I have it like broken down in like beats on a separate page.

"So, I have like bullet points, so I know where I'm going so I'm not just lost. Now it's just fleshing all those beats out. So, I know what the movie is."