9th Circle, The

The 9th Circle

Credits
Title:	The 9th Circle
Director:	Damien Leone
Writers:	Damien Leone
Producers:	Damien Leone
Cinematography:	Tom Agnello
Editors:	Damien Oramas
Production
Released:	March 15th, 2008
Rating:	Unrated
Running time:	11 min.
Country:	USA
Language:	English
Navigation
Previous:	—
Next:	Terrifier (2011)

The 9th Circle is an American film short of the supernatural thriller subgenre of horror. It was written and directed by Damien Leone and serves as a non-canonical precursor to the Terrifier film series. It premiered at the Backseat Film Festival in the United States on March 15th, 2008.

Plot[]

Casey in the station — Casey at the station.

At nearly 4:00 am on Halloween, a young woman named Casey takes a seat in the seemingly empty and desolate Realmsville train station. A drunken man and a woman, still intoxicated from their Halloween festivities, stumbles into the waiting area. The woman asks Casey if she knows what time the train is arriving. She then asks Casey for a cigarette, but she cannot accommodate her on either request. The two then leave.

Art glowy eyes — Time for the world to meet Art the Clown.

Moments later, an eerie looking clown in a black and white costume and matching makeup can be seen sitting directly across from Casey. Next to him is a large black garbage bag. This is Art. Art smiles at the woman and pulls out a bulbhorn. He honks the horn obnoxiously, which startles Casey. He then gets up and sits next to her. Casey begins to grow nervous. Without saying a word, Art pulls a bouquet of plastic flowers from his garbage bag and hands them to her. She reluctantly accepts and Art begins pantomiming the act of uproarious laughter - though no sound comes out of his mouth. He points at Casey while he laughs and it is only then that she notices a large cockroach in the flowers. Casey screams and tries to run away, but Art grabs her by the arm and injects her hand with some mysterious substance from a syringe. As Casey begins to fall unconscious, she catches her last sight of Art. His eyes are glowing with a demonic yellow hue and he is slowly waving at her.

Sometime later, Casey awakens in some dark, underground tunnel system. She is bound by chains that trail off into the shadows. She calls out, but no one seems to answer. Moments later, two women emerge from the shadows. They are dirty and scared, and are chained up the same way that Casey is. This is Kristen and Sara. Kristen tells Sara to stop screaming. She then reveals that there was another woman with them up until recently, but she was dragged away into the dark recesses of the tunnel. Casey is so unnerved that she turns around and vomits. She meekly asks why this is happening then loudly begs to the open air, "Let us go, please!"

Sara - Terrifier 003 — Sara is about to get yeeted.

All three women continue to panic. Kristen says that she cannot take it anymore and Sara huddles down to console Casey. The three of them argue over what to do next. Casey suggest s being proactive, Kristen just wants to sit and wait in the hopes that help might come along. Suddenly, Sara's chain is pulled taught and she is dragged down the tunnel into the darkness. Kristen is too terrified to do anything, but Casey continues to stat that they must find a way out of here.

Casey begins walking down the tunnel and follows the slack of her chain until she finds a length of horizontal pipe along the tunnel wall that it is connected to. She picks up a sizeable rock and begins smashing at the chain. Suddenly, a hideously disfigured mutant looking creature appears. It mounts Kristen who struggled against him until he produces a meat cleaver, and brings it down, cutting off her right hand. He then takes several more whacks at her, presumably killing her. The creature then lunges at Casey, but she avoids the blow and the cleaver strikes her chains, cutting her free. Casey runs off.

Casey runs further down the tunnel and encounters a hobo pushing a shopping cart. She pleads with him for help, but the long-haired young man says nothing. She gazes down into his cart and sees the hand of some victim twitching amongst the other items. She looks back up towards him and his face now resembles a skull.

Casey falls unconscious. When she comes to, she finds herself bound to a table. A group of hooded cultists wearing animal skull masks lean overtop of her. Among them, a witch woman can be seen stirring cauldron. Casey looks past them and sees the aforementioned fourth victim - a pregnant woman, whose arms are suspended from the ceiling by chains.

Satan - Terrifier — Could it be... Satan?

A female member of the cult goes to the woman and places a cup on the floor beneath her. She then slices her belly open with a knife, allowing the blood to flow into the cup. She then brings the cup of blood to the leader of their coven, who is a demonic looking figure - possibly even Satan himself. The demon figure drinks the blood from the chalice. The demon approaches Casey as his followers tear her clothes from her. The last thing Casey sees is smoke coming from the creature's mouth as it bears down on her.

Cast[]

Actor	Role
Kayla Lian	Casey
Marissa Wolf	Kristen
Minna Taylor	Sara
Mike Giannelli	Art the Clown/Demon
Christine Evangelista	Scarecrow
Anna Maliere	Pregnant woman
Eric Diez	Satan/Demon
John McCarthy	Clear mask/Demon
Marc Romano	Hobo
Andrew Mahler	Pig Man
Steven Mancuso	Bird Man
Lori Anne Lovaglio	Witch
Dean Briscoe	Demon
Richy Ryan	Demon
Beth Goepel	Demon
Carmin Faljean	Demon
Jev Maskuli	Demon
Damien Leone	Demon
Charlie Scharfman	Demon
Sammi Borriello	Demon

Appearances[]

Minor characters

Organizations

Unnamed cult

Races & Animals

Locations

Hell

Dis

Ninth Circle

Realmsville

Realmsville Station

Items

Vehicles

Train (Behind the scenes only)

Miscellaneous

Notes & Trivia[]

The 9th Circle redirects to this page.
There are a total of eighteen credited cast members in this film.
The tagline for this film short is "Pray the beginning is the end".
This movie was shot at Seaview Hospital in Staten Island, New York.
This film short was incorporated as the first of three vignettes featured in the 2013 anthology film All Hallows' Eve.
This film short introduces the character of Art the Clown, who will appear again in the 2011 film short Terrifier, and will once again be performed by Mike Giannelli. Art's appearance here, as well as in the film shorts Something in the Dark, Terrifier and the framing sequence from All Hallows' Eve are not part of the canonical continuity of the later Terrifier film series, which includes Terrifier in 2016, Terrifier 2 in 2022, and Terrifier 3 in 2024.
Director and screenwriter Damien Leone makes a cameo appearance in the film as a demon.
Actor John Francis McCarthy, who plays the reveler with the clear mask, is credited as John McCarthy in this film.
The title of this film short is taken from the epic narrative poem Inferno by Dante Alighieri and refers to one of the many splintered plains of Hell. Along with the 6th-8th circles, the 9th circle is located in the city of Dis.
At the very end of the 2024 film Terrifier 3, there is a woman seated on a bus reading a book titled The 9th Circle.
The mask make-up on one of the cult members bears some resemblance to the mutilated face of Victoria Heyes as seen in the Terrifier film series.
The clock at the Realmsville Station reads 3:50. Presumably this in the am. This is implied by the state of the two inebriated revelers who stumble in the station. Of course, this does not mean that it could not be closer to 4:00 in the afternoon and these two are just getting an early start on Halloween festivities, but given how empty the station is, it is safe to assume that the clock reads 3:50 am. This would establish the date of the events as November 1st.
The scarecrow costume that the female reveler is wearing bears a striking similarity to the costume worn by Dawn Emerson in Terrifier.
Presumably, Casey does not survive the events of this film short.

9th Circle, The

Contents

Plot[]

Cast[]

Appearances[]

Featured characters

Supporting characters

Villains