Terrifier 3 (2024) review

TERRIFIER 3 2024

David Howard Thornton (Art the Clown), Lauren LaVera (Sienna Shaw), Antonella Rose (Gabbie), Samantha Scaffidi (Victoria Heyes), Elliot Fullam (Jonathan Shaw), Margaret Anne Florence (Jess Shaw), Bryce Johnson (Greg Shaw), Alexa Blair Robertson (Mia), Mason Mecartea (Cole), Krsy Fox (Jennifer), Chris Jericho (Burke), Jason Patrick (Michael), Daniel Roebuck (Santa Claus), Clint Howard (Smokey), Tom Savini (Bystander)

Directed by Damien Leone

The Short Version: Normally when a horror franchise goes off the bean into territory far away from its beginning, you’re at least four or five sequels in. TERRIFIER jumped the shark in its first sequel with its story of a comic book artist making a magic sword for his daughter to slay a demonic clown who, as we learn in T3, can use victims as hosts… because paranormal serial killers get lonely too. Like part 2, there’s genuinely engaging exposition here and it has the best gore effects thus far; but it’s framing a confusingly numbskull storyline that was far more believable when it was a standard supernatural slasher film. Still, most are coming to see Art’s gleeful devastation of the human anatomy. Extreme is this series’ middle name; so if you love gore then TERRIFIER 3 will satisfy your sweet tooth for grueling, unrelenting viscera splattered across the screen by the genres only maniacal mime, Art the Clown.

 

The hellspawn that is Art the Clown is somehow resurrected and goes on a new killing spree at Christmas time. With the deranged and deformed Victoria as his new serial killing partner, the pair track down Sienna and her remaining relatives while viciously slaughtering anyone that gets in their way.

Art the Clown is the creepiest and most terrifying horror movie antagonist next to Michael Myers. But where Haddonfield’s resident psycho was blank-faced with no emotion at all, Art is a wide-eyed, maniacal mime with a grotesque smile, hopping around with a cartoonishly unholy fervor.

.... And he’s back again for more hyper-gory shenanigans in this second sequel from Art creator, director and writer Damien Leone. In a change of setting, TERRIFIER 3 abandons Art’s usual Halloween playground for a new one at Christmas time. The movie opens with a fairly intense, extended pre-credits sequence wherein Art kills a family on Christmas Eve. It’s the best made section of the film in terms of framing, editing and an ability for both restrained and graphic depictions of horror. After this, it’s a narrative repeat of TERRIFIER 2.

 

For reasons not explained, after this horrific opener, the story reverses to five years earlier to where the second movie ended. Art returns to life despite having been killed by the magical sword Sienna used to slay him previously. He then ends up at the insane asylum where we last saw the now murderous Victoria Heyes giving birth to his head during T2’s mid-end credits sequence. The new murderous duo then arrive at what is presumably Art’s old home when he used to be alive. We see him descend into the basement where he lovingly caresses an assortment of rusted tools of death. The two serial slayers then “go to sleep” like a mummy in a sarcophagus; that is till they’re awakened a year later by two construction workers who are part of a demolition crew. The reason behind this hibernation isn’t explained, either.

Aside from its superb splatter FX, not explaining things—whether intentionally or not—is something else T3 does well. Neither the existence, nor the disappearance, of Art’s previous pal, The Little Pale Girl, is ever explained. The only new piece of information T3 reveals is that Art uses some victims—in this case, Victoria—as a human host to be reborn; and seemingly as vessels to kill. Victoria being the sole survivor of the first TERRIFIER (2016). 

 

T3’s running time is slightly shorter than T2, but still overlong at 125 minutes. Like part 2, the new film spends as much time on characterization as it does its unusually high volume of splatter. Lauren LaVera is excellent as Sienna Shaw, the tortured young woman pitted against pure evil. Had we spent at least one film with her in that simple scenario then the wildly over the top one we're forced to swallow in part 2 and 3 would at least be somewhat more palatable; that her father, a comic book artist, forges a magical sword that she will one day use against a demonic clown is an angle that comes out of nowhere. LaVera, though, is an actress to watch out for.

 

On the human interactions of the last two films, this is something you seldom if ever see in this genre, so it's as striking as the extremes of the plot and gore effects. What’s most peculiar about this narrative blueprint is that for a horror film that dwells heavily on the emotional turmoil of its characters, the script leaves behind a  lot of unanswered questions. 

The real showcase in TERRIFIER 3 is the sheer level of brutality Art and Victoria perpetrate on the cast. The gore is just as extreme as before and in some cases, the envelope is pushed even further from part 2. One such massively disturbing scene has Art torture a demolition employee before using a box cutter to split open his scalp and rip his face off. During the entirety of this death scene, Victoria masturbates with a shard of broken glass. A double death by chainsaw in a shower is the showstopper that rivals the bedroom death in part 2. Then there’s the woman who is bound and gagged whom Art hammers a plastic tube down her throat so he can force feed her live rats. The victim then has her neck slashed, spilling the blood-caked rodents out into the floor.

As far as the official series goes, the first TERRIFIER (2016) is the best of the so far three films. In that movie, Art is a serial killing clown who becomes a supernatural being at the end. In 2013s excellent anthology ALL HALLOW’S EVE, Art was a phantasmagorical force of evil who was omnipresent in the first two tales and was the main star in the original TERRIFIER short film included as the third story in the movie. He was particularly scary as hell in the tension-filled wraparound segment, too. 

With TERRIFIER 2, writer and director Damien Leone decided to go the JASON GOES TO HELL (1993) route and introduce angels, demons and magical swords into the mix. This, when we hadn’t had much time to settle into an already intriguing supernatural slasher scenario. At any rate, Rob Zombie wishes he could make a movie with such a balance of characterization and depravity; not to mention dialog that sounds like it came from human beings that live in this dimension.

TERRIFIER 3 continues with those over the top story elements when it isn’t showboating over the top gore spectacles. When it comes down to it, this series whose heart and soul is blood and guts, is all about excess. And for many, they’re coming for the gore and not the dramatic moments nor the wild tangents the series has taken so soon into its storytelling.

 

 

The change in seasonal setting to take TERRIFIER 3 from being a Halloween picture to a Christmas horror movie is mildly saddening since it was something of a tradition for Art to haunt his victims on Halloween; it was like he ruled the month of October. So you'll see him decked out in a Santa Claus outfit (he takes it from Daniel Roebuck in one of the film's numerous gore sequences) for the bulk of the movie.

For those expecting it, there’s no end-credits sequence. The film closes on a cliffhanger after a titanically nasty home invasion finale that’s thematically different from the carnival-set conclusion of the prior installment.

 

To sum up the T3 experience, the lady sitting next to me in the theater was constantly wincing, turning her head, fidgeting in her seat while vocally displaying how repulsed she was whenever Art was committing one of his relentlessly sadistic acts of savagery; resulting in total bodily destruction of what was once a human being. That’s TERRIFIER 3. The appeal of extravagant levels of gore the camera lingers over will either gauge your enjoyment of it or make you question why you're watching this. If the TERRIFIER series had a middle name it would be Extreme. Tis the Season to be Gory.