Terrifier 3 (Damien Leone, 2024)
Art the Clown crosses the line once again
Barely two months ago, Terrifier 3 became an unexpected box office phenomenon, blindsiding the film industry by earning $18.9 million in its opening weekend.
At the time of writing, it is the highest-grossing unrated film of all time, having earned more than $89 million worldwide, against a budget of just $2 million.
The film picks up five years hence from the Halloween splatter gorefest that was Terrifier 2, clarifying how a decapitated Art the clown is resurrected to embark on a violent festive romp. That’s right, kids, this one is for the Christmas!
But whereas the two previous movies have been (relatively) tight exercises in out-and-out slasher horror and disgustingly impressively graphic effects, Terrifier 3 hits a little different.
Not to fear; all the requisite graphic brutality is present and correct. There are a couple of particularly gnarly sequences which will have you flinching away from the screen, I promise. No, what feels different this time around is that the focus is less of Art’s homicidal antics and more so on the two main women in his life: Sienna and Victoria.
Sienna, of course, is the final girl of Terrifier 2. She is Art’s nemesis, for it is her destiny to destroy him. For much of Terrifier 3, however, she’s still very much in recovery mode from the events of the previous film. She’s spent the intervening years in and out of psychiatric care, yet still suffers from PTSD and is haunted by the An American Werewolf in London-esque ghost of her murdered friend, Brooke. (One standout moment involves her resisting a meltdown in a mall when the muzak veers a little too close to the Clown Café ditty.)
Victoria was Art’s final victim from the original Terrifier movie. She survived — barely — but was grotesquely mutilated, and in Terrifier 2 she was committed to an insane asylum after brutally attacking a TV reporter. Now, it seems she is possessed by that film’s Little Pale Girl, who is actually some kind of demon who has a co-dependent relationship with Art.
It’s complicated. There’s a lot of mythology being spun here, and it’s messy and convoluted. The main takeaway is that the lore of Art is actually closer to his short-film origins, as opposed to the more basic nihilistic psychopath of the original Terrifier.
(In Terrifier 3’s closing scene, a character is seen reading a novel titled The 9th Circle, which also happens to be the title of the short film in which Art debuted — and which forms part of the anthology film All Hallows’ Eve. In the short, Art is recognizable, but exists only to convey innocent young women to a subterranean coven of devils and demons — a hint perhaps at what is to come in the main Terrifier series?)
Needless to say, Terrifier 3’s main failing is that it’s trying to do too much. The thought that keeps coming to me is a “functional” film.
Terrifier 3 exists, I believe, primarily to establish the epic scale of the conflicts yet-to-come between Art and Sienna. To beat all hope of a normal life out of Sienna and force her to become the comic book superhero she is meant to be. Terrifier 4 is already in the works, and it seems likely that 5 and 6 will follow. Terrifier 3’s purpose is to get the franchise to where Leone needs it to be to do what he wants to do next.
Despite these criticisms that the films isn’t entirely satisfying, rest assured that it is still satisfying enough. The film does indeed deliver on gross-out horror expectations, even if it sort of feels irrelevant in the face of the larger purpose of this particular entry in the series.
Regardless, you won’t want to miss the scene where Art invades a family home dressed as Santa Claus, or the scene where he steals said Santa suit from three guys (now dead) in a bar, or the explosive scene where he impersonates a mall Santa…
Yes folks, setting this entry during Xmas pretty much ensures that — despite it not being the best of the Terrifier franchise — it’ll still get viewed on a pretty much annual basis. And something tells me I’ll grow fonder of it with repeat viewings.
Ho ho ho.