TERRIFIER 3 (2024)
In theaters now from Cineverse, Bloody Disgusting, and Screambox!
Directed/Written by Damien Leone.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/lYMTzx2Qcmw
Art the Clown is back and this time, he’s festive. When final girl Sienna (Lauren LaVera) arrives at her sister’s home for Christmas, Art the Clown awakens as well, bringing holly horror and gruesome carnage in his bag of tricks.

I fully acknowledge that TERRIFIER is this generation’s SAW. There is a group of viewers who grew up watching the terrifying clown dismember scores of people when the original TERRIFIER was prominently shown on Netflix. It was an audience who most likely wouldn’t have seen it if it were not available on the popular streaming channel. And while horror fans in the know knew about the evil clown from his memorable appearances in the anthology series ALL HALLOW’S EVE, many more were given a chance for the clown to nauseate and mutilate which made Art the Clown a global phenomenon. So I understand why people were so stoked when I saw TERRIFIER 3 with a live audience at the Music Box in Chicago this past week. The ambulance parked outside of the theater for anyone who became too sick or shocked from the movie was a nice touch. BTW.

Personally, I feel the first TERRIFIER was a good introduction to a character that was lacking in story, but made up for it with scenes of grue and gore. My interest in the series widened after seeing TERRIFIER 2 as it introduced a likable protagonist in Sienna and actually told a decent, yet simple story—something the first film was lacking. So my hopes were high that the third installment would show more growth from director/writer Damien Leone as a storyteller. There’s no denying his talent in the effects department, but Leone showed promise in telling an engaging story in the second one, so I was hoping for more growth in a third go at it.

Unfortunately, I feel TERRIFIER 3 is a regression in real storytelling as Leone falls back to the spectacle of gore and effects scenes of Art the Clown instead of moving along a decent story to back it up. TERRIFIER 3 feels more like a showcase of gory kill scenes than an actual narrative and that is disappointing for me. Now, don’t go booing me yet. I think Leone does a fantastic job creating ten-twenty minute spurts of horror as evidenced by the impressive intro scene in TERRIFIER 3, as well as the chainsaw shower scene, the bar scene, and the mall Santa scene. These three sequences are by far the best moments in the movie as it allows Art the Clown’s character to shine while having him do some memorable acts of depravity. But three or four goppy effects scenes does not a movie make.

Attempting to thread a story through these gore scenes are quiet moments with Sienna coming to grips with the horrors she witnessed in the last film and bonding with her sister’s family. While I feel Leone stumbled upon a gem of an actress with the stunning Lauren LaVera, these scenes lack punch and really drag the momentum down, especially after the raucous mayhem that occurs in the scenes prior. So you find yourself zoning out of the story and simply waiting for the next appearance by Art. This isn’t a bad thing and lulls in the horror story after a kill often occur in these types of films, but the drop in energy is noticeably great, which unfortunately, skids the momentum to an absolute stop occasionally through the movie. This makes for a jarring experience as a viewer. Don’t get me wrong, LaVera is great and the best actress in the film, but the scenes where she confides with her sister are badly written and the ones she shares with her little niece are horribly cliched.

Now, back to the gore. It is epic. There are a few scenes that had me laughing with devilish glee. The shower scene alone, which by far is the highlight of the movie, depicts a chainsaw mutilation that anyone who has ever watched a TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE has always dreamed of seeing. If anything, this scene of utter decimation by power tool acts as a challenge to the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE series to up their game big time as any future film with a chainsaw wielding maniac will be compared to the destruction Art the Clown does in this movie. It truly is epic. As is the resurrection scene as a pair of cops investigate a building where Art and his disfigured accomplice Victoria Heyes (played by Samantha Scaffidi) seem to have gone into a cocoon resting phase in between killing sprees. This scene really works in terms of building suspense and delivers a huge payoff. I was more impressed with this scene than most because it shows that Leone can not only film gore sequences, but he can really prolong the magic and draw out a scene dripping with tension.

The opener is another strong scene where the Santa motif is introduced and Art pays a visit on an unsuspecting family acting like Santa Claus. While the scene has been hinted at in the trailer and is a direct lift from SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, Leone manages to make this house siege pop with excitement as a little girl gets up in the middle of the night to find Art by the Christmas tree. Add in a bar scene where Art gets his Santa suit from a jolly (but not for long) Daniel Roebuck that is absolutely gleeful as Art doesn’t just get to spend time with Roebuck on screen, but the unforgettable Clint Howard as well. That’s a good chunk of the film dedicated to what basically are short films featuring Art the Clown performing his gory best in each scene.

But I feel TERRIFIER 3 doesn’t know when to quit. The climax scene is extremely long and unevenly paced. There is no reason this movie should be as long as it is. This final reel could have been cut by twenty minutes and it would have been a tighter, more focused movie. By the time Sienna faces off with Art, we’ve already seen a shit-ton of blood and gore, but Leone attempts to make another spectacle out of it all, and it really feels unnecessary and anti-climactic as the film ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. Unfortunately, the audience by this time has survived an endurance test to see how much gore they can endure. Having Sienna tied to a chair and forced to watch multiple murders is downright tedious by that point of the film.

I feel one of the biggest opportunities of the TERRIFIER franchise is the series doesn’t have a Loomis character. A person who has experienced Art in the past and has lived to tell about it, offering up a sliver of backstory to Art the Clown and make the world of TERRIFIER feel bigger than it is. Gone is the iconic little creepy clown girl from TERRIFIER 2, which is inexplicable as the character became such a phenomenon. So Victoria Heyes (played by Samantha Scaffidi) replaces her as his accomplice to his heinous acts. For me, I didn’t like this development as I feel Heyes would be much more effective as a Loomis-style character that guides the hero and provides some gravitas to the depths Art the Clown would go. It is just a weird path Heyes’ character takes as Art is the one who disfigured her and made her the monster she is.

By now, David Howard Thornton has his Art the Clown schtick down pat. He is a little more hammy here, reacting cartoonishly to situations as he has before, but the mimickery and mime act reactions really are amped in TERRIFIER 3. This is a good thing as it makes Art funny as well as diabolical. The Art-centric humor seems turned up a notch in this third movie, which shows a nice development in Leone’s versatility as a director. I laughed quite a bit more with TERRIFIER 3 than in previous installments.

So yes, there is a lot to like in TERRIFIER 3, especially if you liked or loved the first two films. It is story lite—moreso than the last film. There are hints at Sienna’s connections with Art and more about her own father, this time played by an almost unrecognizable Jason Patric. Other fun cameos include Spider One’s gal Krsy Fox, Tom Savini, and Expedition Bigfoot’s Bryce Johnson. These nods to other areas of the horror genre are nice, but let’s just hope it doesn’t go the kitschy route that the cameos went in the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series. I go to movies for a combination of things. I want to see something new. I want to see something thrilling. And I want a good story. So far the TERRIFIER series has delivered in showing something new and thrilling, but the story has been light and it was even lighter in TERRIFIER 3. It’s inevitable a TERRIFIER 4 is in the works. Let’s hope more attention to story is given in that one because there are only so many ways Art can mutilate a person before it gets boring.

Oh and the theme song, “A Very Terrifier Christmas” is indeed an instant classic. So there’s that.

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Music Written by Tim Heidecker
Music & Arrangement by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy https://youtu.be/PDySbxQgZMg
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