Terrifier 3 (2024) Cineverse/Horror RT: 125 minutes No MPA rating (extreme bloody violence and gore, pervasive language, some sexual content) Director: Damien Leone Screenplay: Damien Leone Music: Paul Wiley Cinematography: George Steuber Release date: October 11, 2024 (US) Cast: Lauren LaVera, David Howard Thornton, Antonella Rose, Elliott Fullam, Samantha Scaffidi, Margaret Anne Florence, Bryce Johnson, Alexa Blair, Mason Mecartea, Krsy Fox, Luciana VanDette, Alex Ross, Kellen Raffaelo, Clint Howard, Bradley Stryker, Daniel Roebuck, Chris Jericho, Jason Patric, Tom Savini.
Rating: *** ½
Damien Leone just keeps outdoing himself with these movies. Here’s a filmmaker who’s not afraid to go there. In Terrifier 3, he includes children among the victims of the gleefully murderous Art the Clown. That’s right, children. One gets chopped up with axe while several die as a result of an explosion at a mall. They happen to be visiting Santa at the time. Uh huh, this one is set during the Christmas season. Ho, ho, ho.
Everything you’ve heard about Terrifier 3 is true. It’s extremely bloody, brutal and violent. There have been reports of viewers puking, passing out and bolting from the theater. I didn’t witness any of that at the showing I attended, but I can see this film having that effect on those with weak stomachs. That’s why I’m going to step out of character for a moment and urge those people to stay as far away as possible from Terrifier 3. You will lose the popcorn you paid a small fortune for.
Let me start by saying Terrifier 3 sets the stage for 4. This is not a spoiler as slasher movies always tend to leave the door open for future installments. They’ll keep making them as long as the fans keep showing up. The Terrifier movies have a strong fan base judging by the turnout for last night’s double feature of Terrifier 2 & 3. I have a feeling they’ll all be back for 4.
Terrifier 3 hits the ground running with a scene that will exorcise any and all visions of dancing sugarplums. If you thought the axe-wielding Santa Claus in Silent Night, Deadly Night was bad, wait until you get a load of Art Claus. Dressed in a Santa suit, he sneaks into a home and chops the sleeping family to pieces. He spares the youngest, a little girl who has the good sense to hide while Art (played again by David Howard Thornton) plies his trade. There’s nothing like a bloody massacre to get some Christmas spirit going.
The preceding scenario is merely an appetizer for the main course. Let me tell you, it’s insane! It starts by explaining how Art managed to survive being decapitated by the heroine Sienna (LaVera) at the end of 2. Do you want to know? Well, you won’t hear it from me. I’ll only say it’s connected to the mid-credits scene from 2, the scene where Terrifier 1 sole survivor Victoria (Scaffidi) gives birth to Art’s head in a mental asylum. Once restored, the killer clown and his deformed sidekick escape and go into hibernation for the next five years.
The plot, such as it is, kicks off with Sienna being released from a psychiatric hospital to spend Christmas with her maternal aunt Jess (Florence, The New Daughter) and her family, husband Greg (Johnson, Home Sweet Hell) and daughter Gabbie (Rose). Still bearing the physical and psychological scars of her ordeal, Sienna tries to keep it together, but it’s hard and it’s about to get even harder now that Art and Victoria have been awakened from their unholy slumber. Their first order of business is settling the score with Sienna and her little brother Jonathan (Fullam), now a college student trying to get on with his life. When Sienna tries to warn her family of the impending danger, they think she’s going off the deep end again. I think it’s safe to say it won’t end well for the doubters.
Now let’s talk about the most important aspect of Terrifier 3, the kill scenes. HOLY CRAP! Leone takes it to the next level again. This movie is a f***ing bloodbath. It’s made all the more visceral by his refusal to bow to convention and use CGI. It’s all practical effects, baby! We’re talking latex, prosthetics, makeup and stage blood, buckets and buckets of it. The highlights include Art peeling a man’s skull like a banana after making an incision with a box cutter, a woman having a tube rammed down her throat and rats sent in to eat her insides, Art freezing a guy’s limbs with liquid nitrogen and using a hammer to smash them to pieces and the piece de résistance, a double chainsaw murder that puts to shame ANY kill scene in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. Art continues to find creative uses for severed heads, this time using one to adorn the top of a Christmas tree. This is all in addition to the usual shootings, stabbings, choppings, mutilations and other forms of torture and murder.
A movie like Terrifier 3 defies all the laws of film criticism. I can’t praise or chide it for the usual things like acting, writing and directing. True, it has a few pacing issues. It’s a bit too dialogue heavy at times. None of it matters in the slightest to the fans. It more than delivers in the area they’re most concerned with. That being said, the acting is a little better than one would expect from a horror sequel. Thornton brings a unique physicality to the role of voiceless Art the Clown. He conveys so much with his body language (i.e. gestures, facial expressions). He’s like a mime crossed with a harlequin. Scaffidi easily keeps up with him as his chatty Cathy partner-in-crime. Unfortunately, Leone doesn’t use their relationship as an opportunity to upend rom-com conventions.
LaVera adds surprising depth to Sienna, a girl racked with survivor’s guilt trying to come to terms with her role in Art’s story. As you already know, she’s some kind of avenging angel like the one her disturbed comic artist dad (played by The Lost Boys’ Jason Patric in flashbacks) created for her as a child. Here comes another spoiler. We still don’t know the connection between the father and Art. I guess Leone is saving it for later. ANYWAY, she does a good job. So does Fullam as the younger brother trying to run from the past. It’s not easy when your whole story is on-line for everybody to read like his roommate’s girlfriend (Blair), a true crime buff with a podcast. She wants him to come on her show in the worst way. Yeah, things don’t end in her favor either.
I’ll close by saying if you love the other Terrifier movies, you’ll love Terrifier 3. It serves its purpose without fail. It’s gross, nasty, sadistic and morbidly funny. What it’s not is scary. I didn’t experience a single “BOO!” moment. It’s more like a freak show with its creatively gruesome killings. On that level, Terrifier 3 is brilliant. I love how Leone is building a world with these movies. Setting it at Christmas is a stroke of genius. Think of it as him taking a stab at Christmas movies. You’ll never see this one on the Hallmark Channel though.
