Sienna Shaw and her brother Jonathan managed to survive the second Miles County massacre of the vicious Art the Clown. In order to put this horrific tragedy behind them, they try and get into the spirit of the upcoming holiday, Christmas. But little do they know, Art the Clown is still alive, and he plans to deck the halls with something other than boughs of holly.
Are the Terrifier movies even good? Objectively…not really. Very little plot, and a plethora of clunky dialogue delivered by mostly bad actors, wouldn’t be the ideal movie for most. All that said, Terrifer 3 has been my most anticipated movie of this year.
Why might that be? Glad you asked! Because of this guy!
Image Courtesy of Dark Age Cinema
Art the Clown is easily the most fun, and engaging slasher put to screen in the past decade. In the past two movies, he is brutal and unforgiving to his victims. But he also has a sense of humor and play that is similar to that of Freddy Krueger. He is played brilliantly by David Howard Thorton and in this sequel he dials the performance to 11. Even in the incredibly hard to watch sequences you do not want to take your eyes off of him. He is absolutely a standout in this movie, as he was in the other two installments.
Another major standout in this movie is Lauren LaVera as Sienna. Just as you need a compelling killer, you need an as equally (if not more) compelling Final Girl to go head to head with them, and LaVera delivers on that. She is fantastic here and I think she goes up there with Jamie Lee Curtis, and Heather Langenkamp in the final girl hall of fame.
This movie is also far funnier than it ever had a right to be. There’s one great sequence where Art spots a Santa Claus in a bar, and the theater I was in ERUPTED in laughter during this sequence.
Now, aside from Art the Clown…there is another reason these not so great movies have the notoriety that they do. Director Damien Leone created this series as a way to demonstrate his talents with practical effects and make up. Therefore, the Terrifier movies are essentially a two hour showcase of extreme gore and violence.
Sequentially, each Terrifier movie has upped the ante when it comes to the extreme, and this movie is no different. In the previous movies, each one had one scene that was so over the top that it immediately gained notoriety as “that scene” (if you’ve seen the other two you know exactly the scenes I’m referring to). But does it work here? The answer is…kind of.
In this movie it really seems as though 85% of the kill sequences are trying to match that shock value. Now that can work when one single scene in a two hour movie goes over the top, but when every kill sequence goes crazy with violence and gore, it really starts to overstay its welcome. I almost started feeling desensatized to all the violence at a certain point and just like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, “If all the kills are over the top, none of them are”… (that’s what he said, right?).
Another thing the Terrifer movies are known for is it’s lack of a satisfying narrative. The first movie had absolutely zero story, while the second movie had quite a dense story that left a lot of questions on the table. Terrifier 3 finds a place between those two extremes.
There is a story here, but there are so many kill sequences that it feels as though, while yes, there is a story, it feels as though the movie uses it more as a way to get from kill scene to kill scene. I was left rather unsatisfied with a lot of the questions proposed in the seond movie. I hope when the next installment comes out, the filmmakers find a way to answer these questions, or leave them open ended in a satisfying way.
At the end of the day, I liked Terrifier 3. So long as Art the clown is in a movie, im going to like it automatically and honestly this movie absolutely made me like him more. He is absolutely menacing and worth the price of admission alone. The repetitively over the top kill sequences and lackluster story still have great moments within them, but definitely drag the score down a bit. I’m giving Terrifier 3 a 7 out 10, and can’t wait to see what holiday Art the Clown lays waste to next.