Terrifier 3 (2024)

Terrifier 3 (2024)
Directed by: Damien Leone
Written by: Damien Leone
Starring: Antonella Rose, David Howard Thornton, Lauren LaVera, Samantha Scaffidi

TERRIFIER 3
Directed by Damien Leone

It’s a very Art the clown Christmas! Terrifier is back and it’s bloodier than ever. By now, you’ll know the formula. Art goes on a killing spree, chopping people up left, right and centre, for pretty much no reason at all. This time series scribe/director Damien Leone has him joined by his disfigured former victim Victoria (Scaffidi), who you may remember losing her face in part one then birthing his head in part two’s coda. Now possessed by an evil force, she’s developed an insatiable taste for murder and acts as his accomplice to the slaying. Between kills, they shack up in an abandoned house where he rocks back and forth in a rocking chair and she bathes in her own blood – solving the age of mystery of what the baddies do with their time off. We also follow part two final girl, Sienna (LaVera), who struggles to deal with her trauma, trying to reassure her aunt, uncle and little cousin she’s ok. Only her little brother, and fellow Art-survivor, Jonathan would understand how bad things have been, but he’s busy in student halls trying to ignore his roomie’s true crime fanatic girlfriend.

Except for a wonderfully tense pre-credit sequence, that shows Leone can be fractionally more subtle when he wants to, the kill scenes in this are the franchise’s most gleefully nasty to date. Yeah the kids are killed offscreen, but man do the adults suffer. And while I don’t think any reach the visceral highs of the second movie’s bedroom scene, each is a masterclass in practical special effects work. One in particular, that watches like a gender-reversed take on a past glory, is among the most drawn out and bloody mutilations I’ve watched on the big screen in years. Moreover, they’re creative too, utilising classic weapons (and a few new ones) in ways I’ve never seen before. Skin is torn open, bones are crushed and guts get spilled all over the place. A generation ago, this would be the exact sort of thing kids all gather around the TV to watch when their parents are out of town or in bed – it’s the new Brain Dead or Elm Street. Yet as brutal as the violence is, there’s such a slapstick Itchy and Scratchy quality about it that means the movie never feels wholly gratuitous. Or at least not in a way gorehounds, or even semi-seasoned genre fans, will find genuinely offensive or offputting. Terrifier knows exactly what it is – down to barf bag marketing and the clown being ironically named Art – and that’s a good old-fashioned, literally balls to the wall, slasher.

Much of this is due to David Howard Thornton’s devilishly fun performance combining threat with mime mirth. There’s no vulnerability or sense of regret to him – like Chucky, he’s a sick son of a biscuit who loves every second. I think this is why, with the possible exception of Pennywise who was not an original character, he’s made maybe the most iconic killer of the twenty-first century. Where Saw films can exist with John in a diminished role, Damien Leone knows people come to these to watch him in action. As such, he gets a far greater portion of the screen time than a baddy typically does, with each kill being a short film unto itself. I was less impressed with Victoria who is underutilised, mostly lingering (or cutting herself) in the background while Art laps up all the laughs like Santa does his milk. The makeup effects on her are brilliantly grotesque and a scene involving a small piece of glass is comically unpleasant (you’ll know it when you see it). But she also lacks the charm of his little pale girl sidekick from part two and the necessary chemistry. I get that Leone wants to develop his surprisingly complex, if convoluted, lore, so it’s good to have a villain who can speak. Yet by giving her a voice, he loses much of the tension and uniqueness of the series to date – and makes me wonder if she could have functioned better in a Loomis role. Still, one of her moments in the third act hints at an intriguing potential change in direction for the inevitable fourth film that may up the surrealism.

Victoria is not the only part I wasn’t sold on. Where Terrifier 2 made a surprisingly comfortable 2.5 hours, the third feels longer despite being shorter. This is largely due to the Sienna’s plot being poorly integrated with the film’s numerous violent vignettes. Her bits are very exposition-heavy, repetitive and sadly lacking in forward momentum. This is disappointing since her family dynamics were a highlight of the second film, giving us a heart to pump all the blood around. There are some well done exchanges with her ‘sister from another mister’ Gabbie, who is like the younger stand-in for her now college-age brother, but their parts follow a by now familiar trajectory. In sum, this time Sienna’s strand feels like a movie treading water so she has something to do before Art gets to her family in the third act. What arc she has is basically a repeat of last time, i.e., being scared then coming to strength to protect a relative. And while it’s good to see a film handle the PTSD of a slasher survivor with sensitivity (even if it’s now been done before several times), this is the wrong franchise to do something so po-faced. Now that Art has gone mainstream, it makes me wonder if the pressure to do another hit has encouraged Leone and co to do something more palatable to justify the rest. Still, her scenes are juxtaposed with such over-the-top violence that it’s hard to take anything too seriously and, by the second half, they almost start to seem like pee breaks in the cruelty. Without specifics, I was also not too fond of the treatment of a central character who gets done dirty by the narrative in a way that implies the actor had shooting conflicts.

And yet for its flaws I really can’t dislike a film that’s this unapologetic and transgressive, and almost want to give it a higher score. Unlike this month’s other circus sequel, Joker 2, it manages to give fans exactly what they want along with a whole load of weird and winderful things they didn’t realise they wanted. It’s undoubtedly a step back from the second in terms of storytelling, though it is also a far more assured outing than the first. It feels like Leone is working towards something, with him planting plenty of seeds and developing the modus operandi of Art. Furthermore, it shows he is willing to work on his craft and keep things interesting, making leaps to surprise an audience that is used to being surprised and even roll back some of the casual misogyny of earlier entries. The Christmas setting is also used wonderfully, with the houses having a warm, wholesome glow and the festive iconography being subverted to great effect. The written-for-the-film Christmas song is a banger too – let’s make it number one this year. Heck, it’s such a natural contrast that it’s hard to remember the first two didn’t take place during the most wonderful time of the year. I also suspect the mall Santa gift-giving will likely be what this movie is known for years from now, even if it shows less than you would think. A worthy follow-up and such a pleasure to see at the cinema – it’s amazing that it’s made it there at all, and it’s a testament to how much the property has been embraced. A gift for horror viewers everywhere.

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