Terrifier 3 (2024) – Merry Christ-mass Murder

Released: 11th October
Seen: 12th October

Two years ago something insane happened (in the world of cinema, something insane happens in the real world every other week lately). To the shock of almost everyone, a gonzo gorefest horror film was released worldwide in major cinemas and made over 15 million at the box office. Sure 15 million might not sound like a lot but when you’re made on a budget of 250K and are the sequel to an underground horror film that’s so extreme that even horror fans might wonder if it’s going too far, that’s wildly impressive. Terrifier 2 was an undeniable moment for horror, the moment we had to enter Art the Clown into the pantheon of great horror icons (and in general deliver one of the best performances of 2022. Since then, he’s only grown in popularity. He’s appeared in sitcoms, there’s merchandise with his horrific face all over it, and he’s a character in the latest Call of Duty game, it’s fair to say that he’s broken out of the underground and into the mainstream so it’s no shock that he would come back to the cinemas to remind us why Art the Clown is horror royalty.

Terrifier 3 spends most of its runtime five years after the events of Terrifier 2 where our final girl Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) is trying her best to cope with the trauma that she dealt with five years ago, having just been released from the mental institution she’s been in since the events of the first film to stay with her aunt Jess (Margaret Anne Florence) uncle Greg (Bryce Johnson) and niece Gabbie (Antonella Rose). She also tries to keep reconnecting with her brother Jonathan (Elliot Fullam) but he’s in college now and trying his hardest to move on with his life. Of course, moving on with their lives would be much easier if it didn’t turn out that the evil Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) was back, in part thanks to the work of his former victim and disciple Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) and the two of them are causing their own hyper-bloody form of destruction all through the town which just wants to enjoy a nice quiet Christmas, which is hard to do when a clown is chopping up co-eds and using their intestines as a tinsel substitute.

Terrifier 3 looked at the gauntlet thrown down by Terrifier 2 and decided to run with it at full speed, upping the quality of just about every element of the film in ways that really show that there’s something special with this creative team. Obviously, the big draw for the Terrifier movies is that commitment to an insane level of almost comical gore and god damn does this film go there. Sure, nothing is going to be as extreme as the infamous bedroom scene from the last movie (and I doubt anything will ever match that, some bars are not meant to be gotten over) it certainly doesn’t skimp on what has made this series work. Most of the moments where Art gets to do his thing are truly jaw-dropping, or jaw-ripping in one particular case, and show off the undeniable talent of the effects crew. Every single chance the film can push something right up to the limit it will, realism is not something that’s worried about in this film. If it’s possible to have someone have half their body removed chunk by chunk while they still scream in unholy agony the film will do that and it can often go so far that it loops around from horrific to hilarious, which is kind of the point since all of this is one big joke to Art the Clown.

Indeed, once again Art the Clown is the undeniable highlight of the film because of David Howard Thornton’s performance which is up there with the likes of Robert Englund and Brad Douriff in terms of just being the definitive version of this horror character. Every little look he gives is perfect, he can go from menacing to hilarious in a single scene. Watching him brutally carve people up and then make snow angels in their blood is twisted but somehow fits this character. It’s a truly perfect performance, this level of control is hard for most actors to achieve but damnit if David doesn’t give Art the most malevolent controlled character performance you will see in cinema. He just gets better every time he dons the bright white suit and it’s glorious to behold and this film really allows Art to have more great moments of comedy. After all, he is a clown and everything he does is one big joke so seeing Art really leaning into his comedic side is just cool, as is seeing the lengths he will go to just for a joke (sitting in one spot for 5 years so you can grow dust and cobwebs before absolutely terrifying a random stranger is a level of commitment to a bit I can only respect)

Terrifier 3 also does something a little rare for the genre and brings in a female horror villain who is just as vile, perhaps more so, than the male counterpart. Sure, Victoria is never going to be as iconic as Art (Look at him, his look is so simple and effective that you cannot forget it once you’ve seen it) but this film really has her working hard to match him. Since Art doesn’t get any lines of dialogue, Victoria makes up for it by having the most gloriously foul mouth you could imagine and seeing just how insane she’s been driven is captivating. The most depraved moment in the whole film is easily hers (not describing it here but it involves a shard of glass put in a place one doesn’t normally put shards of glass) and god damn when she’s there almost encouraging Art to be even more insane it pushes the gore level through the roof.

What’s also glorious is that this film doesn’t rely solely on the gore factor. Sure, it could do that and it’d probably still be twisted fun but what’s set Terrifier apart (at least since part 2) is how it handles the final girl and Sienna Shaw is easily making a case for being a top-five final girl of cinema. In general, final girls have to deal with some trauma but for the most part, they’re back to relatively normal lives a year after seeing everyone they love die… Sienna’s not like that, she’s just out of the hospital and on meds because she is completely fucked after witnessing some of the worst murders put on film. She still has visions of her dead friends, she’s not OK and that makes her even more fascinating because you are watching someone just trying to cope with their trauma while dealing with the world and, eventually, the thing that caused their trauma. It allows Sienna to be much more interesting, watching her putting on a brave face around people while secretly dealing with her own pain is fascinating. The cracks in that facade make her relatable and her inevitable moment of getting the strength to fight again is all so well thought out that it elevates her even more than she was the last time we saw her, and last time she was a fucking Valkyrie with a magic sword so the bar was high and she raised it.

What’s also a bar that’s been raised is just how the film looks, it’s clear that the bigger the budget for these films gets that they push their ambitions even higher when it comes to just how the film should look and this might be the film that looks the most like it belongs among those iconic 80s slashers, everything from the framing to the colour grade of the film just feels old and sketchy in the best way. It also knows how to reference other films visually but make them work in this style, a few moments are just pulled right out of Black Christmas but given the Terrifier twist that makes them fit this surreal nightmare we’ve been given. It feels very festive in its colour palette, which in turn heightens the disturbed feeling that comes with the brutal murders. It’s hard not to be a little upset by a clown dressed in a stolen Santa suit murdering coeds while silently laughing and it helps that it visually feels like it’s happening during Christmas.

Of course, there are some problems to be found here, namely in the editing. Terrifier 2’s big problem was that it just kind of dragged in parts, a gonzo horror film going for almost two and a half hours is a slog at the best of times and Terrifier 2 had more than a few moments where it needed to trim down to make scenes flow a little better… Terrifier 3 has the opposite problem where some scenes transition so weirdly or have edits in the wrong place which can make it harder to follow what’s going on. This is particularly notable in the final act when big moments are meant to be revealed but it’s hard to keep up because the editing doesn’t give all the required info so the audience is playing catch-up. It can also have the jarring effect of making some of the kill scenes less effective because the timing isn’t quite right. I know it’s wild to say that a film that’s two hours and five minutes is too short while a film that’s two hours and twenty minutes is too long but that’s because the story being told here needed more room to breathe. It’s a delicate thing that takes a lot of work to get just right and this one is just a little bit off… but also it’s off in the same way that a lot of weirdo horror films that you would find on the bottom shelf in a video store tend to be and that’s part of the charm of this franchise so make of that what you will.

Terrifier 3 is proof that the improvements made to the franchise in Terrifier 2 aren’t a fluke. This is really something special, a wild horrific ride made by an absolute madman who wants to have fun shocking his audience and does it with gusto. The laws of good taste do not apply here but you should know that going in, this is a film that’s practically marketing itself on walkouts and people vomiting so if you go in expecting anything less than gory, tasteless insanity then I don’t know what franchise you’re looking for. No one’s going to pretend this is high art, but it is art nonetheless. It’s weird, it’s wild, it’s fucked in the head and it’s absolutely glorious.