Terrifier 3 (2024) | As Gross As It Gets

Well…here we go again. There are several truths about the Terrifier films that the franchise is known for. One of which is that they are gory movies designed to shock the audience with the ghastly amount of gratuitous blood and violence. The first film was certainly excessive, and the second upped the ante with its graphic detail due to the slightly increased budget. I say “slightly increased” budget because the other thing these movies are known for is how little money was used to make them and how much they’re able to recuperate. The first two movies combined were made with less than a million dollars. Now, the third movie balloons the budget up to a whopping 2 million, which is obviously minuscule in comparison to most other modern films. Terrifier 3 made back its budget in a day with its limited release, reaching $18 million in its opening weekend. Did it repeat the success of the second film, or did it lose some of its identity along the way?

Pros

• Gore and makeup effects are even more extreme, visceral, and moist

• Art the Clown continues to be an entertaining menace

• Acting has improved across the board

• Still darkly funny in spots

• Bonkers ending

Cons

• Aimless plot with a 2-hour runtime

• Characters are uninteresting

• Boring in between the kills

• Lore is getting complicated

Plot & Thoughts

Despite being dealt a deadly blow in the past two movies, Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) is back and seemingly unstoppable. In the opening scene, he murders a family of four in their house with an axe on Christmas Eve—yes, kids included, and it’s quite gruesome. The movie then flashes back to 5 years prior, where his decapitated corpse kills a cop and then goes to the psychiatric ward where his victim from the first film, Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi), is being held. In addition to his new apprentice killer, Victoria, his head/digestive tract is hanging and helping out with the murder. Yup, it’s very explicitly shown as such. He reattaches his head, rips off Chris Jericho’s face, and proceeds to find a house where he and Victoria can rest for a few years. Meanwhile, Sienna (Lauren LaVera), from the previous film, has just been released from a psychiatric hospital and is staying with her aunt Jessica (Margaret Anne Florence), uncle Greg (Bryce Johnson), and cousin Gabbie (Antonella Rose) for the holidays. Sienna is experiencing hallucinations from her survivor's guilt, due to her trauma in the previous movie, despite being on medication. She does her best to push her hallucinations to the side, but there are recurring instances in which she sees Art the Clown and is unable to tell whether or not he’s back from the dead. We, as the audience, know that he is real and that it’s only a matter of time before Art’s killing sprees finally bring him closer to Sienna and they cross paths once again.

Image: Screambox/Bloody Disgusting

I’ll be honest. I watched this movie at double speed after a while because I was so bored by its progression. As I’ve stated in previous reviews, the genre of horror that Terrifier inhabits is not my preference, and I’ve never been a fan. However, I found Terrifier 3 to be the least interesting. It’s a rather dull experience between the moments in which Art is allowed to act goofy or creatively kill people. After the second face was removed, I was wondering if there was anything of a plot worth exploring, or if it was just a matter of waiting for the next moment in which someone would meet a gruesome fate. There’s a bit of lore added on to Terrifier 3 that tries to identify and justify Art’s supernatural abilities, as well as Victoria’s and Sienna’s, but I found it to be unnecessary and clunky. I was fine having Art be a strange, immortal serial killer, but Terrifier 3 introduces demons and the premise of Heaven vs Hell into the conflict between characters. If the filmmakers aren’t careful, they may end up making the same mistake as the John Wick movies and explaining too much in the process.

When it comes to watching the Terrifier films, the first movie has its own independent shock value to make it worth your time. Since then, it seems that there has been a challenge assigned to get more and more gratuitous and ludicrous with the methods in which Art the Clown murders his victims. The second movie got more vicious and extreme with its effects. Terrifier 3 took full advantage of its bigger budget and went for the jugular. If people had issues with the scalping scene in Terrifier 2, I doubt they’ll be able to tolerate several deaths in Terrifier 3. There are multiple scenes in which someone’s face is removed from their skull in graphic detail, but the scene involving rats and a blow torch definitely takes the cake for unpleasant to watch—even David Howard Thornton had issues with the scene and had to hold back his gag reflex as he performed.

Image: Screambox/Bloody Disgusting

With each entry in the Terrifier franchise, it gets less watchable. For one thing, the gore gets more excessive, which isn’t really what I am interested in when it comes to horror movies. It’s impressive to see such great makeup effects that are so convincing. It’s another thing to try to one-up each entry in terms of what you can get away with. Writer/director Damien Leone refused big studio money so he could make the movie he wanted because he knew they wouldn’t even allow his opening scene. I respect the attitude and desire to keep his artistic vision untainted by film studios that are determined to profit from his efforts while altering his vision. It doesn’t change the fact that I continue to not really be interested in that vision, but his creative freedom was on full display; no one was safe. I watched this third entry mostly out of obligation since I had seen the past two. I wanted to see where it would go. Unfortunately, it didn’t do enough to convert me into a fan.

If there is one thing that I can say improved with the bigger budget, aside from the gore effects, it is the acting. As usual, David Howard Thornton does a great job of bringing a lot of personality to the character of Art, while relying solely on facial expressions and gestures, like a silent actor. The makeup, coupled with his face, can showcase a great deal of joy and menace, convincingly. His enthusiastic malice manages to make many of the most gruesome moments laughable and entertaining, so long as you can separate yourself from the sadistic nature of it, as well as avoid being grossed out by it. He’s been great since the beginning, but the acting of side characters has often been stiff and immersion-breaking. That’s not the case this time, as even irrelevant characters who are quickly killed after they’re introduced manage to do a better job at acting than those in previous films. It doesn’t make anyone more interesting, but it’s still an improvement.

TL;DR

A friend of mine was trying to get her kids into horror and asked if Terrifier was a good film to start them with, and I said, “Hell no!” The Terrifier films are for a very specific audience that craves excessive gore in their slasher films that would make Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Pinhead blush. Terrifier 3 gets more disgusting and more explicit with its murderous moments, with only movies like Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead/Dead Alive being quite as over-the-top bloody and gross. That being said, there is barely a plot, and it moves very slowly. At two hours, Terrifier 3 is a relatively dull experience between the excessive kills. The next entry might be more explicit and extreme in its gory moments, but I think I’m done watching the Terrifier movies.

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