In 2016, there was Terrifier. Written and directed by Damien Leone, the film was produced for peanuts and offered little more than some decent practical gore effects, but it did also act as the (non-anthology) feature debut for veritable horror villain Art the Clown. First introduced in a pair of short films by Leone — which were compiled into 2013 horror anthology All Hallow’s Eve — Art is a psychotic, murderous mime with a propensity for melding sight gags with extreme bodily trauma. In that regard, he came across like an unholy blend of Marcel Marceau and Leatherface, helping to certify a cult audience for the original. Returning with $250,000 and a daunting 138-minute runtime, Leone released Terrifier 2 in 2022, allowing Art to pick up his murderous rampage where he left off, upping the bloodletting to a nigh-impossible degree and climaxing with a showdown against a winged avenger. It proved to be genuinely, surprisingly to some, entertaining , though it was clear by the end of it that was far from the last we’d see of Art. Now armed with a whopping $2 million budget, Leone has delivered Terrifier 3 to the world, unleashing Art’s reign of terror once again, this time with some holiday seasoning sprinkled on top. But what should have been the be-all, end-all version of a Terrifier film is instead an exercise in tedium, merely replicating the same beats of its predecessor and comfortably spinning its wheels as Leone gears up for the inevitable fourth feature. Art the Clown has returned and his kills may be nastier than ever, but Leone is content to keep the franchise stuck in neutral for Terrifier 3‘s two-hour runtime.
Five years after seemingly slaying Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) is still picking up the pieces of her life, having been in and out of psych wards ever since. Her brother, Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), has gone off to college but still checks in regularly, showing great concern for his older sibling’s mental wellbeing. As the film kicks off, Sienna arrives to the house of her aunt Jess (Margaret Anne Florence) and cousin Gabbie (Antonella Ross), offering the traumatized woman love, support, and a semblance of normal life as Christmas approaches. But try as she might, Sienna cannot move on from her encounter with Art, frequently racked with torment and visions of loved ones who lost their lives to the deadly joker. Meanwhile, Art has recovered from his decapitation with the help of Vicky (Samantha Scaffidi), a survivor of one of his previous campaigns, now turned supernaturally evil and willing to help the dastardly clown out. As the two recuperate in a secluded house — which seems to involve some kind of years-long catatonic hibernation — they plot their revenge on Sienna, who may finally meet her match at the hands of not one but two maniacs.
But before that, it is indeed Christmastime in the world of Terrifier 3, and Leone kicks opens the film with a prologue detailing Art’s slaughter of a nuclear family in their own home, having mistaken the intruding madman for jolly ol’ Saint Nick, bedecked as he is in full mall-Santa attire. It’s back to business as usual for Art, who is never content with a quick death, opting to toy with his victims, brutally maiming each of them utilizing the most astonishing and agonizing methods possible, reveling in the carnage with all the zeal of a kid in a candy store. The rest of the film follows tenor set in this opening, tracing the psycho killer’s penchant for splattery messes as he attacks bar patrons (including Clint Howard), chainsaws some college kids in the midst shower sex (including a dash of mutilated genitals, natch), and decimates some hapless repairmen. With the holiday season setting a merry backdrop, Art remains dressed in Kris Kringle garb for most of the feature, and with that comes an added focus on child murder this time around, with one extended sequence finding Art infiltrating a shopping mall Santa situation, with explosive results. There’s even a jaunty little Art the Clown holiday song on the soundtrack, complete with a cheery choir detailing his dipping your body in acid and ripping the flesh from your face (the latter of which does happen in-film). The Terrifier films already proven to been exercises in intentional overkill, with Leone savoring every horrific squelch and crunch of Art’s mayhem, while the inflated budget here spares no expense in painting the sets with gallons and gallons of blood, leaving no surface unsullied from the nonstop butchery. Thornton handles the role with typical mastery, displaying a remarkable talent for silent comedy, agreeably hamming up the pervasive kill sequences with wacky physical hijinks and leveraging his gift for facial performance to help construct some indelible, off-kilter images.
As a sequel to Terrifier 2, much time in this follow-up is spent within Sienna’s messy headspace as she struggles to move on despite emerging seemingly victorious in the previous feature. It’s not often a horror sequel gets to explore the trauma of its survivors, and while this offers a theoretical grounding element for the gore to gyre around, Leone milks plenty of runtime revisiting the first two films and pacing becomes a real issue here, especially when the film extends long past its reasonable expiration. Taking cues from the aforementioned Leatherface, does culminate with his own Texas Chain Saw-esque dinner sequence, except now the gruesome festivities surround the pomp of opening Christmas presents. But while the grotesqueries never let up in Terrifier 3, a showdown between Sienna, Art, and Vicky is all but guaranteed, and at some point impatience begins to sneak in while waiting for it. Perhaps most shocking of all, then, is Leone’s decision not to give his film a proper ending when we at last reach this point, preferring to pause the action with multiple characters’ fates left uncertain. It’s in service of a deeper Terrifier franchise lore being developed here than in the previous two — which, of course, explicitly involves demons — but it’s a deflating choice nonetheless, and one that doesn’t seem likely to convert many viewers — safe to say folks come to these films for the innovative, irreverent butchery and horror nihilism rather than the myth-building. Regardless, Terrifier 4 has been already been announced, and fans will surely be excited at the prospect of more Art the Clown. Aside from delivering more inventive and brutal kills, however, it’s difficult to say if there’s any creative juice left to be found in this franchise. The returns are already clearly diminished.
DIRECTOR: Damien Leone; CAST: David Howard Thornton, Lauren LaVera, Samantha Scaffidi, Antonella Rose; DISTRIBUTOR: Cineverse; IN THEATERS: October 11; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 8 min.
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