‘TERRIFIER 3’ Clowns Audiences With Depraved Slapstick Slashing

“It’s a Terrifier Christmas!” chimes the Terrifier 3 in-movie musical anthem, dripping with sardonic holiday cheer. Lyrics like “Let the horror fill your heart” and “He’ll burn your face with acid, he’ll saw you clean in half” set the tone for this third Terrifier film— the fifth time rising horror icon Art the Clown has graced the screen in a decade. This time out, the bloodthirsty clown is celebrating the most festive season of all. Donning the iconic red suit and hat a la the Grinch, who looks like a certifiable saint in comparison, Art joyfully embraces the Christmas spirit by sawing the jolly white beard off a still-breathing Santa Claus and attaching it to his chin. Naughty or nice, it’s all the same to Art, whose killer holiday spirit manifests as a singular goal: to “out-do himself and top his latest kill.” Or so goes the song. Not even good little boys and girls are spared from his murderous glee.

The newest entry to the increasingly popular grindhouse Terrifier franchise, infamous for its no-holds-barred brutality and rejection of good taste, won’t win over any new converts. The series’ signature barbarity and mean-spiritedness continues unabated, with director Damien Leone further upping the ante on the extremity of his kills and sheer volume of bloodletting. This is decidedly for slasher fans with a hard stomach, and though Leone’s film is little more than a loose “the bad guy has somehow returned again” plot thatched onto a series of grizzly kills, it’s almost certain to be a win for those who’ve followed Art’s murder spree thus far.

Leone—a low-budget makeup and special effects artist turned writer-director—proudly sticks to what first put him on the map. His background as a cheapo splatter-head is obvious, with the film’s gore-soaked set pieces still being his primary focus—and where he truly excels. Terrifier 3 offers several set pieces that stun with brutal shock and awe. Whether it’s the savage opening scene of a family mistaking Art for Santa, the shower chainsaw massacre, or—worst of all in my book— a moment involving what can only be described as a “rat-bong,” Leone does not hold back, reveling in the film’s lack of a MPAA rating, ruthlessly disregarding any semblance of restraint.

The plot, as it were, is simplistic, taking a back seat to the relentless gore that actually fuels this franchise. Five years have passed since Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and Jonathan (Elliot Fullam) survived Art the Clown’s (David Howard Thornton) Halloween massacre. Sienna checks herself out of the in-patient treatment center where she seems to be living to spend the holidays with what remains of her family. She’s haunted by visions of her murdered friends, while flashbacks to childhood time spent with her dad attempts to bolster the series’ shaky attempt to build its own supernatural mythology that tethers Sienna’s chosen-one identity to her ability to vanquish Art.

But let’s face the music here: Terrifier 3 doesn’t really care much about plot. The narrative exists mostly to string together one grotesque killing to the next. The fact that I was hard pressed to remember any narrative details of Terrifier 2 – and had to pause this one to look them up – suggests that plot is merely an afterthought for these movies. Consequently, you can almost feel Leone’s disinterest in scenes that don’t involve an axe, chainsaw, or rat bong. I’m right there with him.

CONCLUSION: ‘Terrifier 3’ combines malicious, vaudeville goofball humor with line-crossing brutality, frequency dancing across the line of what is thought to be acceptable with all the gory good humor of a murderous Saint Nick. The kills are memorable, the story and characters are not.