Quandt would despise it. Maltin would gag at it. Ebert and Siskel would warn all comers like harbingers of doom on a mountain road, probably with matching walking sticks. Because Terrifier 3 is exactly what you think it’s going to be: a tornado of viscera and bad taste, both nightmarish black humor and childish jokes, engineered by a cinematic mad scientist looking to make people vocally and physically react in their theater seats. It does just that, and it’s here to stay whether you like it or not.
By which I mean, Terrifier 3 is striking out to become the new state fair of horror movies: it will eventually get to the point where we have one every year or two, and people will continuously leave feeling like they were splattered with every manner of bodily fluid under the sun. But they’ll also be satisfied in surviving another house of horrors that will make their seat neighbors regurgitate and run in fear. It’s eating alligator on a stick and chugging down a deep-fried twinkie milkshake—you’re testing your stomach and enjoying every cavity-rotting minute of it. Or, puking behind the Ferris wheel, depends on whether you can hold it down.
Personally, I love the state fair, so if there’s any measure of how much I liked this film, it would be for those overlapping qualities; my appreciation of it is almost purely in how much I appreciate its dedication to diversion.
Terrifier 3 is a film that, while the product of dozens and dozens of incredibly talented people coming together to make pure distilled exploitation, also really screams of a director doing donuts in Screambox and Bloody Disgusting’s studio parking lot. Because we already know as long as there’s a Damien Leone, there’s probably going to be a Terrifier story to make, and there’s going to be more opportunities for him to do whatever he wants, however he wants. And I can appreciate an independent filmmaker who isn’t chained down by producers, even if what he makes can be a bit sloppy at times.
Five years after her fateful clash with Art the Clown, Sienna Shaw has left another stint in a psychiatric hospital in time to come home for the holidays. Spending time with her cousin Gabby as she wrestles with visions of the dead and her otherworldly experiences, Sienna’s strained relationships and dwindling mental health have left her on the ropes. Now, the few tenuous fibers of stability she’s clutching onto will be cut by the return of the demonic harlequin Art, revitalized as he and accomplice Victoria Heyes (victim turned handler/demonically possessed sitcom wife) return for another go around. Nothing good can come of this.
For the victims, I mean. Because in terms of the performances, all the returning cast burst onto the screen with vigor and excitement to be back. David Howard Thornton continues to bring the physical comedy of a rubber hose cartoon to real life as Art the Clown; it’s done in a way only he really can, switching from absolutely reprehensible to undeniably funny with his expressive acting on the turn of a dime.
Lauren LaVera continues to slowly carve more and more details of herself into the solid, gleaming marble of Scream Queen history as one of the most beloved final girls of all time. There are firework flashes of brilliance in her performance here, namely in a dinner scene early in the film and during the all-red-everything climax, where anguish pours out of her like a rushing waterfall of pain. She alone has a Midas touch that will keep plenty of people hooked on the franchise for a good long while.
Elliot Fullam, however, is a sore absence for the majority of the movie. Much like LaVera, what we do get of him is a phenomenal portrayal of his character: now a young college student, Jonathan is trying and failing to move past the hellish world he was introduced to. He’s in a waking nightmare, running down a never-ending hallway to try and return to normalcy, but failing until he reaches his boiling point. It’s an impressive moment in how physical and explosive it was. And for some reason, he’s distant from the plot for the rest of the runtime, much to the film’s detriment.
Fullam’s lacking presence is one in a few instances of footage clearly being left on the cutting room floor, making more space for the two tons of corn syrup and latex needed to make Art’s spree come to life in sacrilegious technicolor blasphemy. Which, could be worth it just from a technical standpoint when you have effects like these. They will make you lift your hands and shut your eyes involuntarily to escape every painful-looking slash, grind, and clobber that Art and Company have to offer with their assortment of torture instruments.
So, the film prioritizes the ludicrous hyperviolence that audiences have come to expect from the smash success of Terrifier 2, which is fine. Again, you don’t go to the state fair to find out the web of legends and lies surrounding those funnel cake stand employees. But be warned, the longer you think about the film, the more you notice continuity errors and ask why, how, and when things happen/happened.
If you came looking for more lore to the Terrifier series, you might be disappointed in the mystery box style Leone indulges in as he drops bits and pieces of interesting demonology to have you looking at the past and toward the future of the series. Or you might be hooked; either way, you’ll be left wanting way more than what you get. Technically there is an explanation you can piece together as to what is going on, but questions of specific details and players lead to a vague reintroduction to the war between light and dark that was first shown in Terrifier 2. Cool visuals are aplenty, but you’ll really just end up asking “So what was that about then?” if you dig too deep in the blood-soaked candy corn bag and pull out a meaty tooth.
This might be the biggest sign of Damien Leone leaning dangerously back into comfort while making the film; the story really does get dragged under the tidal wave of gore that fans go into these movies now trying to surf. In interviews, he’s mentioned how there’s no turning back from the extremity of Terrifier as a series, and everything in this film from its perfect beats to its mirroring missteps scream of a filmmaker who believes that with their whole chest. It’s no longer enough to push the envelope, the envelope must enter low earth orbit.
For a Halloween horror movie to get your friends gawking (and subsequently talking on the way back through a dark parking lot), or to whittle away a cold October night inside, Terrifier 3 is an easy choice. But as much as I liked it for its blunt smashing mallet of terror and charnel chainsawing that had me recoiling against the theater seat, part of me wishes it wasn’t the easy choice. A part of me wishes it was more challenging than its transgressive special effects and assuredness in a long line of profitable sequels.
Leone is gunning it to try and scare his passengers one max occupancy theater at a time this Halloween, and make no mistake, I’m already buckled in. If it becomes a yearly tradition like Saw, I’ll be seated in theaters day one every time. But there is hope that the series doesn’t get too lost in the comedically evil kills and outlandish body horror that made it famous, so it can also keep innovating in a way that really catches you off guard.
