Since watching the first one roughly four years ago, the “Terrifier” movies have been a bit special to me. In a sea of non-scary horror movies, “Terrifier” and its sequels have been some of the few legitimately scary movies.
The third one was released this year, but is it any good? Is it better or worse than the first two and why is it set during Christmas?
I feel like the first thing I have to warn about the “Terrifier” movies is that they are all over the top gory, and a lot of the horror in them is derived from body horror and how awful some of the deaths are. They are aggressively not movies for people who do not handle gore well.
The movies are also slashers, so they are not particularly plot heavy but they also don’t need to be. People watch them for a scary guy chasing the protagonists around, and Art the Clown is the ultimate scary guy.
I’m not even that particularly scared of clowns, but David Howard Thornton’s performance as Art is so unbelievably scary and entertaining that it completely carries this movie. Art as a character is a completely captivating villain. He will be horrible and sadistic in one scene then legitimately funny and humorous in the next. It makes him unpredictable, but the one thing that stays consistent between all scenes is that he makes the viewer dread finding out what he is going to do next.
As far as protagonists go, Lauren LaVera and Elliot Fullman return for their roles as Sienna and her brother Jonathan. The characters are extremely endearing, but the movie is more realistically about Art than them. They more or less just serve as a way to move the plot forward and to have people for the audience to root for.
The movie takes place five years after the second one but during Christmas instead of Halloween like the first two. Sienna spends most of this time in a mental hospital because of the trauma of the second movie, and Art spends most of it in a sort of hibernation. All that really changes between movies is that Jonathan starts going to college and does some research on demonology. It’s not very consequential, but it does admittedly make the supernatural elements of the movie feel less clunky.
I also didn’t initially think I was going to like the Christmas setting because I don’t relate it to being very scary, but I think this movie uses it well. It lets the writers put Art in some genuinely unsettling scenarios that wouldn’t make as much sense or be as twisted otherwise. They also do some fun stuff with the soundtrack by having Christmas songs but with the lyrics altered for the context of the movie. It’s pretty corny, but I appreciate it and think it gives the movie some extra charm. I also might give the movie another watch during the holiday season since it is technically a Christmas movie.
I enjoyed this movie more than the first two because it felt less janky and had a more unique tone and setting. I rate “Terrifier 3” five out of five loper stars.
