Cineverse
Damien Leone’s cult Terrifier series doesn’t care about originality or suspense, only extreme gruesomeness designed to make audiences shriek, squirm, recoil, and hurl. On those limited terms, its third entry, Terrifier 3, in theaters Oct. 11, achieves its ends, serving up a litany of sights designed to shock and offend, lowlighted by a college student being split in two by a chainsaw tearing through his butt cheeks and penis, and a climax involving a woman having a tube hammered into her mouth so she can be fed a collection of hungry rates. In a very basic sense, it’s the horror equivalent of porn, providing profane money shot after money shot amidst lots of superfluous narrative nonsense.
Unlike another recent clown-centric sequel, Terrifier 3 delivers what its fans want, and in grander fashion than its predecessors. Writer/director Leone’s latest boasts a bigger budget, improved camerawork, and enhanced production values, especially with regards to its signature kills, which are squishy, squelchy, and insanely bloody. More, however, doesn’t mean better, as this slasher’s nastiness is only matched by its immaturity and inanity. No matter the uniquely demented charisma of its iconic villain, it’s a rehash whose sole novel idea—setting its action not at Halloween but at Christmas—is itself borrowed from Silent Night, Deadly Night, Christmas Evil, and numerous other genre endeavors.
Terrifier 3’s main draw is Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), a pale-faced ghoul in a black-and-white jumpsuit, giant shoes, and a tiny hat that sits at an angle on his head via a string. A homicidal circus freak who never speaks, he’s like the bastard child of Pennywise and the Little Tramp, and Thornton’s catalog of bug-eyed expressions, disturbing smiles and grimaces, and exaggerated mime reactions have rightly earned him a spot alongside Jason, Freddy, and Ghostface as a memorably creepy cinematic agent of death.
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