For the past few years, Damien Leone’s “Terrifier” series has been shocking crowds with its visceral gore and creative horror. With “Terrifier 2” upping the ante from Leone’s past works with horror antagonist, Art the Clown, the third entry in the series has a lot to live up to — sadly it does not.
The film opens with what is probably the best scene in the movie; Art adorned in a Santa Claus costume enters a family’s home — knowing the series, fans are easily aware of what is to come. Being the first in the series to have child kills in its count, the scene opened the film on a surprisingly high note before entering exposition with the main characters from “Terrifier 2,” siblings Sienna and Jonathan.
While it tends to drag along, the exposition sets up seemingly higher stakes involving the siblings’ families, with Jonathan being in college and depicting Sienna’s degrading mental health.
This setup is then completely wasted, especially in the last twenty minutes of the film.
Jonathan talks about a frat party multiple times throughout the movie, hinting at an Art the Clown college party bloodbath — which is then glossed over with a rushed, unsatisfactory ending for both the antagonist and the protagonist.
There are some very fun kills in the movie; the sequence with Art in the bar stealing the Santa costume is hard to watch, and the literally explosive scene in the shopping mall had the theater gagged. With great scenes like these, it is sad that most were underwhelming compared to the last film.
“Terrifier 2” has some of the most shocking, downright disgusting gore in horror movie history; “Terrifier 3” lacks that vision. Horror does not need gore to be scary, but the series has built itself around such shocking gore, and the movie lacked the effort that the previous installments have.
While this entry of Art the Clown’s mayhem may be disappointing, hopes are high for the fourth film. Hopefully, Leone will once again shock audiences and turn their stomachs with the next entry already being underway.
