Trust me when I tell you that nothing I say can prepare you for what’s in store should you choose to walk into a theater that’s playing “Terrifier 3,” the third installment in Damien Leone’s nightmarish slasher trilogy. Art the Clown’s return to the screen is a hellacious torture fest of unimaginable cruelty that makes its highly controversial predecessor feel like cheap foreplay in comparison to this full-blown goregasm that just broke the box office.
Following the unexpected success of “Terrifier 2,” a good number of Hollywood bigwigs couldn’t wait to sink their scalpels into what they perceived to be the next great horror franchise.
However, all of them reached the same verdict after reading only a few pages of Leone’s harrowing script: We’re not touching this shit.
If you’ve seen it, you probably understand why.
Even so, it didn’t matter. “Terrifier 3” crowned itself the number one movie in the country mere days after its release on October 11, officially earning back its budget fourteen times over. Not bad for an indie flick, eh?
So it begs the question(s): how are people 1. Okay with this, and 2. Obsessed with it enough to turn it into a multi-million-dollar phenomenon?
The truth is that most films that dare to venture this deep into the pit of depravity are sort of bastardized and archived among the “you don’t go there’s” of cinema (“Salò,” “A Serbian Film,” to name a few…), but something is happening here that I can’t quite put my finger on.
What makes all the savagery so hard to watch is that it feels very… personal. You’ve got this maniacal clown breaking into people’s homes and sadistically – albeit creatively — butchering them in front of their loved ones with a zeal that has moviegoers vomiting and passing out. It prods more at your sentiments than it does your upchuck reflexes, which I personally find far more disturbing.
It’s possible that the kills are enameled with enough slapstick absurdity to absorb them with a degree of levity. I also think that the film’s supernatural/vaudeville element sequesters it from having any real-life commentary, so viewers aren’t seeing it as a direct reflection of the human condition.
Or maybe people are just getting sick and tired of constantly being told what they can and can’t watch.
Who’s to say, really?
In the revolutionary age of elevated horror, it’s tempting to dig for a deeper meaning at the core of all the carnage, but for better or worse, the “Terrifier” films really aren’t that complex. True, they could certainly benefit from some refinement. A lot of the acting is sub-par at best, and Leone’s stabs at engaging dialogue tend to miss the vital mark a little too often for comfort.
Even so, his psychotic conception prevails despite its oftentimes shallow thematic approach to things, and I think it has everything to do with the powerhouse performances of its two lead actors.
Lauren Lavera, who plays protagonist Sienna Shaw, supplies an epochal revitalization to the “Final Girl” phenomenon. She’s a thoroughbred badass who isn’t just fodder for the foe. Sienna’s story is one that you actually want to see play out in her favor, though this would hardly be the case had Leone cast a less capable actress in her stead.
I’ll die on this hill – Art the Clown is easily the most distinctive and engrossing personality this genre has ever invoked. David Howard Thornton’s performance is a marvel to behold, speaking only through outlandish gestures and Chaplin-esque biomechanics that are delivered with a surgeon’s precision and a butcher’s ferocity.
It really is some of the best physical acting I’ve ever seen, and it’s all executed without a single shred of dialogue. Art doesn’t speak, he doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t grunt, and when he laughs (which is actually quite a lot), he does so with only his body, silently heaving and gnashing his eroded, blood-stained teeth before sobbing victims as their final whimpers dissolve into grisly death rattles.
Whether you like it or not, Art the Clown is here to stay, and his killstreak has only just begun.
The “Terrifer effect” strives to defy whatever seemingly inviolable moral standards people attach to what they watch.
It has succeeded at this three separate times.
If there’s an “Overton Window” in the realm of commercial horror, “Terrifier 3” just blasted the shudders wide open and moved it to the darkest corner of the room to include some of the most vile shit you’ve ever seen take place on the big screen.
This film is hideous, cruel, and criminally unforgivable. I loved every minute of it.
