Art the Clown spreads some Christmas carnage in Terrifier 3, a blood-drenched continuation of the Terrifier franchise opening in Czech cinemas from Nov. 28 after becoming a surprise hit at the U.S. box office last month. Terrifier and Terrifier 2 never saw official release in the Czech Republic, and remain unavailable even on streaming services, but this latest version hits Prague cinemas after some initial hesitation under the ridiculous title Clown’s Christmas (Klaunovy Vánoce).
Terrifier 3 is easily the most accomplished Terrifier yet, at least in pure filmmaking terms: as Art hacks and slashes his way through the holidays, there’s little hint of the low-budget origins of the earlier films, and not only in writer-director Damien Leone‘s first-rate gore effects. This movie looks and sounds great, and indulges in all the Christmas trappings including seasonal classics performed by the the City of Prague Philharmonic.
But for all the growth Leone has made as a filmmaker, he’s taken a step back as a storyteller: Terrifier 3 drops the ball at the finale, which feels rushed and incomplete—and for a film filled with countless graphic deaths, unforgivably kills two of its main characters offscreen. It’s almost—but not quite—enough to give the film a lump of coal.
Terrifier 3 picks up right where the Terrifier 2 left off: with a headless Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) dead on the ground. But not even decapitation can stop this evil menace, and Art manages to rack up multiple gruesome kills before being reunited with his noggin, which he retrieves from the prison psych ward in the hands of the faceless Victoria Heyes (Samantha Scaffidi).
Victoria, one of the clown’s victims from the first Terrifier film and an accomplice this time around, just so happened to give birth (?) to Art’s decapitated head in a mid-credit scene in the previous movie, but that’s the kind of indulgent backstory you need not worry about this time around.
Also back for Terrifier 3 is Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera), the protagonist of Terrifier 2, who’s coming home for the holidays after spending a year institutionalized herself. She’s reunited with an uncle Greg (Bryce Johnson) and aunt Jess (Margaret Anne Florence), and brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), a survivor of the previous film and now a freshman in college.
A shining light in the previous movie, Sienna has little to do this time around besides warn everyone that the dead clown is still a threat; you’d think they might believe her, given the mass murderer from the last movie is still unaccounted for, supernatural clown or not. LaVera is still excellent, and there’s a nice flashback with Jason Patric as Sienna’s dad, but one wishes Leone spent more time with her character this time around.
But there’s no time for character work in Terrifier 3: this movie is wall-to-wall bloodshed, and might be the goriest film you’ll ever see in a cinema, at least until Terrifier 4. Leone still films all the violence in observational fly-on-the-wall style, so whether you’re repulsed by the stomach-churning violence, or take perverse delight in its cartoonishly over-the-top nature, is all up to you. But do spare an extra thought: what does your reaction to the violence say about you?
Both Terrifier (the woman sawn in half) and Terrifier 2 (a prolonged home invasion) had clear showstopper moments, but there’s so much carnage in Terrifier 3 no one scene stands out: an opening Christmas Eve family slaying, Art’s attack on a drunk Santa using liquid nitrogen, the chainsaw shower sequence, and a sickening rat-tube finale are all equally grotesque in their own ways.
But there is one sequence of highly questionable taste that stands out, despite featuring minimal use of gore effects: when Art visits a mall Santa, and leaves explosives wrapped as presents for the kids in line, resulting in a cloud of smoke and a scene of dismembered limbs and dead bodies, most of them young children. Are we entertained? Has the film gone too far? Are we entertained because the film went too far?
There’s a message buried beneath the mountains of gore in these Terrifier films, about how we process and understand violence in modern media—and not only in the movies. But whether that message lands or gets lost amid the viscera depends on the viewer. Despite its storytelling flaws, Terrifier 3 reaffirms Art the Clown as one of modern horror’s greatest icons—and sets a gruesomely high bar for what’s to come.
