The three part Terrifier series is well known for the many gory murder scenes. On October 11, 2024, Terrifier 3 was released to theaters. Surprisingly, the movie can be watched in over 2,500 cinemas, proving how the times have changed.
Before the pandemic, theaters didn’t allow unrated movies to be released due to the many regulations of the cinema industry. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Terrifier 3 took out a Hollywood institution in one fell swoop—the movie ratings system.”
Only having been released for a few weeks, the movie is well on its way to becoming the top-grossing unrated film of the century. Within just two days of its release, the movie made $18.9 million, a surprise given its diminutive budget for the making of the film. Chris McGurk’s Cineverse Corp., which released the film, spent barely anything on the marketing and a total of $2 million creating it.
When the film reached theaters, I was immediately impressed by how many people on the internet were already talking about it. I anticipated watching the film, hearing about the heavy gore and how scary it is. Even Rotten Tomatoes rated it high, with a 75% score on the Tomatometer.
After watching it for just an hour, I found myself disappointed. Though the gore was very life-like and interesting, it was placed at completely random points in the movie. Some scenes were of random people being murdered by Art the Clown and didn’t add to the story.
The story was supposed to follow a girl named Sienna, who had suffered Art’s wrath many years prior. She is now grown up and back in the city, which is conveniently when Art came back.
In general, the plot of the story was confusing. Was the female lead grown-up Sienna or another poor girl? It was hard to tell because of how often Art went to kill innocent people. The story could’ve followed a path, but instead, it added random characters whose fate was decided by the clown.
Though the plot was the most terrifying thing in the movie, the small characteristics added to Art made it funny and somewhat interesting. He seemed so excited every chance he had to interact with people and found so many creative ways to “hang out” with them. His interactions were the funniest part; David Howard Thornton did an amazing job bringing his character to life.
The actor did a fabulous job, but I didn’t enjoy the movie as much as I’d hoped. I’ve been following the story of Art for a long time. I’ve seen the three All Hallow’s Eve movies, featuring Art the Clown as the masked murderer, and have seen the first Terrifier. The story was fun and playful, like all of them, with a little extra gore in every scene. I look forward to Terrifier 4, though I don’t expect much.
Overall, I rate this movie a 7/10.
