In the infamous scandalous novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, main character Patrick Bateman, as an (imagined?) serial killer, commits acts of violence that are hard to imagine in their explicit, abnormal brutality. For three films now, director Damien Leone has taken on the challenge of translating such scenarios into wild splatter and gore flicks with the pitch-blackest humor in the Terrifier series.
Terrifier 3 is currently continuing the franchise principle in German cinemas, in which Art the Clown Kills adults, children and animals in sometimes disgusting and surreal waysthat it is almost admirably creative. However, the expected violence is not what makes the sequel the highlight of the Terrifier saga so far.
Horror with style: The Terrifier series is slowly becoming a respectable horror
In 2016, Leone drew attention to himself with his first Terrifier feature film with scenes of extreme violence. In addition to the hypnotic, irritating performance by David Howard Thornton as a demonic killer clown, the film also needed that. Otherwise, the director would have had a hard time concealing the extremely cheap look of his shocker, which was shot on a budget of just $35,000.
Terrifier looks like amateur junk, often uploaded to YouTube in the form of fan films. The kind of overexposed Billo low points in an ugly, sharp digital lookwhich you avoid at film fairs when they lie in front of you in overpriced, padded media books on the rummaging table.
Terrifier 2, which had a significantly higher budget of $250,000, was a somewhat higher quality horror vision (with a massive amount of extra length). Nevertheless, part 2 also fell far short of its potential visually.
What’s even more surprising is how well Leone used the 2 million budget for Terrifier 3. The third part now comes with crackling retro film grain that is reminiscent of similar genre films from the 70s or 80s. The new setting at Christmas time is appropriately used to give the film an almost warming glow through the constant holiday lighting in predominantly dark scenes.
While Terrifier 3 still relies entirely on Art’s bizarre killing sprees, being eaten by shocked teenagers in reaction clips on TikTokthe series is looking more and more like serious horror with a high level of visual quality.
Leone has too More thought has been put into staging than before and not only relies on the much more beautiful image design. This time, the harsh horror is often balanced out by quiet character moments. As a result, despite being shorter, Terrifier 3 has a more harmonious rhythm that settles between the minimalist part 1 and the exuberantly extended successor.
With a strong main character, Terrifer 3 makes us root for you more than ever before
The most important asset of the new sequel is leading actress Lauren LaVera, who returns as Sienna Shaw after her fight for survival against Art in Part 2. LaVera plays her protagonist as a severely traumatized lone warrior who struggles with the loss of beloved family members just as badly as with the threat of the horror clown who can hardly be killed.
Damien Leone repeatedly cuts back and forth between the newly minted horror icon Art and Sienna in order to put both characters on an equal pedestal. Terrifier 3 definitely provides hair-raising genre excesses, but thanks to LaVera’s main character, the third part hits louder than before a heart for the victim’s stirring story of suffering.
Joint scenes between Sienna and her brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) also take Terrifier 3 to a new emotional level, which pays off in the difficult-to-bear finale. Until then, the scenes with Art increasingly seem like perverse circus numbers from bad dreams that are rarely really disturbing.
But the final section takes place on such a painfully personal level that the terror in Leone’s third part in short, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like level of intensity reached.
Anyone who only reduces Terrifier 3 to these bloodthirsty moments misses how far scandalous horror has now developed: Due to the tragedy of the characters, the harshest scenes only now really hit home.