"Terrifier 3", and how not to continue the most influential slasher and low budget movie saga of the last 15 years

Art the Clown has become the latest icon of the slasher genre and main antagonist of, what I believe, is the most popular low budget movie saga. It appeared in a couple short films, one first movie that became known with the surprising popularity it sequel generated, and now gets the third installment of the Terrifier serie as a Christmas movie.

Five years after the events of the last movie, Sienna (Lauren LaVera) has been going in and out of a psychiatric rehab center, while his brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) is trying to go back to his normal life in college. This Christmas, Sienna is going to be with her uncle, aunt and her little cousin Gabbie (Antonella Rose), at the same time she tries to get over the trauma the Halloween Night of half a decade ago left on her. But, when Art (David Howard Thornton) and Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) have returned, and a demon wants to posses Sienna, she has to prove why she was the one selected by heaven to face this war.

I know, this is some other level sh*t. I love this idea of exploring the concept of Sienna and Art being enemies, each one a face of the same coin, representing the forces of good and evil, haven and hell, life and death. It seemes like the only logical way to escalate what was shown in Terrifier 2, where the battle between these two characters was epic. Yet, none of this is in the movie. I mean, is not my own wet dream for this future film pentalogy (Fast and Furios already showed me to not wish so high), the movie does mention all this elements, but never shows nor develops them. We see like a hellish forge where a demon is crafting an armor like the one of the previous movie, Sienna's father had a vision as a prophet, we hear the demon inside Victoria said that now understands why the protagonist was selected by Him, and Jonathan made (before the movie even began) an investigation that Art is the embodyment of a demon or something like that. But that is all, nothing of this have any implications, develop the plot nor explore the characters.

And this is a writting problem that trully hurts the movie. On Terrifier the story was very sharp focus in surviving, and on its sequel there were a lot of elements presented and a counterweight for Art, but it still kept centered and committed with having everything tied together and moving the plot forward. In this third story, Damien Leone is completely surpassed by his desire to make Art shine, including a lot of scenes without much purpose storywise that show Art being evil and cynical. Yes, is funny and entertaining to watch him, but there is no purpose. On the contrary, Sienna's scenes are presenting flashbacks, concepts like her schyzophrenia where she sees her friend cover in blood recriminating her, and during all the things that lead to the third act, the clímax, she is just sleep and everything happens during a black transition. At the end, there is no real conclusion to the main plot, feels like a very unsatisfactory coitus interruptus that makes your boyfriend and his three “amazing" minutes seem like a stallion. The film is so interested in presenting new ideas for future installments that forgets it needs to develop and resolve some of those in this one.

On its aesthetics it is also a downfall. Terrifier 2 explored Halloween ideas, the armor and wings Sienna used were a logical inclusion, the use of color lights in parties and camera movements was very attractive, and the violence, gore and body horror were filmed to be grotesque, explicit and impactful. But, in this case, none of these can be found. The use of lights and camara movements are uninspired, the locations are all suburvan houses decorated for Christmas, and the cloths and makeup have not improved since the last time this characters were on the big screen. The movie occurring in Christmas is an empty gimmick to have Art in a Santa Claus' suit and do a blood-angel, include a Christmasy extradiagetical horror song and a couple of superficial references to Jesus Christ; instead of exploring creative ways of violence and unique dynamics brought by the traditions of this Holiday, these elements are there (as an instagram model who works "creating content") just to look pretty. The violence is really dull, it is explicit and everything, but most of the time we just see the aftermaths of it, we do not see how someone is skinned alive through an intimate use of the camera to be a really grotesque and impactful moment, we just see corpses curtailed and someone being frozen to death. Yes, it is explicit, but not particularly grotesque, creative or even fun to see how this demonic clown manages to kill everyone who gets in his way.

Yet, Art the Clown continues to be the strongest part of the film. Even when in this case is not the most brutal and evil feeling version of himself, he is still very charismatic. Without reason or logic he hits a tied Sienna in the head just for the laughs, is very histrionic and makes fun of others' pain without producing a sound, have a political and religious ideology that communicates through performances achieved by murdering, and after killing a complete family he turns off the light (utilities are ridicolously expensive) and washes the plate from which he ate cookies. These kind of irony, contradiction, amorality and plain ridicolousness is what makes Art the Clown such a hypnotic, charismatic and posmodern slasher icon for this generation.

Terrifier 3 is mostly a fun and entertaining movie, but just that. The second installment left a very high standard, and this new picture droped in aesthetics, narrative, characters, gore and body horror. Maybe watch it once for the good moments and for its cult status, but for watching this killer clown it would be better, as Trump in this week, to go for the second.