Name: Terrifier 3.
Age: Three days old.
Appearance: A clown putting a chainsaw up a man’s bum.
I don’t understand. Is this a metaphor? No. Terrifier 3 is a horror movie about an evil clown (often dressed as Santa), and in this film he murders a man by taking a chainsaw to his nether regions.
Ah, I see. Well, no thank you. Are you sure? You’d be in a minority.
Would I? Oh yes. Because Terrifier 3 is No 1 at the US box office.
Even though it’s about chainsaw murder? Well, there’s more to it than that.
Phew. It’s also about (in no particular order) people being beheaded, having their skin peeled off, and being filled with rats and then split open. I’ve missed some out, but you get the gist.
Not to repeat myself, but no thanks. Are you sure? It makes people vomit.
How on earth is that a selling point? Are you kidding? It’s the selling point. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have seen stories about preview screenings that ended with audiences either throwing up or walking out because the level of gratuitous violence is so extreme. In other words, don’t think of Terrifier 3 as a film. Think of it as a challenge of endurance.
Did this simply come out of the blue? No. Art the Clown – the monster at the heart of the Terrifier movies – has been around in short films since 2008. Creator Damien Leone’s first Terrifier feature came out in 2016 and made back its $35,000 budget 10 times over; 2022’s Terrifier 2 made its $250,000 budget back 60 times over; and now Terrifier 3, which cost $2m to make, is the biggest movie in the US, taking $18.3m this weekend.
But why? The films are independently made, and unrated. If you’re a horror fan, they’re a corrective to decades of diluted studio fare. They are also – if you’re in the right frame of mind – quite funny.
Wasn’t Joker: Folie à Deux supposed to be October’s big movie? Yes, but that film flopped hard, largely because it’s a long, dour musical that goes out of its way to punish the people who enjoyed the grim thrills of the first movie.
So the opposite of Terrifier 3, then. Yes. And a warning that, no matter what, Terrifier 4 should definitely not feature Art the Clown mournfully whisper-singing old show tunes while he wields his chainsaw.
Do say: “Terrifier 3 is proof that the world loves movies about violent antiheroes.”
Don’t say: “Unless they have any singing in them.”
