Terrifier 3 had been gaining a lot of hype in the media. There were reports of widespread walkouts at the film screening and some places even banning the film for its excessive violence. I’d seen both part one and two, and while the first one left me feeling a bit “meh” the second instalment I felt was a vast improvement in terms of filming and the horror / gore content was definitley at the more brutal end of the spectrum. Not for the faint hearted at all. The plot itself still wasn’t great but definitely a move in the right direction. This had me quite fired up actually to see how things had progressed with this current instalment and it was a great excuse to get out of the house and go watch something on the big screen.
THE PLOT
Plot wise I have to say it was nothing special. It didn’t suck but it was a very paint by numbers plot of the returning villian coming back from the dead to slay the final girl from the previous film. Art the clown is a supernatural being who can seemingly come back from the dead in a similar fashion to Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees. Much like those films the viewer is compelled to suspend disbelief in the slashers return and just sit back and enjoy the mayhem on screen. And mayhem it was. One thing I really liked was the return of the horribly disfigured victim of Arty the clown from the first movie as his girlfriend, partner in crime. That is one creeeepy chick. I predict she’ll get a franchise of her own soon enough. She’s definitely a character.
Since there’s virtually no point in explaining the plot further than I already did, let’s talk about the killings. Terrifier 3 will appeal to hardened gore fiends. I have to say I doubted new comers to horror would be watching this, but the asses on seats at the theatre would suggest otherwise. Surely there couldn’t be this many hardened gore-fiends in my city? If you’re new to horror and you managed to sit through this, more props to you! The gore is brutal and while not as confronting and right up there with movies like the human centipede or cannibal holocaust, still NOT for the faint of heart or easily offended. There’s a couple of particularly confronting scenes (I won’t spoil them for you) but I didn’t see anyone walk out of the cinema.
When watching a movie such ast this, one has to ask themselves “What makes horror confronting?”. As i said above, I don’t feel this movie was as confronting as say Human Centipede or Cannibal Holocaust, yet the gore was in my opinion more extreme. It just didn’t have the impact and I think this is due to the movie just being a failry mindless slasher fest (not that that was necessarily a bad thing, as I was right in the mood for a mindless slasher) with some substandard plot development and the constant violence making it loose impact. It kind of felt a bit cartoonish to be honest.
THE VERDICT
Above criticisms aside, it’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the movie. I needed to go into a movie theatre, turn my brain off and just watch some exploitational gore. This was certainly the ticket for state of mind I was in at the time. Just don’t go into this one expecting any brilliant plot development. Best leave the brains at the door and enjoy the ride without thinking about it too hard. One good thing about this film is it managed to get a few butts on seats, better turnouts than I saw at either the last Evil Dead or Exorcist films. Does this signal a resurgence in horror (more to the point, extreme horror)< at the cinema? Let's hope so! It would be nice to get more movies on the big screen here in Australia. Indeed the box office takings are lookng good so far!
Be sure to check out our reviews on the earlier Terrifier flicks: Terrifier and Terrifier 2
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