Terrifier 3 (2024) Maybe writer-director Damien Leone's horror creation Art The Clown is the monster we deserve.....
With the world going to hell and American democracy teetering on the precipice edge of oblivion, what movie character better represents the abyss into which we're sinking faster than ever.
Forget Freddy, forget Jason, forget Michael Meyers.....those bygone ghouls who mostly preyed on feckless teenagers.
Now we have Art, direct from the depths of hell and who excludes no one from his slaughterhouse fervor. A mute, he cackles silently as he eviscerates men, women, teens and even cute little kids. Everyone gets an equal chance to suffer indescribable agonizing death at Art's hands, taking their last gasping breaths while their bones, blood and entrails spill out on the floor.
In 2024, that's entertainment.
For those taking the temperature of the zeitgeist, consider that Art the Clown trounced and stomped on the other major movie clown, the Joker, as embodied by Joaquin Phoenix......
Not hard to understand why......writer-director Todd Philips' "Joker: Folie a Deux" was a laborious, artsy-fartsy apology for his first Joker film and audiences knew a pretentious stink bomb when they smelled one.
Damien Leone, on the other hand, knew exactly what audiences now demand from a horror film.......cruelty, violence, nihilism and gore taken to unheard of heights.....(or depths, depending on your point of view about these things.....)
"Terrifier 3" takes its strong stomached viewers on a funhouse ride through hell itself...where no one is spared from either horrible death or physical and emotional mutilation. It presents a world of pain, torment and tragedy.......(or you could think of it as a slightly exaggerated version of how Donald Trump sees America)
From the film's opening Christmas Eve sequence, Leone tosses all cultural norms out the window. You crave gore? You crave utter desecration of human bodies still alive? This film grabs you from the back of your neck and rubs your face in it.......some gorehounds may think they've died and gone to heaven. Others may come face to face with that old adage....be careful what you wish for.
But let's also take a minute to credit the other major creative force in the "Terrifier" saga.....David Howard Thornton's masterfully malignant Art the Clown. A gifted mime, he's a Marcel Marceau from Hell itself, unmerciful and yet sickly funny as he teases and mocks his victims before literally destroying them. (A metaphor for modern life?)
We're completely stymied as to how rate this film or to whom to recommend it. Horror addicts won't want to miss it for the adrenalin rush.......and certainly Damien Leone has established himself as a horror auteur like no other.
And yet...... call us old fashioned, but we can't stop worrying.......where is this film taking us? Who are we and what are we for making this film a box-office hit? Can we still hold on to our humanity, decency and empathy if we find this entertaining?
For hardest of hardcore horror folks, 4 stars (****).
For everybody else? We'd only be guessing. Proceed with extreme caution.......
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