Terrifier Trilogy Ranked
It’s Halloween time, which means that I’m in the mood to talk about horror movies and franchises. One of the top horror franchises of the last 10 years is the Terrifier trilogy, a set of movies I’d never seen before. Well, I decided to finally watch them for Halloween. What do I think about them? Here are my thoughts!
3. Terrifier 2: I know this is a hot take to have Terrifier 2 in last place. I know a lot of people do enjoy this movie and think it’s a great horror sequel. But given how gnarly, nasty, and bloody this film is, I hope people understand why it's in last place and why it didn’t really work for me. When watching interviews with Damien Leone, he said that his goal with these movies is to make the movies that Hollywood never makes. A big Hollywood studio would probably never make these movies because of how gnarly, bloody, and gruesome they are. With this movie, he wanted to go all out and make this bloody and nasty movie, and while I can appreciate Leone’s ambition with this, I don’t think it was for the better. To me, it felt like the movie was focused too much on the gore and having these gnarly and memorable kills that it forgot to tell a compelling story. It got to a point where it felt like Leone was just trying to show off as a horror director with the blood and gore, but it showed that he’s not a great director and storyteller. The biggest victim of this is the movie’s runtime being 2 hours and 18 minutes long; it’s a movie about an evil, sadistic clown going around killing people, and it’s about 10 minutes shorter than Avengers: Infinity War, which had a much bigger budget and was able to tell a bigger story while only being 2 hours and 18 minutes long. Leone had about 90 minutes to 2 hours' worth of plot that was stretched far longer than it needed to be. The kills stop becoming exciting and shocking and become annoying because there’s no point in them being as long as they are. What’s most frustrating about the runtime is that they leave the movie on a cliffhanger. They have a near 2 ½ hour long movie and don’t really even wrap things up. There are too many jingling plot threads to set up the third film that once again, that it makes the whole 2 hour and 18 minute long run time feel pointless. The acting wasn’t great; all of the adult women characters are just screaming and are frustrated the entire time. The little brother keeps on having all of this horrific stuff happen to him but reacts as if nothing happened. He has one expression throughout the entire film, and it’s not believable given the situation he and his family are in. Overall, I get why people would love this movie and love it for its excessive violence and over-the-top nature. For me, this movie didn’t work, and I don’t care to ever rewatch this movie.
2. Terrifier (2016): It’s probably another hot take to have this movie above Terrifier 2, and to be honest, neither film is great, but I do think there’s a weird charm to this movie, and the simplistic nature sticks out to me about this movie. It’s a film that was made for about $50,000, so it’s a true low-budget film where they didn’t have a lot of resources. Damien Leone has also said that the budget was so small that people were doing multiple jobs just so they could get the movie made. Leone was writing, directing, and producing the film while also doing lights, sound, and even editing the movie. It’s that kind of low-budget filmmaking that gives this movie a weird charm about it and makes it more enjoyable. As somebody who is an aspiring filmmaker and makes movies with friends for basically nothing, there’s something inspirational about seeing Leone make this movie and other films on such low budgets. Beyond that, there are things about this movie that I like more that make it stand out above Terrifier 2. First up, this movie shows that Leone is a great horror director when it comes to the gore and violence. They probably didn’t have access to a lot of blood, so they had to use the blood they did have very well, and they did. There are some fun and creative kills in here that are memorable and stick out to you. The standout is the girl being tied upside down and the chainsaw going through her body; it’s an image that sticks with you and might be my favorite kill of the entire franchise. What I like about the movie’s kills and violence compared to Terrifier 2 is that they didn’t feel overly long and stretched out. They felt like an appropriate length, and it was before Leone became too full of himself and cranked the blood sliders up to 11. The kills and gore didn’t annoy me the way that Terrifier 2 annoyed me. Second, this film establishes Art the Clown as this crazy and sadistic horror villain. Leone said that Terrifier (2016) was meant to establish a new horror villain with Art the Clown, while Terrifier 2 established an awesome new final girl with Sienna. This movie just allows Art the Clown to do his thing; he’s creepy because he’s so expressive with his emotions and facial expressions and is able to be terrifying without having to say anything. David Howard Thornton is just fantastic as Art the Clown because he’s able to be so expressive. This movie does have its flaws; the characters here aren’t good and are totally forgettable. I don’t remember anything about them; I think Sienna in the sequels is a much better character. I do think the movie would’ve benefited from adding another $500,000 to $1 million to the film’s budget, and it could’ve been a better movie overall. This still isn’t a horror classic; it has its flaws, but I think it’s a lot better than Terrifier 2, and the overall adventure is more interesting to me.
1. Terrifier 3: I always love it when non-Christmas movies take place at Christmas time, like Batman Returns, Iron Man 3, and most importantly Die Hard. I think it gives those movies a nice charm at Christmas time, as Christmas is a magical time. So, Terrifier 3 being set at Christmas time gives this movie a charm to it. I feel like I’m using the word charm too much in a post about Terrifier movies, which inherently are not charming. With that said, I think this film took what worked best from the 2016 original and Terrifier 2 and merged them. It feels more “grounded” compared to Terrifier; it doesn’t have the excessiveness that annoyed me in Terrifier 2, and it has that simpler and more straightforward plot that I appreciated about the 2016 original. As far as the violence and the kills go, I think this film is able to find the right balance. It’s able to be over the top and gnarly with some of the kills, in particular the shower kill, but it doesn’t feel over the top. The sequence feels like the appropriate length, and both of our victims die in very gnarly and gruesome ways. Beyond that, I appreciated that this film explores the aftermath and the trauma of what happened in Terrifier 2. So of course Sienna and her brother would be traumatized and very different people after what happened in Terrifier 2. This movie explores that in two different contexts for these characters. There are podcasters wanting to get involved and get interviews, and given how we are as a society in modern times with the internet, having people want interviews makes sense to me. It’s believable, and the characters are the right amount of annoying, which is probably how these people would actually react if this were to actually happen. Also, this movie gives Art the Clown more room to be truly evil and sadistic, where he does even more gruesome, evil, and violent stuff. He literally pretends to be Santa Claus and ends up killing children in public. That’s such an evil and sadistic thing to do, and it makes you hate Art the Clown more and more. This movie is #1 on the list, but it’s still not a horror classic or top-tier horror movie. There are still flaws in this movie, in terms of the script and how characters would react to certain things. The brother doesn’t seem to be super traumatized by what happens in the same way that Sienna is. The movie shows that one person is trying to get an interview with him and worships him, but given what happened, I feel like he would be treated like a celebrity with more people bothering me. I respect the Terrifier films more than I actually enjoy them, so this movie was probably never going to be a top-tier horror movie. Overall, I dug Terrifier 3 a lot more than the previous films surprised me by just how much I enjoyed this film because of my negative feelings towards the previous two.
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