Terrifier 3's Most Shocking Moment Deserves A Deep Dive

This article contains spoilers for "Terrifier 3."

Damian Leone's "Terrifier" movies may be the most improbable slasher franchise of all time. On the surface, a string of films based around the homicidal hijinks of Art the Clown, a slovenly man in a baggy clown suit, sounds like par for the viscera-shredding course, but Leone and his merry ban of fiends have imbued their now three-film saga with a pure love for splatter f/x and a deepening narrative lore that's daringly unrushed. Think two-hours-plus is too long for a slasher film? The growing legion of "Terrifier" devotees declare otherwise.

The magic, so to speak, of the "Terrifier" movies is their ability to hit Jörg Buttgereit levels of gore without provoking mass walkouts. Obviously, the sight of Art (David Howard Thornton) carving up a victim while his female sidekick (and one-time victim) Vicky pleasures herself to spewing completion is going to get some folks tapping out, but by now most people know what they're in for with Leone's films, to the point where they expect the sickest imagery imaginable (though I'd love to see how they'd fare whilst viewing the director's cut of Srđan Spasojević's "A Serbian Film"). And this is where "Terrifier 3" was positioned to jump the tracks: Now that Leone's got a hit theatrical franchise on his hands, mightn't he dial back the extreme gore a skosh?

No. There is no dialing back. There is only, for now, pushing through the outside of the envelope and into the wide blue yonder of yuck. And if you doubt me, well, let's take a closer look at what I believe to be the second "Terrifier" sequel's savage piece de resistance. Reader, strap on your barf bag (if applicable).

Longtime gorehounds are well acquainted with the law of diminishing returns when it comes to slasher franchises. Most of the genre's top properties ("Halloween," "A Nightmare on Elm Street," "Scream") tend to peak with their initial installment. There are exceptions (e.g. "Friday the 13th" built to its finest entry, "The Final Chapter," over three movies), but usually there used to be a predictable fall-off in quality because the studios behind these movies viewed them — and the horror genre in general — as smash-and-grab productions. They were made quickly, cheaply, and with little affection for the source material. This typically led to a decline in gore f/x, which require a good deal of technical expertise to get good and bloody right. The later "Friday the 13th" movies of the 1980s were almost gore-free due to this.

Not so with "Terrifier 3," which, like its predecessors, was made independently and, most importantly, by the man who dreamt up Art the Clown in the first place. Leone wastes precious little time in letting the audience know he's lost nary a bit of zip on his fastball, although he waits until close to the midpoint of the movie to unleash a 102-mph heater of a set piece that likely made the film's surprise guest star, special makeup f/x maestro Tom Savini, proud.

And in classic slasher fashion, it starts with a couple of kids having sex. In the shower, no less.

The victims in this scene are Cole (Mason Mecartea) and Mia (Alexis Blair Robertson). Cole is the frat-tastic roommate of Jonathan Shaw (Elliot Fullam), who, along with his sister Sienna (Lauren LaVera), took Art's best shots in "Terrifier 2" and somehow survived. Mia is Cole's hyper-entitled girlfriend who hosts a, shudder, true crime podcast. She's eager to get Jonathan and Sienna on her show, which unnerves everyone (including Cole, who thinks she's obsessed with Art).

While engaged in a bit of verbal foreplay in the dorm, Cole accuses Mia of being sexually attracted to Art. What neither realizes is that Art is lingering at the threshold of the room, listening excitedly to Mia speak of her fascination with the murderer and his stomach-churning misdeeds. Leone gives Thornton some of his funniest moments in the franchise here as he silently reacts with hope, then dismay as Mia knocks down Cole's suggestion that she wants to have sex with Art. The added levity (and "Terrifier 3" is much funnier than the first two movies) is akin to the quippy evolution of Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger. This may upset purists, but it gets us on Art's side in a couple of key scenes, including the movie's best moment in the dormitory shower.

The shower kill is the OG of slasher set pieces. 64 years later, no one's done it better than its inventor, Alfred Hitchcock, but you could still compile a nifty highlight reel from horror classics and non-classics wherein characters get hacked to pieces for having the temerity to bathe. From this point forward, the protracted murder of Cole and Mia in a communal bathroom should be every reel's grand finale.

The brutality is unexpectedly off-the-charts here, but Leone quickly sets this sequence apart with the incongruous addition of a gas-powered chainsaw. A chainsaw in a shower? How gauche! And how very Art!

Once Art begins his assault on Cole and Mia (after a few failed starts of the saw), he doesn't let up. After hacking off multiple fingers and nearly severing Cole's leg below the knee, he goes to work on Mia with a how-dare-you-not-find-me-fetching fury. While we really don't like Mia, it's still rough to watch Art dig the teeth of the roaring tool into her flesh. Meanwhile, Cole appears to be getting off lightly by stumbling away on his nearly lopped-off leg (which snaps under his weight). This is not to be the case.

For my money, the most distressing scene in the "Terrifier" franchise to date is in the first movie, when Art hangs Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) upside down and slices her in half from her groin to her skull. It's genuinely sickening. I can still hear the sound of Art beginning the act, and have no interest in ever revisiting the film in part due to this moment. Sequences like this have led some to suggest Leone's films are misogynistic (a charge that comes with the slasher territory), so I'm glad he's answered these critics with the very, very messy murder of Cole in "Terrifier 3."

And I'm just going to be blunt about it: Art cuts the kid from, as they say, a-hole to appetite.

Once Art's finished with Mia, he clomps over to Cole and unceremoniously plunges the chainsaw into the young man's backside. He splits the uprights, jamming his instrument — and I'm sorry if it's hard to describe this without feeling like I'm writing the most disgusting Penthouse Forum letter ever — into Cole's colon, and making stunning progress before flipping the kid over, at which point it's the male groin sustaining the punishment this time. And, oh, what punishment! Leone places his camera at floor level and films the carnage, which shows no mercy on Cole's genitalia, nor what lies further up the body.

It's not like Art hasn't been an equal opportunity monster in the past, but I'm nevertheless pleased to see Leone inflicting grievous harm on a man's crotch for a change. In a way, it felt like the franchise came full circle with this ferocious gesture. Judging by the projected "Terrifier 3" box office, Leone will be hard at work on the fourth entry very shortly, but, in terms of kills (which is why we watch these movies in the first place), he's offered up a thesis defense for the ages. No one gets away un-slashed in the "Terrifier" universe.

"Terrifier 3" is now playing in theaters.