Terrifier 3 revives the grand, grisly tradition of Santa slasher horror
polygon.comEver since Bob Clark’s 1974 sorority slasher Black Christmas earned headlines and moral outrage for expressly tying Christmas season to exploitation-movie mayhem, filmmakers have been finding ways to mixing bloodbaths with holiday cheer. It’s transgressive, it’s consciously offensive, and it’s gleefully morbid, whether the holiday horror movie is Silent Night, Deadly Night (which similarly earned outraged headlines in the 1980s for sticking a serial killer in a Santa suit), Krampus, or last year’s It’s a Wonderful Knife.
This year, the viral hit Terrifier series is joining the Christmas horror canon: The first teaser for Terrifier 3 similarly puts signature baddie Art the Clown in a Santa suit, then has him lying on his back in a pool of blood, making a blood angel. Ho ho ho.
The Terrifier movies are consciously low-budget throwback slashers in the visual and narrative vein of ’70s movies. The first of them, 2018’s Terrifier, was a crowdfunded slow-burn phenomenon that found an audience on streaming services. 2022’s Terrifier 2 was a small theatrical release that gradually expanded as word of mouth spread and the series villain, Art the Clown, found a devoted following for his gross, cheery evil-mime persona. The third film looks like a return to form: The official description of the film is as back-to-basics as slasher movies get. Here’s the studio’s plot synopsis, in full:
Art the Clown is set to unleash chaos on the unsuspecting residents of Miles County as they peacefully drift off to sleep on Christmas Eve.
Terrifier 3 will hit theaters on Oct. 11.
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