I have a pretty substantial, multipart A Nightmare On Elm Street retrospective coming up for my main course this Halloween. Until then, I want to go on a rant as to why the Terrifier films are crap. Released a week or so ago, Terrifier 3 is making a lot of noise at the box office. It is a low-budget and independent horror film featuring Art the Clown, a silent and very brutal killer. As the title may have clued you in, it is the third film in the franchise. Well technically, it is Art’s sixth film as there were a couple short films, which were then edited into an anthology flick before the trilogy of features. Anyway, the point is that there have been three main Terrifier feature films, and the third one is doing extremely well at the box office right now. From a budget of around $2 million, it has already taken over $30 million and still counting.

There’s no doubt that the Terrifier films have a loyal and strong fanbase, I’m not one of those fans though. This is a bit bizarre too as I love a good gore flick. I grew up with this stuff through the ’80s and ’90s. While not as bloody, I still remember the time that 6-year-old me was watching John Carpenter’s The Thing on VHS at my aunt’s house with my brothers and cousins. You know the infamous dog scene? My cousin Sam ran out of the room as it was so scary and gory. Me? Oh, I was scared, but I was also fascinated – that moment is etched into my mind as it is what kickstarted my adulation for horror and effects work. Fast-forward a decade or so with young adult me now utterly obsessed with horror films and the early 2000s, where here in the UK, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) had a management change and a load of previously heavily edited or outright banned films were finally released fully uncut.

I had a job, I was single and after paying the bills, I had a lot of disposable income back then. I would often wander into town and peruse HMV, Virgin and other shops, buying horror films like they were sweets. I once had a massive VHS collection, until I moved in with the girlfriend and she made me get rid of them as they took up too much room. Anyway, the point is that I had built up quite an impressive collection of horror films on VHS. Coupled with that change in management at the BBFC, I got my hands on all of those notorious films that I was not allowed to see growing up. I watched The Driller Killer, Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit on Your Grave, The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and I got to watch The Exorcist fully uncut for the first time. Just a slight few of the many, many horror films I had amassed over the years. I missed out on years of horror films, and I wanted to catch up.

I love horror, I love gore and I love practical effects. When people talk of great artists, names like Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and others get thrown around. For me, great artists were Rick Baker, Stan Winston, Greg Nicotero, Rob Bottin and the legend that is Tom Savini – these are my greats. So then, the Terrifier films should be right up my alley. They are crammed with blood, gore and some truly fantastic effects work. But here’s the thing, the Terrifier films aren’t up my alley, in fact, I think they’re a bit crap.

I watched the first Terrifier film after the release of Terrifier 2 in 2022 (which I had not yet seen). I had never heard of the films before, but there was this buzz on social media at the time and all this talk of “the bloodiest film ever”, and such – this piqued my horror interest. I thought it best to go in blind and not look at any reviews or trailers. So I got hold of Terrifier and I watched it… and I was a bit bored, truth be told. You see, there’s really no plot. Some lass is on a talk show telling her story of how she survived Art the Clown the previous year. The film then shows Art’s killing spree. That is it, the film is about this Art guy killing people. There’s no real story, it’s just Art killing people. With the lack of a story comes the lack of any characterization. Terrifier is nothing but a showcase for gory effects work. And about those effects, they are great – the bit when Art saws that lass in half. Yeah, it’s bloody and given the film’s $35,000 budget, the effects are brilliant.

After watching and appreciating the effects, but really not enjoying Terrifier, I watched Terrifier 2. I kind of felt that I had to. There was this desire to see the sequel do better, not bigger – but better. I hoped that, with the sequel, an actual story would be included this time around and there would be characters, outside of Art, to invest in. Nope, it’s more of the same. Don’t get me wrong, there is more of a story in the sequel – a very paper-thin story about some girl called Sienna. Don’t really know, don’t care as she just was not even slightly interesting. Oh, the bedroom scene, yep bloody, gory and some fantastic effects work – but the film is dull. I was so bored by Terrifier 2 that I had to watch it in three sittings. It just drags on and on and is sleep-inducing. The runtime for Terrifier 2 is 2 hours and 18 minutes… for a splatter flick. The first film dragged and was boring, but at least it only has a 1 hour and 32 minute runtime. Even then, it still felt about an hour too long. Terrifier 2’s 2+ hour runtime is more painful to sit through than being skinned alive by Art the Clown.

And now, we have Terrifier 3. On the one hand, I’m not surprised that there is a third film (the director has already announced the fourth) as the films have made a lot of money on the back of their very small budgets. Of course, they are going to keep making these films, as long as the money comes in. On the other hand, I don’t understand how you can get three films (soon to be four and, even possibly a fifth) out of 5 minutes of plot. I did try to watch Terrifier 3, but I gave up about 50 minutes in. I did make it through the second one, all be it in three parts. But this third one? Nope, I gave up before the halfway point and I feel zero desire to watch the rest of the film. These flicks are dull. There’s nothing to watch. Art the Clown kills people in really bloody ways, yep I’ve already seen that and while I admire the effects work, I need a story and characters that are worth investing my time in.

I have been told that by quitting Terrifier 3 before the halfway point, I’m missing the big gory kill of the film, the shower scene. Nope, I’m missing nothing. I’ve not seen it – but here’s the thing, I don’t need to because I have already seen it without seeing it. I have seen the trailer and I know that there are two people in the shower, and Art turns up with a chainsaw. I bet Art cuts the two showering people up with the chainsaw…right? I bet there’s lots of blood. I bet there are close-up shots of the victims with flesh dangling off their bones and chainsaw wounds penetrating their bodies. I bet Art cuts one of them (maybe both) in half. There are no surprises worth watching. Art turns up and kills people in bloody ways. Plus, Terrifier 3 has a 2 hour and 5 minute runtime. I think the 5 minutes is the plot. Stop making these films so stupidly long, this is why I got bored, they are splatter flicks, not epics. There’s barely enough plot for a short film, never mind a 2 hour one. You could combine the story of all three films, and still not have enough plot for a full-length feature. Gore for the sake of gore is utterly boring and once you have seen Art kill once, you’ve seen everything he is ever likely to do. So I don’t need to watch the rest of Terrifier 3, it’s the same old shit as the first two.

Maybe it’s a generational thing? Growing up and watching all of those ’70s and ’80s horror films may have desensitised me. If the Terrifier films had been released in the ’80s, maybe they would’ve had more of an impact. Even the ’90s had its fair share of horror flicks that had an impact on me. By the ’90s, I had discovered Asian horror films. Films such as Ringu and Audition which may not have been particularly bloody – but they sure were disturbing and had stories and characters worth watching. Still, even Asian horror could turn up the gore, especially if those films were inspired by true events, like 1993’s The Untold Story. What, a gory film with a plot and characters? Oh yeah, it can be done.

One of my favourite gore flicks is Peter Jackson’s Braindead (Dead Alive to you Yanks). It is crammed with memorable characters, it has a stupid but funny plot and (I think) it is still considered the goriest film ever made thanks to the lawnmower finale, even more bloody than the Terrifier films. Even though that finale is great, Braindead has much more to it than gore. It has characters worth remembering and it has a fun story. This is what the Terrifier films are missing. As good as the effects are, as bloody as the films get, they’re just so dull. Yet, this is a defence I have seen made of the films: they are gore-fests, and they don’t need to be Shakespeare. I agree, the Terrifier films don’t have to be Shakespeare (a bloody-horror version of Hamlet would be great though), no gore films have to be Shakespeare – but it would still be nice to have something other than the gore to keep me entertained. The Torma films are pretty fucking far from being Shakespeare, but they are some of the most entertaining gory films you are ever likely to see.

I like Art the Clown and I think he is a great horror icon. It’s just a shame that he is in these crap, overly long and very dull films. They’re about as scary and as hard to watch as an episode of The Itchy & Scratchy Show. The biggest shock of these films is how utterly boring they are.