“>”Terrifier 3” Reveals Art the Clown’s Twisted Evolution.

This article contains spoilers for “Terrifier 3.”

The longer a horror franchise goes, the more lore needs to be developed, almost by default. After all, how else to explain why and how a series’ central villain/spirit/killer keeps coming back to pester the living? While some franchises have enough lore baked into the premise of the series and characters right from the get-go so as not to need too much elaboration — the Cenobites are called from Hell by the Lament Configuration, Charles Lee Ray is into voodoo resurrection, etc. — others find themselves having to pile new facets onto the characters to try and explain why this struggle of Good vs. Evil is continual. This latter group tends to contain most of the slasher franchises, as series like “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” eventually find themselves either embracing explicitly supernatural ideas or having to shed continuity and start over.

Damien Leone’s “Terrifier” films are curiously right in between these two camps. While the first “Terrifier” movie features Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) committing heinous acts of murder that any average human being could potentially do, by the end of that film there’s something explicitly supernatural happening that causes his resurrection. In “Terrifier 2,” Art is still ostensibly portrayed as human and isn’t given any supernatural powers per se, but his seeming ability to attack Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) in her dreams along with all the hints toward Sienna’s father having some psychic (or otherwise) connection to Art sets the stage for some more supernatural shenanigans that follow. Although Leone explained a bit about such elements as Sienna’s own resurrection and the possession of Victoria Heyes (Samantha Scaffidi) on his commentary track fo…8953143.sm.webp” type=”image/webp”>

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As revealed in “Terrifier 3,” Art is the chosen servant of a Demon from Hell, an entity that initially appeared in “Terrifier 2” in the guise of the Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain), whom only Art, Sienna, and Sienna’s brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) could see. Upon taking Art’s head after he was decapitated by Sienna, the Demon/Little Pale Girl possessed Victoria, the sole survivor of the first film who’d been defaced by Art and was left broken and driven mad enough to commit murder herself. Through her possession, the Demon not only takes over Victoria’s body but makes her give birth to a living version of Art’s head, allowing the killer to be literally reassembled at the start of “Terrifier 3.” Later, when Art and the Demon have Sienna in their clutches, the Demon explains how Sienna is the chosen one (i.e. only one) who can defeat Art with the mystical sword given to her by her late father, and that before this can be allowed to happen, the Demon intends to have Art sew enough discord and pain in Sienna’s life to break her spirit enough for the Demon to possess her body.

In other words, one of the tenets of the “Terrifier” series is its violence and extreme gore; our own review of “Terrifier 3” mentions this extensively, and many reactions to the films on social media all revolve around the graphic depictions. So, Leone has taken one of the elements of his series and built a lore reason around it: Art isn’t just brutally