Although Terrifier 3 isn’t a masterwork, it does have the merit of pushing its concept even further with more relevant components than its two predecessors. Culminating in a satisfying gore slasher.

Almost unintentionally, Terrifier 3 has not only established itself as one of the must-see films of the 2024 horror genre, but has also made a name for itself among ordinary moviegoers. In particular, thanks to its free marketing, based on the fact that the film is forbidden to view under 18 in certain countries, and an aura of a film that will make us vomit with disgust and gore.

For those already familiar with the franchise, Terrifier 3 doesn’t necessarily seem to be a step above its predecessor in terms of violence. Sure, filmmaker Damien Leone takes the gory step towards children, but it’s done with far more reserve than for adults. The violence and suffering linger much less, even, averting the gaze or arranging for the killing to take place off-screen. However, it’s worth noting that this third installment improves on every element of the second film, so that the difference in quality and budget – which rises another notch to $2M – is absolutely blatant and unmistakable. Clearly, the first and third films are not playing in the same league.

As previously mentioned, Damien Leone chooses to continue his story through Sienna (leaving Jonathan largely aside), playing the post-traumatic stress disorder card. A well-worn motif in horror, but one that gives his character a little more depth and makes us sympathize with her as she finds a semblance of a surrogate family in little Gabbie (Antonella Rose) and her parents Jessica (Margaret Anne Florence) and Greg (Bryce Johnson). Even if Terrifier 3 occasionally falls into expositional or character-development lapses, these are less reflected in an overly heavy film length like its previous installment.

The increased budget is also reflected in Leone’s direction, which moves away from still shots to dolly shots and more interesting camerawork. But there’s still a certain limitation to Leone, who struggles to film his killing scenes – which once again surpass themselves in the ingenuity of their execution and the bloodshed involved – in anything other than shot reverse shots between Art and his victims. It sounds unbelievable, but the repetition of these shots makes the violence quickly wearisome, despite the efforts put into the make-up and prosthetics, which are once again remarkable.

One point on which it was rather unexpected to find an improvement is the humor, which works much better in this opus and largely thanks to David Howard Thornton’s performance. In his gestures, facial expressions and mannerisms, we find something more comic, satirical and absurd. In a very serious tone, the franchise’s use of increasingly fantastic and mythological elements lends a certain qualitative credence to the rest of the film, and allows it to stand out apart from being a sequence of decapitations, dismemberments and so on.

With each successive film and the budget allocated to it, Damien Leone seems to have made the right decisions to improve his films while retaining what made them unique. On a very personal note, I still think that the Terrifiers remain in their essence works that are often unnecessarily gory and quickly lose their shock effect to become drawn-out viewings. But you can’t take away from the filmmaker’s ability to push his ultra-gory ’80s B-movie concept to the limit and give it more and more substance to become something other than what I’ve just described. And that alone makes Terrifier 3 an improvement on the previous two.