The series keeps improving
The most positive thing I can say for this movie over Terrifier 2 is that Damien Leone really took the criticisms of the excessive length to heart by cutting a good 20 miniutes from the running time. Now if he can hack off an additional 20 minutes in the next film he'll have the perfect runntime, because this is still much longer than it needs to be.
As for the legion of critics telling people not to expect much by way of storytelling or acting, what aspect of the storytelling do you take issue with here, exactly? Both Terrifier 2 and 3 demonstrate a far stronger grasp on very basic elements of setup and payoff better than some of the most venerated horror classics in cinema, even better than the likes of say, Halloween. I mean come on, the opening scene where the future victim nameless mom lectures the future victim nameless dad about locking the doors at night for their own safety, leading to a deliciously ironic moment in which the locked front door ends up becoming the one barrier between herself and escaping Art. Or at the very end when Gabbie outsmarts Art and Victoria by tricking them into allowing Sienna into opening her Christmas gift through two other cleverly disguised setups earlier on in the movie. This movie is chock full of little moments that make its gleefully excessive gore so much more satisfying. Then there's also Leone's deft control of tone, as he's capable of switching between joyful carnage and hopeless horror often within the same scene without feeling jarring or out-of-place. Or the hilariously sacreligious antics with Victoria shoving the Christ-like crown of thorns onto the "savior" of the movie's heads, and Art later whipping her with the entrails of another victim nailed to the wall in a crucifix shape, a whipping staged to look like the flogging of Christ, a truly perverse bit of blasphemy. What part of the storytelling has been neglected here? Because to me it seems like Leone understands precisely how to manage a satisfying kill sequence, his only problem is that the lengths of his movies doesn't justify the amount of material he stretches across them, and as soon as he learns how to tighten down his runntimes appropriately he'll have constructed his evergreen horror masterpiece.
As for the legion of critics telling people not to expect much by way of storytelling or acting, what aspect of the storytelling do you take issue with here, exactly? Both Terrifier 2 and 3 demonstrate a far stronger grasp on very basic elements of setup and payoff better than some of the most venerated horror classics in cinema, even better than the likes of say, Halloween. I mean come on, the opening scene where the future victim nameless mom lectures the future victim nameless dad about locking the doors at night for their own safety, leading to a deliciously ironic moment in which the locked front door ends up becoming the one barrier between herself and escaping Art. Or at the very end when Gabbie outsmarts Art and Victoria by tricking them into allowing Sienna into opening her Christmas gift through two other cleverly disguised setups earlier on in the movie. This movie is chock full of little moments that make its gleefully excessive gore so much more satisfying. Then there's also Leone's deft control of tone, as he's capable of switching between joyful carnage and hopeless horror often within the same scene without feeling jarring or out-of-place. Or the hilariously sacreligious antics with Victoria shoving the Christ-like crown of thorns onto the "savior" of the movie's heads, and Art later whipping her with the entrails of another victim nailed to the wall in a crucifix shape, a whipping staged to look like the flogging of Christ, a truly perverse bit of blasphemy. What part of the storytelling has been neglected here? Because to me it seems like Leone understands precisely how to manage a satisfying kill sequence, his only problem is that the lengths of his movies doesn't justify the amount of material he stretches across them, and as soon as he learns how to tighten down his runntimes appropriately he'll have constructed his evergreen horror masterpiece.
- bulgerpaul
- Jan 11, 2025