A Terrifying Discussion
By Jose Perieda
The franchise has caused "Art the Clown" to join the likes of "Chucky", "Michael Myers", and "Freddy Krueger" as a slasher icon. The "Terrifier" franchise earns their celebration due to their overwhelming box-office success for a fully independent franchise that seems to be a step in the right direction for the future of the horror genre. However, the franchise has taken a step back in their writing of women with a lack of character development, and overwhelming violence on women.
It is a success story for indie filmmakers. These indie films are made on a shoestring budget, and they earn millions for it through V.O.D (video on demand) and at the box office. The first "Terrifier" film cost about $35,000 and was released in limited theaters and made back about $400,000 in the box office. It was then released on V.O.D and on multiple streaming platforms.
"Terrifier 2" was made for $250,000 with help from crowdfunding. It earned $15.7 million dollars due to a wider theatrical release. Now, "Terrifier" is back in theaters with its third installment with an increased budget of $2 million dollars. It grossed $18 million dollars and brutally beat another clown movie, "Joker: Folie à Deux", for the top spot of the box office weekend.
The first positive note for the "Terrifier" franchise is in its main antagonist," Art the Clown" portrayed by David Howard Thornton. "Art the Clown" is a sadistic serial killer that has tortured all the characters in this franchise, however he is hilarious. He has a simple but effective design. His black and white make-up, along with his frail body, gives an erring look to Art. One of the key character traits of Art is that he does not speak like many of his horror icon contemporaries, but he does react in a very Charlie-Chaplin sort of way.
"Art The Clown" stands out among the slasher icons due to his silence and humor. The closest comparison for Art is through another slasher, "Freddy Krueger". They both create humor out of their victims, but while Freddy creates a lot of his humor through his jokes, Art creates his humor through his body language. It's a refreshing take on the slasher killers that are silent with no humor.
David’s body language as Art makes you pay attention to him, no matter what type of sadistic act he’s currently involved with. Whether it is through his smile, walk, or wailing a chainsaw around a naked dead body, David makes sure that you keep your eyes on him whenever he appears on screen. To put it simply, the "Terrifier" franchise would not be successful if it were not for him and his on-screen rival.
Lauren LaVera as Sienna Shaw absolutely kills it on screen, pun intended. First appearing in "Terrifier 2", Lauren brings a commitment and intensity to the character in both "Terrifier 2" and "Terrifier 3", which makes her stand out among the entire cast. Sienna starts out as a regular teen and eventually accepts the role of her being the “chosen one” to defeat "Art the Clown" by the end of the second film.
Every emotional scene whether it is through her anger, frustration, fear, desperation, or even weeping, you feel every emotion with her. You cannot help but notice her commitment to the character, and it makes you root for her, no matter the situation. Her development is very similar to Sidney's Prescott's and Laurie Strode's journey in the Scream and rebooted Halloween franchise. All three survive a brutal experience with the killer and are then haunted by the memories of the trauma.
Now let us get into the negatives of this franchise. These films are straight-up bad. There are underdeveloped story-lines that are rushed or forgotten. No strong characterization for any of the characters other than Art and Sienna. All characters are there to be killed, and the audience knows it. It does not allow the audience to connect to these characters, become fully invested in their journeys and feel any sort of emotion when their character meets their end.
There seems to be a demonic side of the story that ties into Art that explains why he comes back repeatedly, but that never gets any screen time. Leone keeps teasing that the story-line will eventually pay off in future films, but it comes off as an excuse for a story-line thread that they haven’t quite figured out yet. It is arguably the most interesting aspect of the films other than David and Lauren’s performances.
Now, in my opinion, these films are misogynistic. The amount of on-screen torture to these women of the franchise is unbelievable. While these films prove that Art does kill anyone whether its men, children, animals, or women. The women’s deaths are drawn out, and more brutal.
In the first film, Art does kill a lot of men (fully clothed) in brutal ways whether it’s multiple stabs in the face, decapitation, body mutilation, or even being bludgeoned to death. The “big kill” of the movie is Art hanging a naked woman upside down and cutting her in half starting with her vagina all the way to her face. It is a brutal act, and strongly separates Art and the film franchise from other horror franchises by showing how far they will go.
In the second film, clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes, which is too long for a slasher, depicts Art going on another brutal killing journey around the Halloween season. Art kills a lot of men again, but the “big kill” is a 5-minute sequence on Sienna’s best friend, Allie, who is half-naked with a robe.
Art cuts her eye, scalps her, cuts her back open, breaks apart both arms and stabs her chest open. We see Allie, still alive, struggling to reach her phone, before Art comes in and throws bleach and salt onto her wounds. You would think the scene is over, and the torture is done but that’s not all folks. A couple of scenes later, we see Allie’s mother walk into her room with Art cutting her body into pieces with Allie still alive. There is not a single male in this franchise that gets as brutal as a death like hers.
Another example that shows the difference between the men's deaths and the women's deaths is in "Terrifier 2" and it involves a couple.
The boyfriend gets his penis chopped off and brutally stabbed in the groin area multiple times, and just screams in pain. Art does not go back to him, but he goes straight to the girlfriend, where he chases her throughout a spooky maze. Art catches up and throws acid in her face before grabbing a plank with knives and forks sticking out of it and beating her to death. Art breaks her arm, knee, and sternum with the plank and rips her heart out and eats it.
Most horror films depict acts of violence on women in many different ways from the theatrically released Scream films to the streaming hit film series, "Fear Street". All of the women that were killed have a strong character that ties into the main character and story and causes an emotional reaction to the audience. In "Fear Street:1994", there is a character named Kate that is shoved through a bread slicer. It's violent, shocking, and the entire process is shown. Kate is a developed character that has an entire arc and when she is killed, it causes an impact in the story and to the main character. Most of the women in the "Terrifier" franchise are introduced as flat, surface level characters whose sole purpose is to add to the body count.
"Terrifier 3" does seem to take some notes of the misogynistic criticisms that have followed these films. It is the best-looking film in the franchise through its upgraded cinematography and set design. The script is still weak through its shallow characters and a rushed third act that kills multiple characters off-screen. Lauren shines again but her character is sidelined, giving more screen time to Art’s victims that are badly written.
"Terrifier 3" still draws out the women's death again. The beginning of the film depicts Art, dressed as Santa, stalking through a house, and killing off the family members mostly off-screen before fully showing the murder of the mom.
Art kills almost all men until the shower scene which is the “big kill.” Art wails a chainsaw through a naked couple having sex in the college dorm showers. Art quickly goes through the women, but not before he chainsaws her breasts multiple times. Art then takes the chainsaw and saws the man in half from his ass all the way to the face.
This scene does feel like an answer to the misogyny criticism by having Art kill a naked man and making his death last longer. However, it is nowhere near as brutal or drawn out as Allie’s or Brooke’s death from the second film. I do not think these misogynistic criticisms will affect viewership because the franchise continues to make more money through each installment.
All three "Terrifier" films contain some sort of mutilation on women’s genitalia in scenes that are not necessary and disgusting. In "Terrifier 3" there is another killer accompanying Art, which is Victoria, who is the surviving “final girl” from the first "Terrifier". She is facially disfigured and in love with Art. She masturbates with a glass shard when Art rips a man's head in half, with blood coming out of her vagina with every movement of that glass shard.
In "Terrifier 2", there is a character named the Little Pale Girl, who is a figment of Art’s imagination. She is a kid who is dressed like a creepy clown, but her first scene shows black bile coming out under her skirt. There is no symbolic meaning to these random acts, they are never brought up again.
I would give a pass to these killings if the killers were to meet an even more brutal or equal death as their victims, but they do not. There are no satisfying deaths to Art or Victoria. The closest we get is in "Terrifier 2", where Art gets decapitated but that is quickly undermined when the Little Pale Girl arrives and takes his head, hinting at his eventual resurrection. In "Terrifier 3", he just gets his throat slashed before creeping away. An example of a slasher meeting a brutal end would be in "Halloween Ends". where the entire town takes a chance at killing "Michael Myers" before throwing his body in a trash compactor.
In an interview with "IndieWire", Damian Leone said “I could try my best to convince people, but if people are going to label me then I don’t think I’m going to change their opinion, I just have to be happy with the truth. And I think that when all this smoke clears, Sienna will be standing as this very strong character regardless of gender. People should judge my misogyny on that character.”
Although I agree that Sienna is a strong character and will probably be one of the iconic “final girls” of the genre, I strongly disagree that we should judge his misogyny on just her character. That’s an excuse, every other woman is under-developed and painfully killed. There are countless horror franchises that have strong women characters that also meet their end, such as Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Ready or Not, Happy Death Day, and Alien. The portrayal of the women in this franchise feels like a set-back for the horror genre.