MovieChat Forums > Terrifier 3 (2024) Discussion > Much better than the first, falls short ...

Much better than the first, falls short of the second

posted 13 days ago by DoctorThirteen (15260)
2 replies | jump to latest

Lauren LaVera and David Howard Thornton are as terrific as they were in the second film. Thornton's mime skills are front and centre (making you laugh even as he does the most appalling things), as is former stunt girl LaVera's athleticism. The gore is as OTT as we expect ('kill of the movie' for me is the mother of the poor family butchered near the start). Special mention to Samantha Scaffidi, returning as Victoria Heyes. She's given more to do here, and her appearance really is the stuff of nightmares. The timeline is not straight-forward: the first film was released in 2016 and seems to take place contemporaneously; the second was released in 2022 but takes place just a year after the first; whilst this one (released last year) takes place five years after the second. So, it goes T1 - 2016, T2 - 2017, T3 - 2022. Presumably T4 (which is set up) will return to the present day? The minus here is the runtime. Whilst not the ridiculous 2hrs 18mins of the second film, it still run 2hrs 5mins. Damien Leone obviously wants to explore the lore, but when all's said and done it's a slasher movie. It needs a certain pace; when secondary stuff starts to interfere with that it's time to rethink. A good ten - fifteen minutes could have easily been trimmed.

I gave the first one 7/10, the second (despite its length) 8.5/10. Whilst this is far better than the first, it doesn't reach the heights of the second. Nevertheless, it does have some great effects, makeup, set-pieces, and is at times very creepy. 8/10

[–] SkyeRiley (301) 13 days ago

Terrifier 2 - 7.5
[A pretty good slasher. Great gore, a great final girl and the OST was good. Too long and a bit low-fi given it's low budget but other than that solid stuff. It showed some promise.]
Terrifier 3 - 6
[The slickest one yet but a step down from the second in most aspects. Still too long. He really needs to keep the improved production values and tighten the narrative to make a lean slasher movie. Most of the all time great slashers from the early 80s just about reached 90 minutes. There is no need for this cheap, low budget franchise to be clocking in at 2+ hours.]
Terrifier - 5.5
[A few nice kills, decent atmosphere and a very short runtime make this one a fine watch but it's not great. Passable horror entertainment.]

I didn't like the fact they killed the brother off screen. The end in general was very, very messy. The movie also took too long to get going.

[–] DoctorThirteen (15260) 13 days ago

Interesting, we agree on the rankings,

T2
T3
T1

just differ on the ratings. I agree about the runtimes of the last two. Re the brother's death, absolutely. The fact that it was offscreen makes me wonder if it's going to turn out he's somehow survived.