While Terrifier 3 might reasonably want to follow the same path as many successful horror franchises, the Terrifier 2 follow-up should steer clear of one common trope. Terrifier 2’s success was almost without precedent. An extremely gory slasher sequel that featured extended scenes of barbaric brutality, Terrifier 2 was also a low-budget effort with no A-list cast members and a budget of only $250,000. Despite this, Terrifier 2 earned a staggering $15 million at the box office. What’s even more impressive is that Terrifier 2’s reviews were nowhere near as negative as the original movie’s critical write-ups.
While Terrifier 2’s gore rubbed some reviewers up the wrong way, the critical consensus was that this gruesome sequel improved on the original movie. Terrifier was nastier than Terrifier 2, but the sequel brought a campy sense of humor to proceedings. Terrifier 2 established a more over-the-top and less realistic tone for the sequel by clarifying that Art the Clown was a supernatural being from the beginning. This made the stomach-churning violence (slightly) easier to stomach since these sequences took place in a heightened reality with fantasy elements. However, while Terrifier 3 should continue in this vein, the sequel should not fall victim to a common horror franchise mistake.
Terrifier 3 Can’t (& Shouldn’t) Explain Art’s Origin Story
With Terrifier 3, the Terrifier series can’t explain Art’s origins. What makes Art the Clown so uniquely scary is how little viewers know about him. The more the Terrifier franchise expounds on his backstory, the more like a conventional horror villain he will become. This is the unfortunate fate that befell another, earlier low-budget horror hit, The Blair Witch Project. While the 1998 original movie was a sparse classic that gave away almost nothing, both its sequel and its 2016 reboot were critically maligned for over-explaining the lore of the series and depicting the villain onscreen, respectively.
The Terrifier series runs an even bigger risk of ruining Art the Clown than The Blair Witch Project did since the first two movies have already relied on the villain’s screen presence so much. One thing that fans and critics agree on when it comes to the Terrifier movies is that Art the Clown’s scenes are by far the strongest parts of the franchise. Like Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Voorhees before him, Art the Clown is the character viewers want to see in Terrifier 3. This makes it tempting for the sequel to expound on his backstory and fill in more of his origins, but this would be a mistake.
Terrifier’s Pennywise Comparisons Prove Art’s Backstory Problem
The comparisons between IT’s Pennywise and Terrifier’s Art the Clown underline just how much Terrifier 3 needs to avoid the villain’s backstory. Every version of IT (including the original novel, the TV miniseries, and the later movie series) explained Pennywise’s backstory and every one of them made the mysterious monster much less threatening thanks to this fantasy-infected exposition. Art the Clown, according to creator Damian Leone, was always envisioned as an alternative to Pennywise. This means he needs no convoluted origins, just like Art the Clown didn’t need Pennywise’s creepy dialogue or shape-shifting powers to scare audiences.
Terrifier 3’s Scope Makes Art The Clown’s Origin Tough To Avoid
Terrifier 3 will reportedly have a seven-figure budget compared to Terrifier 2’s $250,000. Already, the much longer Terrifier 2 opened up the world of the Terrifier series after the sparse original movie. As such, it will be tough for the size of the franchise to increase much more without leaning into Art’s backstory. While the introduction of Terrifier 2’s Pale Little Girl allowed the sequel to imply the existence of a larger supernatural universe outside of Art the Clown’s antics, the movie wisely steered clear of explaining where she came from or exactly what her powers were. No explanation could make her scarier, but many could dampen her creepiness.
Like, Art the Clown himself, the Pale Little Girl is scary precisely because the Terrifier movies don’t offer a justification for her evil deeds. Few viewers found Jason scarier when Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday revealed that he was a body-hopping demonic spirit, and almost no Halloween franchise fans would claim that the Thorn Cult’s convoluted plot made Michael Myers more intimidating. One of the hardest parts of creating an iconic horror villain is not ruining them with an unnecessary backstory. However, Terrifier 3 can pull this off, provided the highly hyped Terrifier 2 sequel does not give in to temptation and keeps its villain a mystery.
