‘Terrifier 3’ could be construed as a variation on the ‘Halloween’ series of slasher films, but set instead at Christmas, and with added gore. Art the Clown, upping the ante even of ‘It’ in terms of how cinematic clowns can be sadistic and malevolent, is an immortal being, unable to die and who is resurrected not just in each successive iteration of this franchise but even within the film itself, so there is no question of any resolution being offered the audience.

As with Stephen King’s ‘It’, the clown is here a repository of the trauma, guilt and shame of the other characters in the community where this is set, and any attempt to outwit or kill the sinister Art only fortifies the clown further, with each character required to look inward in order to work out the best way to attempt to defeat their foe. This is all about performance, and Art sets up each individual killing, usually with his victims tied to a chair, with liquid nitrogen sprayed on them so that when he then attacks their limbs with hammers, axes or chainsaws the bones and skin literally crack open.

Dismemberment is the objective, and then an increasingly painful death follows to Art’s gratification. Indeed, Art clearly enjoys the thrill of the kill, so it is not as though any amount of pleading to stop on the part of his victims is going to achieve anything other than an increased penchant for torture. And with a two hour running time, the question for us in the audience is why we might want to watch such mayhem. Yet, are we rooting for the victims to fight back and kill off the demonic Clown, or on some level are we perhaps rooting for ever more macabre and sickening forms of torture? Are we turned on by this sort of depravity and evil?

For me, the absence of any compelling mythology means that this works simply on the level of giving the audience increasingly outrageous death and dismemberment scenes, as if it is trying to outclass the ‘Saw’ movies. In setting this at Christmas, the filmmakers had a terrific opportunity to say something subversive about the festive season and its inbuilt array of mythological tropes. But the film isn’t interested in giving us that level of depth, and this gives ‘Terrifier 3’ the paradoxical scenario of being both shocking and shallow.