Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Terrifier 3 (2024)
AlthoughTerrifier 3might have plenty of disgusting moments, one of its most important deaths is a striking disappointment. TheTerrifiermovies are a lot of things, but no one could accuse director Damian Leone’s slasher series of subtlety.Art the Clown’s gory horror moviesleave little to the imagination, shocking viewers with an onslaught of carnage and graphic violence that most mainstream movies would never go near.Terrifier 3’s brutal killsare no exception, with Art’s antics getting even bloodier and more explicit this time around as the franchise increases its body count once again.
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As such, it is an unwelcome shock to realize that the most important death inTerrifier 3takes place entirely off-screen. Keeping the act itself off-screen alone isn’t a complete shock. Art the Clown’s murder of two children in the 2013 anthology movieAll Hallow’s Evealso takes place off-screen, as do the deaths of two children inTerrifier 3’s controversial opening scene. However, what is shocking is that this character is pivotal to the storyline of the series, but their demise is effectively ignored in the sequel. This leads to viewers to wonder if it will be retconned.
Terrifier 3 Should Have Shown Jonathan’s Death
Terrifier 3 Inexplicably Skipped Its Most Important Character Death
Even though Sienna’s brother is a vital character in the franchise’s mythos,Terrifier 3’s Jonathan death takes place completely off-screen. The character is last seen dozing in his dorm room after a tense conversation with his sister that is interrupted by his thoughtless roommate, Cole, and Cole’s true-crime-obsessed girlfriend Mia. Cole and Mia are murdered by Art the Clown in the shower in a set piece that might be the bloodiest sequence in the entire franchise. However, Jonathan isn’t mentioned again until what is ostensibly his head, mostly eaten by rats, is displayed by Art and Vicky in the closing scene.
2016
$35,000-$55,000
$416,000
60%
53%
2022
$250,000
$15.7 million
86%
80%
2024
$2 million
77%
94%
There are numerous reasons that this twist doesn’t work. The first is thatTerrifier 3’s creepy new villain Vickyinitially claims that the skull belongs to Sienna’s niece, Gabbie, as she and Art torture and kill Gabbie’s mother, Jess. They then reveal that the skull really belongs to Jonathan, but Vicky also specifies that she needs Sienna to lose all hope so that she can possess her body. As such, it seems transparently obvious that Art and Vicky are lying again in the hopes of leaving Sienna despondent and devoid of hope, thus making her easier to possess.
Jonathan’s Death Happening Off-Screen In Terrifier 3 Goes Against The Franchise’s Core
The Terrifier Movies Are All About Upsetting Character Deaths
In plot terms,Jonathan’s death taking place off-screen makes no sense. In terms of pacing, the jump from Art’s time in the fraternity house to his appearance in Jess’s home is confusing, to say the least, as it is unclear where Vicky was during Cole and Mia’s deaths and whether she was involved in Jonathan’s death. Furthermore, the fact that Vicky and Art lied about the skull’s providence mere minutes earlier when they had no reason to do so makes it much more likely that the pair would repeat this lie when it could potentially disempower Sienna and leave her defenseless.
The decision to keep Jonathan’s death off-screen jars with the ethos of the series.
However, the issue with this death doesn’t stop at its practical implications for the narrative. AlthoughTerrifier 3was well received critically, the decision to keep Jonathan’s death off-screen also jars with the ethos of the series. The proudly tastelessTerrifiermovies have never shied away from depicting violence on-screen and have always obstinately pushed the limits of what audiences can watch without prompting involuntary physical responses. This approach should be no different when it comes to killing a major character like Jonathan, soTerrifier 3taking such a toothless route makes the twist tough to believe.
Jonathan’s Off-Screen Death Makes It Difficult To Believe
Victoria And Art Already Lied About The Skull’s Providence Once
As evidenced by discussions of the sequel onReddit,Jonathan’s death taking place off-screen immediately made viewers doubt that it happened at all. A substantial portion of the posters in the above thread expect the sequel to reveal that Jonathan is still alive, even if this is not Leone’s ultimate plan for the series. Indeed, if Jonathan’s death does turn out to be the real deal and not a misdirection, it might be the most disappointing demise in the history of the series. Sienna’s brother is a central character who serves as a foil to her throughoutTerrifier 2andTerrifier 3.
When Sienna simply wanted to be a normal teen inTerrifier 2, her morbidly obsessed brother began unveiling the links between Art the Clown and their late father. When she desperately wanted Jonathan to acknowledge their supernatural links to the Miles County Killer inTerrifier 3, it was now Jonathan who wanted to forget their whole ordeal and Sienna who needed to reach her brother before it was too late. Admittedly,Terrifier 3’s cliffhanger endingdoes give Sienna a new family member to protect in Gabbie, but this only makes Jonathan’s disappointing death more of a problem for the franchise’s future.
Terrifier 4 Needs To Make Up For Jonathan’s Death Disservice
Jonathan Needs A Comeback Or A Real Death Scene
Whether Sienna’s brother turns out to be alive and returns or his death is depicted in a detailed flashback,Terrifier 4needs to fix Jonathan’s disappointing series exit. If the sequel reveals that Jonathan really did die and his death is never mentioned again, the series will be taking its subversive approach to slasher conventions too far. It was striking, clever, and genuinely surprising in 2016’sTerrifierwhen Art the Clown pulled a gun on the movie’s apparent Final Girl and simply shot her in the head. This gag had shades of Michael Haneke’s infamousFunny Games.
Terrifier 3is currently playing in theaters.
The moment shocked viewers by betraying conventional slasher rules, both with the villain’s use of firearms and the Final Girl’s sudden death midway through the story. However, killing off major characters like Jonathan with no fanfare isn’t a similarly subversive move. Instead, it feels more like an oversight or a poorly disguised twist. IfTerrifier 4’s story openedby revealing that Gabbie died on her way to hell and was never seen again, this would sap Sienna’s story of any emotional resonance. Similarly, the inauspicious end of her brother’s story makesTerrifier 3’s plot harder to care about.
