Terrifier 3 Smartly Solved A Horror Movie Problem To Make It A Box Office Success

While Terrifier 3’s box office success is notable for numerous reasons, one major surprise is the movie’s infamously divisive time period. Although Terrifier 2’s success in October 2022 was a surprise, Terrifier 3’s box office is an even bigger shock. The movie’s financial impact is almost unprecedented for numerous reasons, from its unrated release to its lack of big-name stars to the shocking amounts of gruesome gore featured in its lengthy runtime. Terrifier 3’s brutally violent kills alone could have potentially killed its box office prospects but, instead, the slasher sequel proved a massive success.

Terrifier 3 earned over $55 million in the first three weeks of its release, displacing Joker 2 to become the number 1 movie in America in its debut weekend. Terrifier 3 is now officially the most financially successful unrated movie of all time, an impressive achievement that proves the franchise can hold its own against even its biggest mainstream competitors in the horror genre. While not every detail and death in Terrifier 3’s story worked perfectly, its positive reviews and incredible box office impact do prove that one horror sub-genre has the potential to succeed if creators learn from this canny franchise.

Terrifier 3’s Box Office Success Is Rare For Christmas Horror Movies

Christmas Horror Movies Are Notoriously Unpredictable At The Box Office

Judging by the slasher sequel’s financial success, Terrifier 3 proves that Christmas horror movies should be released way earlier than they typically are. Terrifier 3 is a Christmas horror movie through and through, with Terrifier 3’s controversial opening scene featuring a Santa-suited Art the Clown mercilessly massacring an entire family in their home on Christmas Eve. Terrifier 3’s $55 million success makes the slasher sequel a hit holiday horror movie, and this is much rarer than viewers might anticipate. Christmas horror movies have become a multiplex mainstay in recent years, but they aren’t financially reliable in the least.

Terrifier 3’s early October release played a pivotal role in its success.

Black Christmas’s 2006 remake, its 2019 re-imagining, 2015’s Krampus, and 2022’s The Mean One all underperformed, despite the last of the bunch starring the Terrifier franchise breakout star David Howard Thornton. Meanwhile, Better Watch Out, Christmas Bloody Christmas, and A Christmas Horror Story all received limited releases, and none of them were released as early in the year as Terrifier 3. 2023’s yuletide slasher comedy It’s A Wonderful Knife also barely scraped past the million dollar mark at the box office, proving that Terrifier 3’s early October release played a pivotal role in its success.

Terrifier 3’s Release Date Helped The Holiday Horror

Christmas Settings Seemingly Put Off Horror Fans

There are plenty of horror movies set during Christmas, but precious few are huge box-office hits. 1974’s Black Christmas developed the slasher template years before 1978’s Halloween and 1980’s Friday the 13th, but it underperformed upon release while those later classics were both huge successes. 1984’s Gremlins was a blockbuster success that earned over $200 million upon its release, but it is vital to note that the Christmas movie was released in early June despite its festive setting and themes. Seemingly, even horror fans don’t want to watch new Christmas horrors in the theater in December.

This wasn’t an issue for Terrifier 3, which became the number 1 movie in America thanks to its earlier release. While Terrifier 3’s already-infamous Vicky scene alone proves that the movie could have easily alienated casual horror viewers, its Christmas setting made the carnage more ironic and, by extension, blackly comedic. While Terrifier 2 was already goofier and more over-the-top than its grim, nihilistic, nasty predecessor, Terrifier 3 took things even further with an absurdly bloody chainsaw murder that took place to the tune of “A Terrifier Christmas,” a novelty song about Art the Clown’s Yuletide killing spree.

How Terrifier 3 Handled Its Christmas Setting Set It Apart From Other Horror Movies

Terrifier 3’s Christmas Setting Was A Comparatively Minor Factor

Terrifier 3’s Christmas setting made the movie funnier thanks to its stark contrast with the brutality of its kills. However, this was a minor factor in a plot that also included Jonathan and Sienna’s battle with Terrifier 3’s Art and flashbacks to the childhood of the franchise heroine. Terrifier 3’s franchise connection may have saved its box office, since this made the movie’s Christmas setting only part of its appeal. In contrast, the novelty of being a horror movie set at Christmas was the entire appeal of the movies listed above.

Viewers who sought out either Black Christmas remake or Krampus were lining up to see a demonic, monstrous version of Santa Claus or a masked murderer stalking college students at the most wonderful time of the year. In contrast, many viewers may have sat down to Art the Clown’s latest rampage thanks to an affinity for the earlier movies in the series, a desire to see what all the hype was about, or morbid interest in the movie’s reported tendency to leave audience members vomiting. Thus, Terrifier 3 was more than just another Christmas horror movie.

Terrifier 3
is currently playing in theaters.