Art Attack: Terrifier Trilogy 4K UHD Box Set

What started as a low-budget done-on-the-cheap ultra-gory shock slasher flick has grown into a cultural phenomenon. If you’d told me that Damien Leone’s Terrifier would have become a mega-blockbuster franchise by its third film, I’d have told you to stop sniffing the latex glue and drinking the Karo Syrup blood mixture. But, three films later and here we are! Each Terrifier film has become a true success story for do-it-yourself filmmaking. Unlike the average horror franchise, as each budget has gotten bigger, the films have gotten better, and the box office take has grown matching the public’s appetite for monstrously hilariously over-the-top gore. But are the Terrifier movies actually any good? I guess that depends on who you ask. 

In Terrifier, we’re introduced to Art the Clown (the wonderfully animated David Howard Thornton) and his big black bag of grotesque tricks and toys. BFF’s Tara (Jenna Kenell) and Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) are out enjoying Halloween. Stopping off for a quick slice, they first encounter our creepy bizarre clown. Silent, he makes faces and does the weird antics any clown does - but there’s just a little something wrong with him. Very wrong. Tara and Dawn will soon discover it’s best to be the one who dies quickly and not the one on the receiving end of a hacksaw! 3/5

In Terrifier 2 Art returns one year later to terrorize the Shaw family. Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and her brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) are mourning the death of their artist father. While their mother Barbara (Sarah Voight) struggles to keep the family together, Sienna is intent on enjoying Halloween dressed as the Valkyrie character her father created. But she’s having bizarre visions of Art and a young demon clown girl everywhere she goes. As the limbs are sliced off, the blood sprays and the body count rises, Sienna will come face to face with the terrifyingly brutal reality of her visions. 3.5/5

You just can’t keep a decapitated clown down. Art returns in time to celebrate Christmas delivering packages of death and dismemberment to all the good little boys and girls in Terrifier 3. Several years later and siblings Sienna and Jonathan Shaw are doing their best to move on with their lives. They’ve moved in with their aunt Jess (Margaret Anne Florence), Uncle Greg (Bryce Johnson), and their young daughter Gabbie (Antonella Rose). Trying to pick up the pieces of her shattered life isn’t going to be easy for Sienna when Art returns and this time he has help with his possessed face-mangled victim Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi)! 4/5

Truth be told, I avoided the Terrifier franchise for about as long as I could. I knew what the films were, I knew what to expect, it just didn’t excite me. Work enough student horror films, watch enough '70s Italian splatter films and you become a bit numb to fountains of sticky red dye #3 syrup blood. But by the time Terrifier 3 was getting ready to go into production and the films were becoming a critical and box office success, I figured “Why the hell not?” and gave them a shot. Now three films in (in addition to shorts and an anthology film), I have to say I’m impressed with Damien Leone as a gore-hound filmmaker. 

Each production makes the most of its respective budget but also manages to successively one-up each each entry. Terrifier was a fun gnarly piece of gristly trashy slasher moviemaking, but it was solid. There was a nice build of suspense and some genuine shocks. With Terrifier 2, you can see that with little extra money to work with, Leone was on firmer footing expanding the lore of his ghastly universe, introducing new characters, while also upping the rampage of viscera and blood. Following suit with Terrifier 3, the film is bigger, meaner, gorier, funnier, and impressively enough a bit more mature than its predecessors. Leone doesn’t skimp on the squishy stuff, but I was impressed to see some measure of restraint. Known for “going there” with a number of nasty kills in the first two films, Terrifier 3 eschews a lot of that expected shock and awe factor saving its best on-camera dismemberments for the characters who deserve it most. That’s of course after parading around a number of horror icons like Tom Savini, Clint Howard, and Daniel Roebuck in some fun cameos.

Now with Terrifier 4 confirmed as a sure thing (which is good because Terrifier 3 ends on a cliffhanger), one can only expect Leone’s next effort to be a full-blooded Oscar contender at this point. Probably not, but as each film gets a little bit better, utilizes a little bigger budget, and then makes a serious box office bank. The pressure is on for Leone to deliver the goods. It’s been a while since we’ve had a brand new slasher icon to get excited about and rush to the theater to see and Art is our demonic dude of the hour. Perversely weird and wild, these films aren’t very scary, but the blood and gore are so nuts one can’t help but laugh. I mean I laughed. Probably more than I should have, but I laughed. So did a lot of people at my theater during the third film so I’m not the only one out there with a demented sense of humor. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Umbrella Entertainment digs deep and delivers the devilishly exciting Art Attack: Terrifier 4K UHD Box Set delivering all three films on 4K UHD & Blu-ray. Each film gets a 4K UHD and Region Free Blu-ray, housed in its own case with separate trays and Umbrella-exclusive slipcover. Terrifier has a BD66 for the 4K and a BD50 for the 1080p. Terrifier 2 and Terrifier 3 are both pressed on BD100 discs for the 4K and BD50 discs for the 1080p versions. Bonus features are the same on all related discs. The insert art for each case is reversible so if you don’t like the ratings warning you can flip it around. Also included in the cases are two double-sided posters. The set also includes a sticker sheet, a bundle of art cards, and a 268-page hardcover book with essays and tons of behind-the-scenes production photos. The whole kit is bound in a hardstock sturdy slipcase. There is also a MUCH more elaborate version of this set that includes an Art brick set, VHS tape, and sunglasses, but that one runs about $40 more. Each disc loads to an animated main menu with standard navigation menu options.

Like the films themselves, the overall picture quality improves as the budget gets higher. With each film, the overall video quality takes another substantive leap forward. So as you dig in with the first film, it’s important to keep expectations in check. 

For Terrifier we have a modestly improved 1.85:1 2160p HDR10 transfer. The film was shot on a very low budget (less than $100,000 depending on your source) and it looks every bit like a very low-budget amateur feature horror film. While this transfer isn’t going to make the flick look staggeringly better, I have to say what little extra detail is mined is appreciable. Image noise isn’t as prevalent for the darker scenes. Colors are a little richer (especially red), with black levels clicking in a little stronger adding some extra image depth. Not a night-and-day improvement by any means, but I comfortably call it a better presentation than the included 1080p disc. 3.5/5

With the budget increase for Terrifier 2, so goes this 1.78:1 Dolby Vision HDR transfer. Checking this disc out against my domestic HDR10 4K disc from Cinedigm, I’d say the two are pretty close to neck and neck. Details are just as sharp and clear. This Umbrella edition has a little more bitrate modulation, steeper valleys, and higher peaks, but the average is pretty close to the same. The difference maker here is I felt the color timing was a little better resolved letting those deep crimson bloody reds come through better, the white of Art’s suit and face a little brighter, and the black levels a bit deeper with nice shadows and depth. Shot for just a few hundred thousand dollars, it’s significantly better looking on 4K than the first film. The intentional gritty pseudo-16mm look feels a bit tighter and not as intensely noisy while still maintaining that vibe. 4/5 

Now we come to the latest and best-looking entry Terrifier 3. Continuing the improvements in visuals and changing aspect ratio, we have a very striking 2160p 2.39:1 Dolby Vision transfer to satiate our love for gore. I didn’t pick up the domestic release so I don’t have that to compare to, but I really like how this one looks. Those Christmas holiday colors really pop with this HDR grade and the details are nice and sharp. Art’s bright white face practically gleams against the black-as-pitch makeup accents. The most expensive production to date, the visuals are cleaner and clearer than the previous films. The cinematic hutzpah is more ambitious so front to back, this is just a much better more polished-looking image of horrific viscera than we’ve seen so far. As such, the 4K transfer is that much better. Watch, Terrifier 4 will be filmed on IMAX film! 4.5/5

Like the visuals, the sound design for these films gets a little more ambitious and rewarding with each entry. The first Terrifier makes do with a solid but restrained DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. For long stretches, the film doesn’t really make much use of the full surround staging leaving it feeling very Front/Center heavy with only occasional drifts. However, once the squishy splashy stuff starts, especially that scene, and the blood really sprays the surround channel activity picks up nicely. 3.5/5

Following suit, the sound design for Terrifier 2 is quite a bit more ambitious. The dream sequences and the creepy clown songs push that sound design into new territories well beyond what the first film brought. Squishy gore effects are given high priority, but that doesn’t kill off the dialog or the retro-vibe synth score from Paul Wiley (he composed music for all three films). The low tones hit a little harder. The screams echo into the soundscape a little more naturally. All around this audio mix has a much stronger, more natural presence and weight to it. 4/5

And again, like the visuals, the Dolby Atmos mix for Terrifier 3 is just that much stronger than what we’ve enjoyed from the previous films. Now we get some gnarly overhead action and with the film’s opening sequence, it gets squishy in those height channels pretty quick! The gorier or more explosive the scene the more impactful the Atmos mix gets. Dialog, what there is of it, remains well prioritized within the carnage and splashy squishy sound effects with music cues lending some nice LFE along with all of the fleshy impact sounds of various implements embedding into various people's bodies. 4.5/5

On the bonus features front, combined with all three films, we have a pretty damn good selection of extras to enjoy. Two commentary tracks, multiple interviews, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and probably most importantly we have the anthology prequel film All Hallow’s Eve. That film is more of a proof of concept that Art the Clown could be a scary entity as well as showcase some of Leone’s visual prowess as a filmmaker. 

Terrifier

• Audio Commentary featuring Damien Leone and David Howard Thornton
• Behind the Scenes Featurette (HD 20:06)
• All Hallow’s Eve The Anthology Prequel Film (HD 1:22:55) 
• Interview with Jenna Kanell (HD 9:25)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 1:01)
• Art the Clown Time Lapse Makeup (HD 00:53)
• Dread Central Presents Terrifier San Diego Crowd Responses (HD 2:28)
• Terrifier Trailer (HD 1:31)
• All Hallow’s Eve Trailer (HD 1:22)

Terrifier 2 

• Audio Commentary featuring Damien Leone
• Extended Boo Crew Interviews (HD 9:16) 
• Behind-the-Scenes (HD 35:13)
• Trailer (HD 1:59)

Terrifier 3

• Audio Commentary featuring SFX Maestro Christien Tinsley
• Introduction from Director Damien Leone (HD 00:17)
• Interviews with Director Damien Leone (HD 33:04)
• Behind the Scenes Featurette (HD 16:21)
• Callosum Studios SFX Featurette (HD 2:25)
• Creating the Demon: Timelapse (HD 1:24)
• Creating the Virgin Mary: Timelapse (HD 00:31)
• Chainsaw Weapon Testing with Callosum Studios (HD 3:08)
• A Work of Art Music Video (HD 15:00)
• Teaser (HD 2:12)
• Trailer 1 (HD 2:18)
• Trailer 2 (HD 2:19)

268-Page Book

Say what you will about the Terrifier franchise, love it or hate it, you can’t deny it’s a wildly successful series of films. After last year’s surprise dominance of Terrifier 3 pulling almost $150 million at the global box office, it’s only a matter of time before Terrifier 4 arrives on theater screens. I don’t necessarily “love” these films, beyond the gore and make-up effects I don’t think they’re all that clever or ingenious, but I have to admit to being entertained by them! I laughed a bit more than I probably should have, but since I wasn’t the only one laughing at my screening of Terrifier 3, it’s nice knowing I’m not alone out there. 

Umbrella Entertainment does a marvelous job gathering up all three films and delivering the phenomenal three-film six-disc Art Attack: Terrifier 4K UHD Box Set trilogy collection. As the budget increases for each film, so too does the quality of the A/V presentations. Subject to the conditions of their filming, the 4K transfers and audio packages steadily improve from one installment to the next. Add in a bunch of extra features including the prequel film along with the hardcover book and various swag items and you’ve got a set worth spilling the blood of your wallet for. Not for everyone, but for the fans they’re gonna love it. Highly Recommended
Click to Order: