Whatever horror “magic” was found in the first film to warrant two sequels is wearing pretty thin in this third installment. Art the Clown is back again after being decapitated in the second film. Due to some clever demonic shenanigans, it seems that Art and one of his first victims, Victoria, cannot die. The gruesome twosome make their way through the thinly veiled plot to wreak havoc wherever possible.

Art the Clown as a new wave horror icon is pretty great, I will give it that. But the character is mostly squandered as this miming buffoon interspersed with an endless killing spree. I’m not saying he has to be some well-defined character with a history and motivations, but he could be so much more effective if it were about more than just the choppy choppy. 

About halfway through the two-hour runtime, I started questioning why I picked this movie to review. It’s just so boring and awful in almost every way. I don’t mean to shit on people who like this stuff, but to me, this isn’t quality horror entertainment. It’s just setups for special FX showcasing including mostly torture porn. “See? See how cool it is to chop up a fake body with a chainsaw? See how real it looks with the buckets of fake blood?” The death and dismemberment scenes often overstay their welcome.

To make matters better or worse, depending on your perspective, they bring Christmas into the mix. That doesn’t really bother me, but it does bother me that children are now on the menu for the mayhem. I guess when you are always trying to push the gore envelope, you have to think outside the box and hack up little kids.

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