I imagine that no one is as surprised to see a third Terrifier movie as the franchise’s creator, Damien Leone. What started as an indie splatter film made for $35,000 has blossomed into a legitimate franchise with growing budgets and an enthusiastic fanbase. Now “Terrifier 3” is in theaters and it sticks close to its successful formula. That means a few shocks, some good laughs, and gobs of gore.

The first feature in the series, 2016’s “Terrifier”, was short on story and character-building but made up for it with its twisted vision and gnarly effects. Its eventual sequel, 2022’s “Terrifier 2”, overcorrected in its attempt to put more emphasis on storytelling. But it still managed to give hungry fans more of what they were craving.

“Terrifier 3” does much the same except this time the story is tighter and more fun. It (sorta) picks up where the last film left off and answers several lingering questions. It’s also set during the Christmas season which gives Leone an entire holiday sandbox to play in. And he doesn’t waste any time. He opens his film with a horrifying sequence that immediately tests his audience’s mettle. It’s a sequence that epitomizes the Terrifier series – stun the crowd, soak them in blood, and then throw in some unexpected humor to take the edge off.

Five years after the events of “Terrifier 2”, Sienna Shaw (a returning Lauren LaVera) is released from a mental hospital and set to stay with her Aunt Jess (Margaret Anne Florence) and Uncle Greg (Bryce Johnson). They have a daughter named Gabbie (Antonella Rose) who idolizes Sienna but knows nothing about the trauma she has endured. As for Sienna’s kid brother Jonathan (Elliot Fullam), he has moved off to college where he tries to put the Miles County Massacre behind him.

But this is a horror movie and that’s always easier said than done. It’s especially true here as the demented Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) returns, this time accompanied by his disfigured and equally deranged first victim turned partner-in-crime, Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi). The pair set out on another murder spree across Miles County, eventually setting their sights on Sienna. But before we get to their inevitable round two, Leone gives Art numerous opportunities to ply his grisly trade against a number of hapless victims.

In what has become a staple of the Terrifier franchise, much of the movie revolves around the gruesomely creative ways Art offs his many victims. Most are wildly excessive with the intent of stunning the audience and one-upping what the previous films have done. As before, they give Leone the chance to show off his incredible make-up and effects work. The results are not for the faint of heart. At the same time, the movie is very self-aware. It fully embraces its absurdity, especially with Art who injects a level of humor into every sanguinary encounter.

With part three, Leone continues to tease Art as something more sinister than an aimless nihilistic killer clown. He ventures further with the supernatural element that was hinted at in the first film and expanded on in the second. It’s utterly ridiculous and frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it allows Leone to indulge in even more gore-filled mayhem while also setting the table for another film which is pretty much a certainty at this point.

Much like its predecessors, “Terrifier 3” creates most of its tension from the sheer fact that no one on screen is safe. It also retains the grindhouse grit that is either a strength or a weakness depending on your stance. Its storytelling can be shaky in spots and the logistics don’t always line up. But Art the Clown continues to climb towards the upper tier of horror movie baddies and Lauren LaVera has earned her spot as a legitimate scream queen. And all under the guidance of Damien Leone who looks to have a bonafide hit on his hands.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Whether or not you’re a fan of horror movies, and more specifically its splatter film subgenre, it’s hard not to be both impressed and inspired by what the Terrifier movies have accomplished. This truly is an independent film success story. With hardly any money but a big and bloody vision, Terrifier has become a full-fledged franchise. And it was born from the twisted but ingenious mind of its creator, Damien Leone.

Released in 2016, “Terrifier” was a stand-alone feature written and directed by Leone. It focused on a character Leone highlighted in his 2013 anthology film “All Hallows’ Eve”. It’s been said that he made “Terrifier” as a way of showcasing his work in practical effects. He also saw it as a means of introducing more people to his maniacal antagonist Art the Clown.

“Terrifier” is a remarkable achievement especially when considering it was made on a shoestring budget of just over $35,000. Leone took on the duties of director, writer, producer, editor, and effects supervisor. It took time, but the film eventually earned a strong cult following which opened the door for a sequel that released in 2022. And now we’re only days away from a third installment hitting select theaters.

With “Terrifier”, Leone meets every splatter film expectation. You can almost sense the grindhouse giddiness as he bathes his audience in blood and gore, often doing things to the human body that will shock some and repulse others. At the same time, it’s often so outlandish that you can’t help but have fun. Art (gleefully played by David Howard Thornton) is a big reason why. Part mime and part party clown, the demented murderer stabs, shoots, saws, stomps, clubs, gouges, dismembers and disembowels with a childlike elation.

Though wacky in its excess, the film still generates some legitimate chills. Once he establishes Art as a genuine threat, Leone creates some unnerving tension as his terrified cast sneaks, crawls, runs, but mostly succumbs to an assortment of grisly deaths. Several other details add to the experience from the exploitation era film grain to the killer score from composer Paul Wiley.

Where the movie falls short is in its bare-bones story and shallow characters. Basically two intoxicated friends, Tara (Jenna Kanell) and Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) leave a late-night Halloween party and stop at a pizzeria to sober up. They’re followed inside by Art the Clown who is quickly kicked out by the restaurant owner for creeping out Tara. The girls decide to leave but discover the tires slashed on Dawn’s car. Still too drunk to drive, Tara calls her sister Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) to come pick them up. But as they wait, Art reappears and the terrorizing begins.

The rest of the movie is literally Art stalking Tara and an assortment of disposable human characters who exist solely as fodder for a madman and to show off Leone’s insanely imaginative effects work. It’s bookended by a couple of scenes that tease us with an interesting twist. But for the most part, neither the story or the people in it (outside of Art the Clown) will leave an impression on you.

But that doesn’t keep “Terrifier” from being a blood-drenched blast. It’s pure and unbridled sub-genre filmmaking and a testimony to the possibilities offered by independent cinema. It is most certainly not for those with an aversion to gore. Nor will it impress those who are unable to look past its obvious limitations. But for others, Leone’s passion and craftsmanship come together to make an effectively eerie, occasionally shocking, and surprisingly funny splatter film that set the table for the unlikely franchise that we have today.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Sporting the tagline “Your Fate is in the Cards”, the supernatural feature “Tarot” gives you a pretty good idea of what you’re in for. The small budget horror film released earlier this year and had a decent showing at the box office, earning nearly $50 million on an $8 million budget. But it wasn’t well received by fellow critics. Turns out there are some pretty noticeable reasons why.

“Tarot” is based on the 1992 novel “Horrorscope” by Nicholas Adams. It’s written for the screen and directed by the filmmaking duo of Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg. As its title suggests, fortune-telling and the occult come into play, feeding into a reasonably good horror movie premise. But Cohen and Halberg struggle to do much with their movie’s potential. “Tarot” ends up squandering any hint of originality by checking off endless boxes and following formulas that have been re-used countless times.

The story follows seven college friends, Haley (Harriet Slater), Grant (Adain Bradley), Paxton (Jacob Batalon), Paige (Avantika), Madeline (Humberly González), Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz), and Elise (Larsen Thompson), none of whom are all that interesting and most who fit the common horror movie archetypes. We meet our soon-to-be-doomed partiers celebrating a birthday at a remote mansion in the Catskills that they have rented for the weekend.

After guzzling through the cases of booze they brought with them (yet somehow remaining perfectly sober), they begin rummaging through the house looking for more. In their infinite wisdom they decide to break into a padlocked basement door marked “Keep Out”. But rather than booze, they find a basement full of old antiques including a mysterious deck of tarot cards. In a stroke of narrative convenience, Haley happens to be well-versed in tarot reading. So she uses them to read all of their horoscopes. Bad idea.

In reading the cards the group accidentally unleash something sinister that follows them back to school. Soon after, members of this uninspired gaggle of twentysomethings are picked off one by one, brutally murdered by gruesome real-life versions of the cards they were dealt. The High Priestess, The Hanged Man, The Fool, The Magician, and so on. The survivors eventually wise up and realize something is amiss. They seek the help of Alma Astron (Olwen Fouéré), an occult guru who conveniently knows everything about their creepy tarot deck. She trails the deck’s roots back to 1798 to reveal a curse which must be broken before they all end up dead.

It’s hard to get too involved in anything we see largely because we have no investment in these characters whatsoever. None of them are given a meaningful emotional arc and they are repeatedly doing one incredibly dumb thing after another. Meanwhile the story itself is so formulaic that there is never a real sense of tension or terror (minus one lone scene on a bridge). And what could have been an interesting backstory of the cards is unfortunately crammed into a rushed three minute flashback.

That leaves “Tarot” without a compelling story, no interesting characters, barely any scares, and not an ounce of suspense. Even the kills miss their marks, hampered by the film’s PG-13 rating which strips some clever ideas of their gnarly potential. It’s a shame considering the possibilities. But as it is, you’ll have a hard finding anything you haven’t seen many times before. “Tarot” is now available on home video and VOD.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS

M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller “Trap” finds itself in an unenviable position. It’s releasing at a time that immediately puts it against box office juggernauts like the immensely fun disaster romp “Twisters” and the MCU’s fan-pandering cash cow “Deadpool & Wolverine”. But hopefully Shyamalan’s latest can find an audience because it offers more fresh and fun entertainment from a filmmaker who plays with big original ideas during a time when Hollywood seems short on them.

Shyamalan’s filmography is littered with several big hits and a handful of misses. But the writer-director nearly always offers something distinctly his own. Not every movie of his lands, but when they do (and they often do, to various degrees) he leaves you feeling as if you’ve been treated to something unlike anything else showing at your local multiplex. “Trap” continues that trend while at the same time falling somewhere between the filmmaker’s greater and lesser movies.

The film stars Josh Hartnett whose big screen resurgence really kicked into gear last year with Guy Ritchie’s rambunctious “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” and of course Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award winning epic “Oppenheimer”. To no surprise, “Trap” is a much different movie but Hartnett is equally good in it. He plays Cooper, a seemingly ordinary dad who surprises his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) with concert tickets to see her favorite pop superstar, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). We’re talking legitimate ‘Father of the Year’ stuff, right?

Set in Philadelphia, the story picks up with Cooper and Riley on their way to the arena. As they ride, Cooper enjoys his daughter’s Swiftie-like enthusiasm which only intensifies once they arrive and find their seats. Before long 30,000 screaming girls and their chaperone parents are greeted by Lady Raven and the massive stage show begins.

But in one of the film’s wackier yet enjoyable turns, the entire concert is revealed to be a trap set by police to apprehend a brutal serial killer known as the Butcher. Local law enforcement and federal agents by the hundreds converge on the arena and begin setting up a perimeter. Led by a seasoned profiler, Dr. Grant (Hayley Mills), the authorities cover every exit and start scoping the crowd for their suspect. And to make things crazier, we learn in the first 15 minutes or so that Cooper is the Butcher. Scratch that ‘Father of the Year’ bid.

From there a big chunk of the story focuses on the crazy chess match between Cooper and the cops. They don’t know The Butcher’s real identity but they know he’s at the concert. Cooper discovers their trap and has to find a way to escape without being exposed. And all while hiding it from his daughter. It leads to several moments of real tension, some unexpected dark humor, and other scenes that are utterly preposterous.

The cat-and-mouse game in the arena is the movie at its most diverting. But it’s somewhat shortchanged by Shyamalan’s heavy promotion of his daughter’s music (Saleka composed 14 original songs for the movie). The concert setting is brilliantly captured and strikingly authentic. And Saleka is certainly a talented musician. But Shyamalan’s focus on her ‘show within the show’ eats up time that could have went towards making things more thrilling and plausible. And later, both Saleka and the movie struggles once he thrusts her into an acting role.

I’m betting most of the criticisms with revolve around the movie’s final 30 minutes. No spoilers here, but Shyamalan overextends his story into some surprisingly conventional directions. And as a thriller, the further it goes the less effective it becomes. To its credit, “Trap” has an undeniably delightful Hitchcockian flavor and Josh Hartnett is lights-out fantastic in the film’s maniacal lead role. It’s the scattershot script that holds the film back.

“Trap” doesn’t fall among Shyamalan’s best works largely because its story hinges on too many glaring conveniences, contrivances, and confounding character actions. At the same time, maybe it unfair to expect each of his movies to be another “Signs”, “The Sixth Sense”, or “Split”. “Trap” is best received as a straight popcorn movie – one full of big ideas that it can’t quite see through to the end. That proved to be more than enough to hold my attention, even if it left me wanting something more. “Trap” opens today exclusively in theaters.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

The blinding star power of Glen Powell fuels the resuscitation of another decades old film in “Twisters”. As you recall, he helped bring “Top Gun” back to life in 2022. And word is out that he’s already signed up to star in remakes of “Backdraft” and “The Running Man”. But before he digs into those future projects there’s “Twisters”, a standalone sequel to the 1996 disaster movie hit “Twister”.

While Powell’s sudden spike in wattage is getting most of the attention, the film’s lead is Daisy Edgar-Jones, an exciting young actress who first grabbed my attention with 2022’s “Fresh”. “Twisters” doesn’t give her anything that meaty (bad pun intended), but she’s a great fit for her character – expressive and authentic. When together with Powell’s natural charisma and million-dollar smile, the two make an appealing pair. Maybe not Hunt-Paxton level of appealing but that may be unfair, especially considering what the sequel is going for.

“Twisters” is directed by Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) who works from a script by Mark L. Smith. While their movie doesn’t feature any of the characters from its predecessor, it uses many of the same narrative building blocks as the 1996 original. At the same time it has plenty of its own flavor to make this more than some pointless rehash. And with its hefty budget of nearly $200 million, Chung and his creative wizards put together several thrilling, big screen worthy set pieces perfect for the summer blockbuster season.

Edgar-Jones plays Kate Cooper, a tornado specialist working at the National Weather Service’s regional office in New York City. Originally a storm chaser from Oklahoma, Kate left that life behind five years ago after a miscalculation cost the lives of three close friends and fellow chasers. So she moved to the city and disconnected from her family and friends back home. But the pain of that fateful choice still haunts her.

One day Kate is paid a surprise visit by a former member of her science team, Javi (Anthony Ramos). He and his organization Storm Par have devised a plan using military prototypes that can create three dimensional scans of tornadoes. They can then use the information to better predict their paths. Javi needs Kate’s help in tracking the tornadoes and getting get close enough to set up his sensors. It takes some convincing but Kate eventually agrees.

So Kate joins up with Javi and his team in Oklahoma where a “once in a generation” tornado outbreak has been tearing through the state. Enter Glen Powell as Tyler Owens, a cocky storm chaser and self-proclaimed “Tornado Wrangler” from Arkansas. He and his crew chase tornadoes, not for any noble cause such as science, but for his YouTube channel and its one million subscribers. To no surprise, the two outfits find themselves competing to see who can get to the storms first.

From the first moment he arrives on screen, Powell is a charismatic force of nature. He gives a pitch-perfect performance that highlights the qualities that has made him such a hot Hollywood commodity. He has a cowboy swagger yet is effortlessly charming. But perhaps his best quality is his ability to laugh at himself. “Twisters” gives us some funny scenes at his character’s expense and Powell has a blast with them. He’s an absolute scene-stealer and you believe in him whether his character is ratcheted up or dialed down.

“Twisters” is sprinkled with several entertaining side characters who shine despite being underutilized by the script. Tyler’s high-energy bohemian team is a lot of fun and features noteworthy performances from Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, Tunde Adebimpe, Harry Hadden-Paton, and Katy O’Brian. Maura Tierney gets some good scenes as Kate’s mom. And even the future Superman himself, David Corenswet has his moments as Javi’s business partner. None of them are given time for any meaningful growth, but the cast does a good job bringing them to life.

Chung has made a film that is more of a spiritual successor than a direct sequel and that turns out to be a good thing. Rather than concocting some closely linked follow-up nearly 30 years later, “Twisters” embraces the spirit of the original film while still doing its own thing. It’s hardly a grand reimagining, but there are some clear differences in focus that set it apart. It’s undeniably silly in spots, some characters vanish, and it could have done without the on-the-nose needle drops. But the tornado effects and scenes of destruction are spectacular. Best of all, Powell and Edgar-Jones light up the screen in their own distinct ways. Together they’re a big reason why “Twisters” is one of the few must-see blockbusters of the summer.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

It’s really good to see Jessica Alba back doing a movie, even if it is something as underwhelming and forgettable as “Trigger Warning”. This pulpy action thriller from Netflix is her first film since 2019’s barely seen “Killers Anonymous”. I’ve always felt Alba was an underrated actress although making that case can be challenging considering the shaky material in some of her past roles. Sadly “Trigger Warning” doesn’t make it any easier.

Alba plays Parker, a special forces operator serving in Syria who returns to her hometown of Creation, New Mexico after learning her father was killed in a mining accident. Parker’s former boyfriend and current county sheriff, Jesse Swann (Mark Webber) tells her that it may have been a suicide, but she refuses to believe it. Determined to discover the truth, Parker sets out on her own investigation, recruiting a pot-growing old friend named Mike (Gabriel Basso) to give her a hand.

What she uncovers is quite the operation for the small one-horse town. She learns that Jesse’s shady and obnoxious brother Elvis (Jake Weary) has secretly been smuggling military grade weapons and selling them on the dark web. Some of his latest clients are domestic terrorists who Elvis is happy to supply for the right price. Adding to the complexity is Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall), a powerful Senator up for re-election and the father of both Jesse and Elvis.

Ultimately the movie comes down to Parker linking the Swann family to her father’s death and finally confronting them. Are they all involved? How far does there illegal operation go? That’s about as close to suspense as we get. Unfortunately the screenwriting trio of John Brancato, Josh Olson, and Halley Gross skim over too many details to make things interesting and barely gesture at anything deeper or even marginally provocative. It leaves us with paper-thin villains who play more like caricatures from a page than people in real life.

Director Mouly Surya does piece together a couple of decent fight sequences that tap into Alba’s physicality in ways slightly reminiscent of her “Dark Angel” days. But most of the action is as bland as the plot itself, especially during the film’s final 15 minutes. That’s where the action takes an unintentionally comical turn before ending with a whimper. And despite Alba carrying it the best she can, narrative shortcuts, generic characters, and hokey dialogue only make things worse for this limp and lifeless attempt at an action thriller. “Trigger Warning” is streaming now on Netflix.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS