This article contains spoilers for "Terrifier 3."

Damian Leone's "Terrifier" movies may be the most improbable slasher franchise of all time. On the surface, a string of films based around the homicidal hijinks of Art the Clown, a slovenly man in a baggy clown suit, sounds like par for the viscera-shredding course, but Leone and his merry ban of fiends have imbued their now three-film saga with a pure love for splatter f/x and a deepening narrative lore that's daringly unrushed. Think two-hours-plus is too long for a slasher film? The growing legion of "Terrifier" devotees declare otherwise.

The magic, so to speak, of the "Terrifier" movies is their ability to hit Jörg Buttgereit levels of gore without provoking mass walkouts. Obviously, the sight of Art (David Howard Thornton) carving up a victim while his female sidekick (and one-time victim) Vicky pleasures herself to spewing completion is going to get some folks tapping out,...