Confession time: despite its status as the Joker-conquering, box office-battering horror darling of the moment, I have not watched Terrifier 3. I also haven’t watched Terrifier or Terrifier 2, nor will I watch Terrifier 4, Terrifier 5 or Terrifier 6: Back in the Habit, when those films inevitably arrive. I won’t watch them because I know what will happen to me if I do: some combination of passing out, vomiting or passing out while vomiting.
I’ve written about my squeamishness before in this newsletter, and while I’ve largely gotten over my ashen-faced teenage years, there are still a few offerings at the sharp end of the horror genre that are likely to send me a-tumbling. And the ultraviolent Terrifier 3, which proudly flaunts its capacity to have audiences sprinting back up the aisles within the first 10 minutes, definitely comes under that heading.
However, while I haven’t seen the grisly goings-on in Terrifier 3, I have read all about them … on the IMDb’s Parents Guide page for the film. So I know all about the fact that its characters have unhappy encounters with box cutters, liquid nitrogen and a feeding tube full of rats. I know that it contains “10/10 nonstop extremely graphic and sadistic horror violence throughout including dismemberment, torture, beheadings, disembowelment and child murder.” And, frankly, that’s more than enough Terrifier 3 for me.
I often find myself scrolling through the IMDb Parents Guide pages, marvelling at the ripe, evocative language used (“this film is to gore as porn is to sex!”), and wondering who the brave/depraved individuals are who task themselves with compiling them. As the name suggests, the stated intention of the IMDb Parents Guide, and of similar sites like Common Sense Media or Kids in Mind, is to provide mums and dads with valuable information in determining the suitability of movies for their kids – though, let’s be honest, any parents weighing up whether or not to take little Jimmy to see a film in which a killer clown gives a man what might be best described as a “chainsaw enema” should probably be getting a social services visit post-haste.
(A quick digression: actually, remarkably, parents can take their kids to see Terrifier 3. In America, the film opted to not receive an age rating from the Motion Picture Association and the National Association of Theatre Owners. Had it done so, it would have almost certainly received an NC-17 rating, which would have barred anyone under the age of 17 from attending. Instead, Terrifier 3 went unrated – something that would usually mean that most US theatre chains would refuse to show the film at all. In this case, though, theatres are not only showing the film but they’re treating it like an R-rated movie where children under the age of 17 can see the film if accompanied by an adult. In the UK, where films must get a BBFC rating in order to be shown in cinemas, Terrifier 3 has received the good old fashioned 18 certificate, meaning that anyone under that age is barred from seeing it. Tough luck, tween gorehounds!)
As well as mums and dads, the likes of IMDb’s Parents Guide serve another important constituency: those of us who lack a bit of intestinal fortitude. Consider it a Wikipedia for wusses, where you can check to see whether a film has any particularly disqualifying moments – I’m not too fond of disembowellings, myself – before viewing it. Or, more often, it’s a useful way of vicariously participating in the conversation about a film you’re never likely to see. I will never sit down to watch gnarly sounding western horror film Bone Tomahawk, for example, but I did want to know why so many people on Twitter were animated about a certain death scene in it. And thanks to the Parents Guide, I do … and wish I didn’t.
And actually, these guides do help give films a certain aura, adding to the weight of whispered word of mouth. In fact, I suspect that, in their plainly stated way, they often manage to make the films they are warning against sound more formidable than they actually might be. After all, even the most talented prosthetics practical effects artists can’t compete with the vividness and intensity of the human imagination, where the really nightmarish images lurk.
So I guess what I’m saying is, by reading all about Terrifier 3 on IMDb, I’m actually braver than the people lining up to see it … right?
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