Does Terrify 3 deserve to be banned for under 18s?

The CNC believes that the third Terrifier, the height of delirious gore, glorifies violence. It's true ?

The release event of October 9, 2024? The thunderbolt The Story of Souleymane with the Abou Sangare revelation? The Wild Robot by Chris Sanders? The Apprentice with Sebastian Stan as young Donald Trump? Yes, of course, each is an event in its own way: but there is also the case Terrify 3. The new installment of the ultra-gory horror franchise Damien Leone is the second to be released in theaters in France. And here it is adorned with a nice ban on under 18s. A first for a horror film since Saw 3 (2006). The classification commission of the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC) justifies its decision as follows:

“The commission proposes a measure prohibiting minors under 18 from this violent and gory film but which has the particularity of multiplying sadistic scenes of extreme violence with the desire to associate the viewer with a form of glorification violence presented in a favorable light likely to seriously disturb the public's sensitivity, nevertheless with a narrative that resembles a horror film with a gory aesthetic justifying the ban on under-18s.”

Oh, let's not doubt for a moment that Terrify 3 is actually a film “violent and gory” whose “sadistic scenes” constitute its flagship product. But do the misdeeds of Art the Clown and his sidekick the zombie Victoria really exist for “associate the viewer with a form of glorification of violence presented in a favorable light” ? As we explain in our review of the filmthe horror of Terrify is truly disgusting. It remains relatively short compared to the overall duration of the film, and is ultimately part of an assumed burlesque aesthetic, totally unreal, very close in short to that of Braindead of Peter Jackson (prohibited to under 16s, but that was in 1993). Although it sometimes features children (great Santa scene in a shopping center), the violence is no less disgusting than that of Terrify 2banned for those under 16 in December 2022, already violent towards children, and “who strings together bloody scenes, insisting on eviscerations, enucleations, torture, gratuitously and for the sole pleasure of provoking disgust”according to the commission at the time.

ESC, the film's distributor, deplores in a press release a choice “unexpected, which will seriously harm the release of the film”. ESC explains that Terrify 3 is an “auteur film” which is part “in the purest tradition of the so-called slasher genre, with so-called “grand-guignolesque” and unrealistic violence.”

“The film never takes itself seriously, and we know that spectators will have all the distance, all the maturity necessary to understand and apprehend this artistic approach.”

Terrifier 3 is truly madness for two [critique]

You should know that the members of the classification commission (around a hundred people) are appointed for a period of three years, renewable twice maximum – in other words, Terrify 2 And Terrify 3 were not classified by the same people. In addition to the differences in point of view between each member, and the necessary absences or presences depending on their schedules, the commission is divided into four “colleges”, which do not have the same objectives nor the same vision of a film: there are the administrations (ministries of the interior, justice, national education, family and youth), cinema professionals (distributors, exhibitors producers), experts (doctors, Union national family associations) and young audiences.

Cinema professionals therefore only represent a quarter of this commission supposed to judge the impact of a film at a given moment, in a given moment, in a given France. Precisely, it's all a question of context: if Terrify 3 glorified violence and sadism, it would be seen. As it is, the film – its context – is similar to so many slashers (Halloween, Scream) whose societal impact is not (or no longer) questioned.

In 2021, Pleasure by Ninja Thyberg had been banned for those under 18, but the distributor appealed and the film (telling the journey of an apprentice porn actress in Los Angeles) was reclassified with a ban on under 16s. The ESC distributor does not intend to appeal the commission's decision regarding Terrify 3.