Terrifier 3 Cliffhanger Ending Explained

Warning: Major spoilers for Terrifier 3 ahead!Damien Leone’s Terrifier franchise rose to new heights as far as gore and brutality are concerned in Terrifier 3, but it also left audiences wanting more with its metaphorical and literal cliffhanger ending. The slasher franchise centered around the demonic clown named Art has made headlines for its shocking level of gore and violence, which has reportedly made some moviegoers throw up. However, the brilliance of the franchise is not in its disturbing content, but in the lore that has steadily built over three movies.

Terrifier 3 picks up five years after the events of Terrifier 2, which saw Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) finally kill Art the Clown with a magical sword after a literal journey to hell. Sienna still carries the scars from her encounter both on her body and in her mind, and just days after being released from her latest stint in a psychiatric facility, she comes face-to-face with Art again. This time, he is accompanied by the Terrifier franchise’s original final girl Victoria Heyes, who is now possessed by something that matches Art’s sadism, but has more supernatural power.

The evil duo capture Sienna after murdering the aunt and uncle that she’s staying with, and threaten to murder her young cousin who idolizes her as well, unless Sienna allows herself to be corrupted by the demonic presence that currently resides in Vicky’s decimated body. After a clever deception on the part of her cousin, Gabbie, Sienna is able to reclaim her sword, and manages to decapitate Vicky and impale Art, seemingly putting a stop to both. However, as Vicky’s blood runs across the ground, it opens a portal seemingly to the very hell from whence the demon came.

Gabbie falls into the pit but is able to cling to the side long enough for Sienna to make an effort to save her by holding out the sword for Gabbie to grab. However, Gabbie ultimately falls into the pit, taking the sword with her, which slices Sienna’s hands open. Afterwards, Sienna resolves to find and rescue Gabbie as her hands magically heal. In the fray, Art escapes out a window and makes his way on to a bus, still very much alive despite his impalement and Vicky’s apparent death.

What Happens To Gabbie After She Falls Off The Cliff Into Hell

Gabbie Is Likely Not Dead

As is revealed over the course of a conversation between Jonathan and Sienna earlier in the movie, Art the Clown, the Little Pale Girl from Terrifier 2, and now Victoria Heyes are no longer human. All three are in fact corrupted by demons who used them essentially as a doorway to get from the literal Hell to Earth. While never explicitly stated, the implication is that after Vicky is beheaded, the demon escapes from her body and opens the portal on its way back to Hell. It’s this portal that Gabbie falls into, and unfortunately takes Sienna’s sword with her.

Gabbie’s fate is revealed by Sienna’s vow to find her; there would be no point in such a promise if Gabbie was lost forever. Sienna of course knows that it’s possible to get back from Hell itself having done it once already. At the end of Terrifier 2, Art actually kills Sienna and sends her to the Clown Café, which seems to be his own personal corner of Hell. With Terrifier 4 all but guaranteed given Terrifier 3‘s record-breaking Rotten Tomatoes scores and profitable box office projections, the next chapter could see her fulfill her promise to Gabbie.

Did Jonathan Actually Die?

His Assumed Death Occurs Off-Screen

Sienna’s brother Jonathan also (barely) survived his first encounter with Art in Terrifier 2, and like his sister he bears the mental scars from the experience. Unlike his sister, he’s managed to at least move his life forward somewhat, as he is now attending a nearby college. Once Sienna realizes that Art is back, however, she demands that he come home, knowing he isn’t safe out in the open. She sends their uncle to pick him up at college, but it’s implied with a subtle voice corruption on the phone call between Jonathan and his uncle that Vicky and Art got to him first.

While Sienna is tied up by the devilish duo, they show her a rat-chewed head in a cage, which they at first claim is her cousin, Gabbie. Once the real Gabbie is revealed, Vicky puts Jonathan’s glasses on the head, claiming that it is actually his head in the act. While it’s certainly possible that Jonathan was killed off-screen and that is his head, Vicky already lied about the head’s identity once before. It’s possible that she lied again, and that Jonathan is still alive somewhere, but Vicky having his glasses doesn’t bode well for his longevity if so.

Why The Demon Wants Sienna So Badly

Sienna Presents A Real Challenge

The demon (or demons) found their way to Earth through Art, who was, as Sienna mentioned in Terrifier 3, a serial killer even before the demon corrupted him further, and Vicky, an utterly broken and depraved woman who had herself already been corrupted by Art’s evil. Now that they are on Earth, they seek to do what demons do: cause pain, death, humiliation, and fear. Torment and torture, in their purest, most hellish forms. That driving objective is what makes Sienna so interesting to them, and why she’s been able to survive them so far.

In 2025, Lauren LaVera will have an as-yet undisclosed role in
The Life Of Chuck
, an adaptation of a Stephen King novella of the same name from Mike Flanagan, alongside Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiafor, and Karen Gillan.

As Art and Vicky are possessed by demons, something is inside Sienna that makes her powerful against them. For the sake of simplification, one could say Sienna is possessed by an angel if Art is possessed by a demon. The character that her father (Jason Patric) created for her as a young girl was an “angel warrior”, who was stronger than any hero or villain. Sienna has now gone toe-to-toe with Art’s ultra-violence twice, and was able to magically heal the gashes in her hands. She has become the character her father created, complete with a magic sword and abilities.

Something in Sienna is pure and good, and most importantly, powerful. The demons that possess Art and Vicky want her so badly because it would be the ultimate victory for a demon: to corrupt the vessel of an angel. Sienna is a real challenge for the chaos- and pain-obsessed entities that drive Art and Vicky on their murderous rampages, but it’s also possible that by possessing someone with her power, the demon will ascend to new heights of power as well.

The Religious Symbolism In Terrifier 3 Explained

There Are Some Decidedly Unsubtle Symbols Sprinkled In

The concept of angels and demons battling it out over mortal souls is very Old Testament, and regardless of the religion one examines, there are examples of similar entities across most faiths. Terrifier 3 has a few more noticeable instances of religious symbolism, the most notable of which is the crown of thorns that Vicky wears before jamming it onto Sienna in the movie’s climax. It’s a direct reference to the crown of thorns that Jesus Christ wore on the path to his own crucifixion, and it’s meant to be a punishment of pain, just as it was for Sienna.

Art completed the crucifixion image by nailing Sienna’s headless uncle to the wall in the same fashion as a traditional crucifixion, and also corrupted the angel that typically sits atop a Christmas tree by replacing it with her uncle’s head. The sword in itself is a religious symbol in the right context. In Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the archangel Michael is recognized as a warrior angel, just as Sienna is. He famously carried a flaming sword, and is typically recognized as the leader of God’s armies against the Devil himself.

How Terrifier 3’s Ending Sets Up Terrifier 4

There Is A Very Clear Direction For Sienna

As mentioned earlier, Sienna vows to rescue her cousin Gabbie from wherever she is trapped at the end of Terrifier 3. With her newfound healing powers, Sienna may have the tools necessary to not only find her way to Art and Vicky’s corner of Hell, but to survive it and return as she did once before. The 9th Circle is referenced via the bus rider’s book at the very end of Terrifier 3, and that could be a clue as to where Art was heading next, and where Sienna needs to go.

The 9th Circle is a reference to Dante’s Inferno, which explores the different layers of Hell itself. There are nine “circles” of Hell, each reserved for a different kind of sinner. The 9th Circle is in the depths of Hell and is home to Satan himself. Art’s immortality and delight in pain could mean that he is the Devil himself, and Sienna may need to battle through several nightmarish destinations like the Clown Café in order to rescue Gabbie. No matter how it plays out, it seems almost certain she’ll bring the fight to Art in the next movie.

The Real Meaning Of Terrifier 3

The Overarching Theme Is Related To Scars

After digging through all the blood, dismembered limbs, and human entrails, a common theme comes into shape for Terrifier 3. Gabbie is fascinated by Sienna’s face scars when she first arrives, and while those are the only ones visible, Sienna undoubtedly bears scars across her back from being whipped with Art’s demented cat o’nine tails weapon in the climax of Terrifier 2. More importantly, she carries the mental scars of her terrifying near-death experience.

Sienna still deals with the traumatic echoes of the violence he inflicted on her, and her unholy experience in the Clown Café; she won’t even eat cereal anymore as it reminds her of the “Art Crispies” cereal. Sienna also bears the weight of tremendous guilt, as she feels personally responsible for her friends and loved ones falling victim to Art on Halloween night five years earlier. Whether she is right to feel that or not, it’s something that has consumed her for five years, sending her in and out of psychiatric facilities and on constant medication.

On top of it all, Sienna’s emotional arc is about the trauma of grief she carries around with her every day. She lost her mother the day of Art’s killing spree, but her entire family bore the cross of grief from the passing of her father. As Sienna tells her aunt in Terrifier 3, her mother was a different, sweeter person before her father died. Sienna’s entire character arc over two movies has been how she processes grief and loss, which is a universal theme for humanity.