What actually happens
A talk show host with a loud phone voice
The movie opens with a talk show interview of a woman whose face is disfigured, who survived a massacre a year earlier. After the cameras go off, the host, Monica Brown, makes cruel remarks about the woman's appearance to her boyfriend on the phone in her dressing room. The woman is hiding in the room and attacks Monica. The story then jumps to Halloween night in Miles County, New York, where Tara and Dawn, two friends who have been drinking, walk out of a party and meet Art the Clown. Art trails them to a pizzeria, where the owner kicks him out for smearing feces over the bathroom walls. The women find that Dawn's car tire has been slashed, so Tara calls her sister Victoria for a ride. Art then returns to the pizzeria, where he murders the owner along with one of the workers.
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The Cat Lady and her very quiet baby
While they wait, Tara asks Mike, an exterminator working in a nearby apartment building, to let her in to use the restroom. Inside she meets the Cat Lady, a squatter who is convinced that the doll she carries around is her baby. Art then attacks Dawn and uses a sedative to subdue Tara. Art ends up with the doll later in the night, which goes badly for the Cat Lady. Mike, the exterminator, is still working in the building and will meet Art soon enough, so expect the evening to get crowded.
Art takes the building apart, one resident at a time
Tara wakes up tied to a chair, with Dawn hanging upside down in front of her. The scene people dread most comes here, in the middle of the movie: Art makes Tara watch while he saws Dawn in half. Tara gets loose, but Art shoots her dead, and then he goes after Mike. The Cat Lady finds Art holding her doll and tries to comfort him as if he were her child, which goes badly for her. When Victoria arrives, the Cat Lady is dead and mutilated, and Art is wearing parts of her. He chases Victoria and decapitates Mike's co-worker Will. Victoria finds Tara's body just before Art attacks her with a homemade whip. Mike wakes up and knocks Art unconscious, and the two flee and call 911. Art recovers anyway, kills Mike, and hits Victoria with a pickup truck. While she lies unconscious, he starts eating her face. The police arrive, and Art shoots himself.
The morgue and the talk show
Once the police are in the building, they realize Victoria is breathing. Art's body goes to a morgue with his victims, and there Art gets back up and goes for the medical examiner. A year after that, Victoria is released from the hospital following rehabilitation. She is the disfigured woman from the talk show at the start of the movie, so the opening scene was a flash-forward to what Victoria did to Monica Brown.
The ending, explained
Art kills Mike, hits Victoria with a pickup truck, and starts eating her face, and when the police arrive, he shoots himself before they can arrest him. The police find Victoria still breathing. Art's body travels to a morgue along with his victims, and Art gets back up and attacks the medical examiner. A year later, Victoria is discharged from the hospital after rehabilitation. She is the disfigured woman from the talk show at the start of the movie, the one who attacks Monica Brown. Tara, Dawn, Mike, Will, the Cat Lady and the pizzeria owner and employee are all dead.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dog appears in it, so none can die.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Terrifier scary?
Terrifier is a 6 out of 10 with medium dread. The fear is mostly the extreme gore and a clown who keeps coming back, plus some jump scares.
How does Terrifier end?
Art the Clown kills almost everyone, shoots himself when the police arrive, and wakes up again in the morgue. Victoria survives, and a year later she turns out to be the woman from the opening talk show.
Does the dog die in Terrifier?
No dog appears in Terrifier, so no dog dies.
Is there a post-credits scene in Terrifier?
No. Terrifier has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Who is the woman at the start of Terrifier?
She is Victoria, Tara's sister. The opening talk show features her a year after Art's Halloween night, after she survived and was left disfigured, and she attacks the host, Monica Brown.
