Mark Reviews Movies: TERRIFIER 2

Terrifier 2, Bloody Disgusting

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 27, 2022

Six years ago, writer/director Damien Leone's Terrifier took the usual route for a low-budget, independent horror movie: festivals, a very limited theatrical run, and a home video release. All of this almost certainly flew under the radar of most people, this critic included, until the arrival of Terrifier 2, Leone's far more ambitious sequel. That description is not necessarily a compliment.

The first movie, which is easily available and definitely has garnered more awareness now, served as a tight thriller about a killer clown stalking a series of people in an abandoned apartment complex. In that one, Leone provided one scene of brutal, sexualized carnage—involving a naked woman and a hacksaw—that didn't sit right, even within the context of a story about a sadistic clown murdering people with all sorts of tools and weapons.

His sequel seems set on trying to one-up the grotesque brutality of the previous movie, and yes, he has achieved that, to be sure. To Leone's credit (however minimal that might be under the circumstances), too, there's nothing approaching the specifically sexual violence against a woman like that aforementioned scene. In fact, the filmmaker might be atoning for that in a way by having the killer clown cut off a guy's genitalia in the follow-up. The clown's more of an equal-opportunity murderer this time.

In case it hasn't been made obvious yet, this movie is bloody, gruesome, and generally nasty in a way that will almost certainly shock, offend, and/or cause some sort of reflexive physical action on the part of most viewers. The good-sensed among you will take that statement as a warning. The morbidly curious will take it as a promise.

The movie's unapologetic goriness and viciousness is a simple fact of its existence. Despite Leone's attempts to treat some of these characters with some consideration and to introduce some bigger ideas into this straightforward tale, it too often feels as if the violence is the primary or only point of the movie's existence.

The story once again introduces Art the Clown, a genuinely frightening creation even before he starts killing everyone and anyone who gets in his way or just happens to be alone in his vicinity. Anyone with a fear of clowns will feel vindicated by this monster, and after this, even the non-coulrophobic might start checking behind them a time or two after any kind of encounter with a clown.

Part of the chilling factor is the simplicity of the costume (or uniform, one supposes when it comes to an unnatural, demonic clown)—just a black-and-white get-up, some white face paint, the big shoes, and a little hat tied up with a string. Much of that, though, belongs to the silent, pantomime performance of David Howard Thornton. That mouthful of blackened teeth when Art smiles and soundlessly laughs helps, too.

Leone's screenplay more or less gets right into it, with a resurrected Art killing the coroner who received his not-so-dead body at the end of the last movie. The filmmaker, who is also credited for overseeing and likely crafting most of the grisly practical effects, lets us know exactly what kind of movie he's making immediate, as the victim's throat is slashed, his teeth are knocked out, and Art tries to replace his deadened eye with one of the coroner's.

Leone's camera stays on the violence to a degree certainly shows he trusts those effects. One man with the unfortunate luck of having Art come into a Halloween shop while he's stalking a woman is beheaded by a cleaver, and Leone captures just about every cut in close-up. The movie's most sickening killing has Art taking a scalpel to a young woman for so long that the scene almost becomes a parody—if it weren't so horrifyingly and realistically portrayed. When the victim's mother comes home to witness the aftermath, it's like salt on the wound—a "gag" Leone literally plays a minute or so before, by the way. When we realize the poor woman isn't dead after all of that, one has to start really questioning the point of all of this.

On a plot level, a point doesn't really exist. Art is set on hunting down Sienna (Lauren LaVera), whose grief over the recent death of her father and some domestic issues are given, perhaps, too much attention, considering how many questions are left unanswered, including the purpose of a lengthy dream sequence, the possibility that the father was somehow involved in the clown's mythology, and the existence of a magical sword. A lot of people are in the clown's way or could serve as bait, so he kills/maims/abducts them.

Here's the thing: Leone might be a skilled filmmaker beneath and beyond all of these gory sequences. There's some demented humor here, such as Art using a severed head as a candy bowl and the mother of a trick-or-treater assuring her kid that it's just fake blood. Beyond the clearly abandoned status of most of the sets, there's little to suggest just how cheaply the movie was made. The first movie showed a strong command of suspense, too, but that's ignored by Terrifier 2 and its insistence on pummeling us with as much grotesque violence as possible.

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