Terrifier 2 (Movie Review)

At the risk of seeming like an internet tough guy, I will say that when I heard the news that people were vomiting and fainting in the theater at screenings of Terrifier 2, the first thing I did when I went to see the film was buy a bucket of a popcorn and a beer. It's not that I'm an unsufferable horror fan (maybe just an insufferable person), but like most horror fans I want to push things harder.

What's scarier? What's gorier? What's grosser? To be a horror fan is to be on a constant search for that next scare. To paraphrase Stephen King, you have to watch a lot of schlock to find those rare treasures; go read the Danse Macabre, and you'll see what he means. Of course I bought a bucket of popcorn and a beer, the bitterest IPA on the menu. I had to push it. Wouldn't you?

I watched the first Terrifier film while stuck in an analysis-paralysis doomscroll through Netflix's catalog of horror films. The image of Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) was certainly visually arresting. His monochromatic Pierrot-style outfit and bloody black teeth were disturbing enough to warrant a curious click of the play button. But I had low expectations for Terrifier. For every truly great evil clown – Pennywise, Captain Spaulding, the Killer Klowns – there are dozens of brainless, humorless psychos with no personality. You can imagine my surprise when the first film started with a brutal facial evisceration and a swaggering clown with a mischeivous smile. There wasn't even enough time for me to get bored and look at my phone. I was already hooked.

If you haven't watched the first film, do yourself a favor and go watch it now. Terrifier is a lean 86 minutes long, gory, and mean as fuck. If you can handle that, maybe you'll be ready to head to the theaters and see the sequel.

For those of you who have watched the first film, I have good news. The sequel is weirder, gorier, and funnier than its predessor; indeed, director Damien Leone may have topped the previous film's signature scene of a woman being sawn in half vertically (or bifurcated, if you're nasty).

While Terrifer 2 follows the modern film standard of being too long for its own good – 138 minutes is a looong runtime for a horror movie – it makes up for it by being packed from bloody beginning to oozing end with practical effects. I'm sure some of our dear readers are 90-minute purists longing for the days of concise film-making, but I wouldn't sacrifice a moment of head blasting, wound salting, arm snapping, or total immolation. There is a ten or fifteen minute dream sequence that could be removed from the film without affecting the plot at all, but I'll be damned if anyone cuts out the Clown Cafe. That clown girl's song is a banger.

[Light spoilers for the film]

Thankfully, the film's runtime doesn't just afford extra room for butchery but also for character development. The film largely focuses on a family: artsy high-schooler Sienna (Lauren LaVera), her troubled younger brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), and their put-upon mother Barbara (Sarah Voight). Their concerns are pleasantly down-to-earth. Sienna wants to realize her late father's design of a warrior angel, working late into the night on a killer costume for Halloween. Jonathan is haunted his father's illustrations of Art and the murderous events of the previous film. Barbara is struggling to juggle raising her kids alone and maintaining her work-at-home job in insurance. You root for them, which is why it's so conflicting when Art shows up. As much as we want Sienna, her friends, and her family to survive, we also want to see Art pull the next weapon out of his trashbag and wreak unholy terror.

Like the first film, Terrifier 2 takes place before and during Halloween. As the day of the Halloween party approaches, Art cuts through person after person, getting closer and closer to Sienna. There are vague hints that Sienna is not just a final girl but the final girl destined to destroy the sinister clown. The lore-building doesn't work as well as the quieter moments of character-building or the bloody set-pieces of home invasion and stalking teens through an abandoned carnival. I'm sure some viewers will be eager to know why Art seems capable of resurrecting or why he now has a spooky little clown companion (Amelie MacLain); incidentally, the Pale Girl steals every scene she's in. I am just hoping to see more mayhem from Art. Maybe next time I will lose my lunch.

P.S. Stick around for the post-credits scene. It's wilder than anything you've seen from a Marvel movie, and it has a better cameo.