Terrifier 2 (2022)

yuck (endearingly)

My dad and I used to watch horror movies all the time together. When I turned 12, he deemed it important that I start watching scary films, at least something gory, not something too scary, but something that will shake my boots a bit and hopefully interest me as much as it interested him. So we started, he sat me down and turned on James Wan’s Saw (2004), because it’s not really that scary, it’s just gory, which were his reassuring words to middle school me. Reader, I was scared shitless, the sudden movements, the jump scares, the red ominous lighting that creeps its way through the film, the unknowingness of what was happening, the dead guy in the middle of the floor, the nasty tub, I was scared shitless. Not to my surprise, I could handle the gore, it didn’t scare me, that wasn’t what ever scared me, it never has (might have to thank unmonitored and unabridged internet access before the age of 10, bestgore and liveleak for that one). It’s been eleven years since I started my horror movie fanatic journey, and I have watched many, many fucked up films since then. So I told my dad I was going to see the sequel to Terrifier, over an hour away with traffic after work in a theater I had never been to (stupid limited release BS), and he told me he would meet me there and continue our father-daughter tradition of watching the nastiest, most gut-wrenching films we can find. Terrifier 2, directed by Damien Leone, starring Lauren LaVera, Elliott Fullam, and David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown, will make a seasoned vet of gore squirm.

The sequel to the beloved, infamous indie film Terrifier picks up where the first left off, with injured Art the Clown leaving his crime scene, smashing a guy’s head and body in with one of those tiny hammers coroners use, showing every single bit of flesh on this man deform into pulp, the clown switching his own shot-to-shit eyeball out of his head and replacing it with the dying guy’s eye. Art then walks to a laundromat to wash the blood off of his clown suit. While his clothing is getting de-bloodified, he spots a disgusting, deranged clown in the form of a little girl. She shits all over the floor of the laundromat while smiling at Art and then starts mimicking him. They laugh, they joke in their mime way of joking, pan out to a wide shot and there is no little girl there. Art is silently laughing to himself. His clothes are done, there is another man in the laundromat that spots Art talking to himself, and before Art walks out we see that a knife handle is sticking directly out of the top of this poor guy’s head, blood spilling and pooling all over him and the floor. Cue title card. 

This film follows the story of Sienna, a high school (?) girl whose dad killed himself a year ago, has a weird little brother who is obsessed with Art the Clown, and a mother who has never spoken a kind word in her life. The family is preparing for Halloween while the news is making it seem like Art the Clown is back out there killing again. Not everyone is taking it seriously, especially Sienna. She then falls asleep while a silly commercial for a fast food restaurant is playing on her TV, which evidently gets stuck in her head, and is translated into her dream. Besides the insanely inventive murders in this film, this dream sequence is my favorite scene; dare I say, Lynchian in its composition? (I’m sorry.) The dream starts with a woman dressed as a clown (not like Art the Clown, but a clown all the same) and she is singing a jingle for the ‘Clown Café’. The camera, literally a camera, this a set for a commercial, pans to a jungle gym filled with young adults singing the jingle. Sienna appears, complete with the Pippy Longstocking braids and overalls, and is scared out of her mind. The clown woman announces that Art the Clown is making a special appearance, and he comes bearing gifts. He gives each young adult a big lollipop, popcorn, sweets but once he gets to Sienna he hands her a box. She reluctantly opens it, he forces her to open it, and it’s a beating heart, and the box starts filling with blood, she starts hyperventilating, panicking, the song is getting louder and louder and louder and the energy is hectic and climatically Art pulls out some kind of submachine gun and massacres the entire commercial set. Every single person gets at least five bullets in them. This sudden change from the fun-loving song to complete silence when he pulls out the gun to the sound of bullets flying in and out of bodies in and out of props is executed beautifully. It is shocking, terrifying, and most of all, gory. 

This movie is very long, which deterred me from viewing for the first few weeks it was showing in theaters. I was going to wait until it was available on streaming to watch, since the first one was exclusively on streaming, but I am glad that I didn’t. There is nothing quite like watching a slasher film, an elevated slasher film for that matter, on the big screen. Albeit the gaggle of high schoolers who wouldn’t stop getting up and wouldn’t shut the fuck up kind of took me out of the experience of the film a bit; but after my dad muttered some choice words at their disrespectful selves, it still was worth seeing in the theater. To my calculations, nine people died in this movie, and one animal. Three people were badly maimed, but got to keep their lives. There is one kill that I wish I could spoil but honestly if I described it some of you might throw up, and it’s better to watch gore than to read it, how are my words going to do justice by describing what hydrochloric acid looks like when thrown on a woman’s face as she’s stabbed to death and getting her leg sawed off? Or someone get scalped, stabbed repeatedly, then salt and bleach rubbed into her stab wounds? I can’t, that’s why you have to watch the movie. 

My dad and I were very audible during this film, it was hard not to grunt and groan and squeal at the gore. One thing that the director has been consistent with Terrifier and Terrifier 2 is that he will show everything. If an innocent victim is getting their brains bashed in, you will see every single blow land, squish, explode, flesh and blood flying everywhere, chests caving in so deep you can see the floor through them, people actually hanging on for dear life when their insides are being pulled outside. There is one extremely corny moment in this film that almost made it bad, almost made me hate it, but the $250,000 budget almost exclusively used on practical effects makes it one of the greatest horror movies of the year. Speaking of budget, as of this week, Terrifier 2 has grossed over ten million dollars. Over four times the budget. Horror is back baby! And it’s better than ever!

9/10 (no quotes to pull sorry Art the Clown doesn’t talk)