Film Review - Terrifier 2
Images courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment.
Halloween may have come and gone, but I have one last spooky movie to talk about - director/special effects extraordinaire Damien Leone's 138-minute splatterfest epic Terrifier 2, a film that came with reports of people fainting and vomiting due to its incredibly vile and gratuitous violence. And boy, what an experience it was to see on the big screen, in all of its bloated glory.
While I myself did not get the privilege of partaking in either of the aforementioned activities, nor witnessing anyone else do so in either of the 2 showings I went to (the things I subject myself to), I can definitely tell which scene was the one to push those people over the edge - which is quite the assumption to make in a film that features multiple scenes of eyeball trauma. The killings are drawn out to a ludicrous extent at times, maximising the overfunded Indiegogo practical effects budget and the comical presence of its silent antagonist to a fever pitch on multiple occasions, but unfortunately, that runtime is largely due to a stretched-thin plot (even the mid-credits scene goes on too long), and one that barely makes sense at that. I appreciate the gonzo bravado in just throwing whatever at the wall when it comes to offering hints at Art the Clown's possible backstory and ties to our heroine, and the fact that, unlike its predecessor, this thing even has some semblance of plot or characters, but it would've been so much more recommendable as a 100 or so minute ultra-silly gore extravaganza.
The plot itself focuses on Sienna and her brother Jonathan, as they find themselves having visions of Art in the wake of their father's apparent suicide, much to the dismay of their absolutely hysterical mother - seriously, someone needs to get this woman a bottle of Chardonnay. Director Damien Leone has come under fire online due to the largely female-directed violence in both the first Terrifier and his previous short film collection, All Hallow's Eve, and while there is an attempt at course correction, it results in the bulk of the brutality being aimed at women and minorities this time round.
The only white males that find themselves at the mercy of Art get off fairly light in comparison to their ethnic counterparts, and as much as it was hilarious cutting to Jonathan wincing and holding his hand over a small cut in his cheek like 5 separate times, it does feel kind of odd to have the complaint that we didn't get a more gruesome penis mutilation scene. There's a certain degree of immaturity that permeates slasher throwback schlock like this that has often resigned it to the "guilty pleasures" side of my tastes, and Terrifier 2 is no exception. I get that it's a throwback to the Grand Guignol of the 80s, but when we have a shower scene for our explicitly high-school aged protagonist, and a guy wearing a t-shirt with a bloodied knife and "just the tip, I promise" on it, I have to stop my eyeballs from rolling back into my skull - I need those to watch the movie with.
Each of the screenings I went to had a very different vibe; the first, a Sunday matinee with a highschool friend who isn't particularly into horror, and the second, a Halloween late night showing at The Astor with a group of horror fans, including a friend from across the other side of the country (her awesome vlog-style review can be found here). And despite the hulking runtime, I have to say I don't regret seeing it twice in the slightest. A movie like this, where audience reactions are such a key part of the experience, is something I'll gladly go out of my way to participate in again and again. It's not often we get a film so gleefully trashy and mean-spirited, so if you have a group of weird sickos who have the guts to witness some carnage, bad acting, and superbly fake practical effects, I say give it a go.
While Terrifier 2 may run out of ways to shock in its final third, and definitely could have done with an edit from someone other than the director - along with more of its signature villain's presence - what we're left with is a cinematic experience that we rarely get these days, a campy, orange and blue tinted descent into madness at the hands of someone who really loves their craft.
Follow Eli on Letterboxd, Twitter and Instagram.
Terrifier 2 is screening in limited cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.