Review: Terrifier 2 (2022)

Terrifier 2 (2022)

Not rated

Score: 4 out of 5

All Hallows' Eve and Terrifier were flawed, but fun low-budget slashers that were both elevated by their villain Art the Clown, their grungy atmospheres, and a willingness to trample over every line of good taste with their kills, their writer/director Damien Leone putting his background as a special effects artist to great use in order to make movies that looked like they cost a lot more than the pittances they actually did. What they lacked, however, was in their stories and writing, the former film having been cobbled together from three short films Leone had made over the years and the latter being chiefly a special effects showcase with only the barest framework of a plot to hold it together. Here, Leone got something close to resembling an actual budget, along with plenty of time to think about the kind of sequel he wanted to make after Terrifier blew up, knowing that another round of plotless, gratuitous violence just wouldn't cut it -- and what he decided to make can only be described as a slasher epic, a film with a 138-minute runtime comparable to a Marvel movie that not only considerably fleshes out Art and the lore surrounding him but also gives him actual characters to hunt and kill, most notably its heroine Sienna Shaw. And for the most part, it worked. It probably could've stood to have a lot of scenes trimmed down, but Art is still one of the greatest villains of modern horror, Sienna is one of its best heroines, the production values have been beefed up considerably, the kills are some all-timers that make the previous movie look almost PG-13, and the story adds just enough to make things interesting without taking away the aura of mystery surrounding just who Art is and what exactly is going on. Having now seen all three films featuring Art the Clown, I would recommend this as one's entry point into the series, not just because it's altogether a more lighthearted and "fun" film than its predecessors (even with the increased gore) but also because it's simply a better one, and easily one of the best slasher movies in recent memory.

The film starts right where the first one left off, with Art the Clown waking up on the mortuary slab after killing himself at the end of the last movie, as puzzled as anyone as to how he's still alive. As it turns out, there's a supernatural force at work that brought him back from the dead, represented by a creepy little girl in a similar outfit and clown makeup to Art who wants him to keep killing, Art of course being happy to oblige. Right away, this was a creative solution to the question of how you flesh out a slasher villain in the sequels without ruining his mystique. It's a tricky tightrope to walk, one that the Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises both notoriously fumbled as they gave Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger increasingly convoluted backstories that took away the basic, simple hooks that their characters were originally built around. Here, Art the Clown is still just a guy who likes killing people, the added story elements all falling on the Little Pale Girl, as she's credited as. Played by Amelie McLain as a more child-like version of Art who never directly kills people but otherwise haunts them and helps Art do his dirty work, there are hints as to just who she actually is (or at least used to be) but nothing concrete beyond the fact that she's more than just a mere ghost. She was an injection of supernatural horror into what had been a fairly grounded slasher story on the last outing, a Devil figure of sorts guiding Art while occasionally appearing to the protagonists as well, and proved to be a very intriguing and creepy addition to the story hinting that there was a lot more going on here than just your usual tale of a slasher villain coming back from the dead for the sequel.

There's more to a great slasher movie than just a great killer, though. My biggest problem with the last movie was that there wasn't much to it beyond Art the Clown, and it's one that Leone went out of his way to try to solve here, putting a much greater focus on a singular protagonist fighting him. And I must say, Sienna Shaw is easily one of the best final girls I've seen in a long while. Initially presented as unconnected to Art, Sienna is a creative but troubled teenager with a passion for costume design whose father, who died of a brain tumor that turned a once-loving family man into an abusive bastard in his final year on Earth, still looms large over her life. Her mother is constantly on edge, and her younger brother Jonathan has developed an unhealthy interest in true crime and murderers, particularly the "Miles County Clown" case from the prior year. It turns out, however, that her father, implied to have been an artist of some sort, may have possibly been psychic and known about Art the Clown, and the fantasy drawings he left behind included detailed depictions of some of the events of the last movie before they happened -- as well as a drawing of Sienna defeating Art.

What grabbed me about Sienna right away was her actress, Lauren LaVera. She spends most of the film in a sexy, badass "warrior woman" outfit she made for Halloween, and she absolutely lives up to it, LaVera putting her background as a stunt performer and martial artist to great use as she battles Art during this film's lengthy climax. Leone originally designed the character as something more akin to the heroine of a fantasy story for a different movie he was working on that ultimately never got made, and that shows through in Sienna's grit and toughness under pressure. There's more to a great horror heroine than just being tough, though. There's a reason why the phrase "strong female character" is a running joke among media critics both feminist and otherwise, and that's because it's all too easy for poorly-written versions of such characters to turn into one-note hardasses, clearly trying to be Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor but missing the humanity that made those characters work. Sienna, by contrast, spends most of the film's first two acts away from Art and the action, the problems she has to contend with being of the personal and psychological sort, and here, LaVera shines and delivers the kind of performance that makes careers. Sienna felt like a capable survivor, but one who had been thrust into a situation she was in no way ready for and wound up getting as good as she gave. There are implications that she's slowly going insane as the pressure of her father's death and the breakdown of her family starts to get to her, especially once she starts having strange, violent dreams about Art that seem to predict what's happening in real life. Her seemingly being tied to premonitions of the future was a plot decision that could've easily gone wrong, but the way it plays out here, especially given the new mystery surrounding Art and the Little Pale Girl, it only adds to the feeling that there's a lot more going on under the surface than just a simple slasher story.

The surface, though, is plenty thrilling enough. Leone felt like he was on a personal mission to top the last movie in the gore department, starting right away with a kill that one of my co-workers told me caused him to stop watching just ten minutes in. I think I know the one, and I can certainly say that it doesn't even register in the top five most brutal moments in this movie. The all-time highlight, the one that typically comes up whenever this movie is discussed, is one that, if Mortal Kombat ever decided to add Art the Clown to its character roster (as it's done with various other horror villains), would probably have to be cut down in order to make the cut as the most graphic fatality in the game. The thing about Art here is that he doesn't usually just go for the easy kill, he likes to follow it up with more and draw out his victims' suffering for as long as possible. He'll land the killing blow and knock a victim down for the count, then reach for a different weapon and go for style points. There's not a lot of real tension when Art is killing people, but sheer excess packs a punch all its own. Leone has said in interviews that he envisions Art as having a supernatural ability to keep his victims alive so he can torture them for longer, and while this is never implied in the film itself (the human body can take a lot, and I just assumed that's what was happening), I certainly buy it. All the while, Art's sick sense of humor is out in force, with David Howard Thornton once again making him feel like a silent Freddy Krueger between his prop comedy and his often bemused facial expressions.

The drawn-out nature of the kills is, unfortunately, also reflective of what is probably this movie's biggest problem. Leone made a slasher movie that is two hours and eighteen minutes long, and there were a lot of scenes that could've been cut for time. It did help with the character development to give the story more room to breathe, but there were also a lot of scenes that overstayed their welcome and slowed the pace of the story considerably. I can handle a long horror movie, but there are limits, and they come when it feels like scenes were left in less to serve the story and more because Leone couldn't bear to cut anything, no matter how minor. The subplot with Victoria, the lone survivor from the last movie, is a case in point. While I have no doubt it will come back into play for Terrifier 3, especially given the mid-credits scene, that was just the thing: it felt like it was building up for a sequel more than anything, putting the cart before the horse and being another similarity this has with a lot of blockbuster superhero movies. Furthermore, while LaVera and Thornton were both great as Sienna and Art, the rest of the cast was a mixed bag. Sienna and Jonathan's mother in particular frequently overacted and came just one step away from a character in a Saturday Night Live sketch, and a lot of the supporting cast didn't exactly shine either.

The Bottom Line

If you can handle over two hours of absolute fucking carnage, then Terrifier 2 is for you. It's a modern slasher classic with a lot to like for horror fans, and I can't wait to see how the next movie plays out.