Released in 2016, Terrifier quickly became an independent film sensation. The film’s creator/director/writer, Damien Leone, gave the horror nation a fantastic old school style slasher and created a new icon, Art The Clown. Featuring one of the most brutal kills in horror history, a simplistic but perfectly paced plot, and a shooting style that was reminiscent of classic horror slashers, the film quickly gained a massive following. This October, the terror team is back with a long-anticipated sequel. Leone turned heads when he announced a run time of over two hours for this follow up. Can Terrifier 2 maintain the sinister atmosphere the original produced, or will this entry be a long-winded fright flick?
Sienna, her brother Jonathan, and mother Barbara are coming to terms with the suicide death of their father and husband. Exacerbating the tense household is the one-year anniversary of the massacre that occurred in their hometown. Obsessed with the murders, Jonathan believes that the murdering mime, Art The Clown, whose body disappeared after the massacre, will return. After a series of odd occurrences, Sienna starts to believe her younger brother may be right. Art does return in glorious gory fashion and this time he appears to be on a particular murder mission. Aided by a supernatural child clown, Art begins to stalk Sienna and her family. Miles County once again becomes the arena for another Halloween sinister showdown.
There is a really good eighty-minute sequel in this film, sadly, it is lost in a complete disaster of a two-hour-twenty-five-minute mess. The strong points that endeared the horror nation to the original is all there. Art adds to his body count with several sensational kills. David Howard Thornton gives another strong performance, his mannerism stealing laughs as he dismembers his prey. Strong female leads are a staple of this franchise, and Lauren LaVera puts in a terrific shift as the film’s scream queen. Leone deserves all of the credit for the first film, in turn, he deserves all of the criticism for this follow up. It would be easier to find a sweet hallmark card in Art’s trash bag full of weapons than a coherent plot in this production. A great scream queen is shown sporadically throughout a film before her third act ascension. Leone puts Lavera in the film entirely too much. The audience becomes bored with her consistent internal struggles which will have fans cheering for Art to finally take her out by the end of this saga. The allure of this sequel was to give fans an explanation of the killer clown’s history and motivation for his reign of terror. This is alluded to and forgotten several times over the course of the film, leaving the viewer with more questions than answers. A post credit scene could have possibly given explanations as to why anyone would suffer through this lengthy tale, but much like the ridiculous third act, it will continue to mind-boggle an already confused crowd. Leone does bring back a terrific shooting style but overuses 80’s style b-roll sound to the point of consistent annoyance. Though the kills mimic the high-level gore of the first film, they are few and far between, as well as completely overdone. Like most sequels, it was always going to be a tall task to even come close to matching the originality and atmosphere of the original, but no one except Leone will ever be able to understand what he was trying to convey with this installment. It is as if the director is either trying too hard or trying to be too clever for the film’s own good. Instead of a promised payoff the last half hour of the film, the viewer gets a horrifically plotted calamity which plays like it was written by a film school freshman. Art does plenty of chopping in this sequel, perhaps he can edit a home release version and chop off about fifty-minutes of unwatchable horror.
Scream Score: 6.3/10