Terrifier 2 (2022)

9/10

The Terrifier series dives fully into the supernatural with Terrifier 2, which arguably outdoes its predecessor in every way. Responding to accusations of underdeveloped characters in the first film, writer-director Damien Leone returns with a bigger, bolder sequel that puts character development front and centre, even as it amps up the spectacle and gory set pieces.

One year after Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) engaged in his Halloween murder spree in Miles County, the resurrected villain returns to kill again. His bloody reign of terror leads him to the pursuit of teen Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) and her younger brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam). The film insinuates that Art may have some mystical connection with the siblings: both can see his companion the Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain) that others cannot.

With Sienna, Leone has created an arch-nemesis for Art that can stand toe to toe with the murderous clown, anchored by a solid performance from Lauren LaVera. The director’s idea for a heroine dressed as a Valkyrie angel warrior dates back to 2008. His screenplay for Terrifier 2 clearly shows a desire to establish more fully realized characters compared to Art’s victims in the first Terrifier, who had the bare minimum characterization necessary for a slasher flick.

Here, Leone devotes plenty of time to establishing Sienna, her family and friends, and their relationships with one another. After an opening sequence showcasing the return of Art, including a gruesome murder in which he pulls a man’s head apart with his bare hands, the film takes great care to establish Sienna, Jonathan, and their mother Barbara (Sarah Voigt). The family is still coping with the death of Sienna and Jonathan’s father, whose drawings inspired the Valkyrie costume Sienna is crafting for Halloween in tribute.

Sienna herself is a talented artist who enjoys watching old horror movies even though she takes Xanax, generally prescribed for anxiety. She loves her 12-year-old brother Jonathan, despite concerns about his interest in macabre subjects such as Nazi experiments and serial killers; Jonathan initially hopes to dress up as Art the Clown for Halloween. Leone shows Sienna’s talents and mixed feelings well when she fixes the string on Jonathan’s Art hat, even though she doesn’t want him to dress up as the killer. Barbara is a tough-but-fair single mom, struggling to balance her job as sole breadwinner with caring for her children.

Slasher movie aficionados—and I count myself among them—often have a tendency to accept flat, one-dimensional characters, since the main purpose of these characters is to be killed by the antagonist in gruesomely creative ways. That’s certainly how the genre evolved in the 1980s, starting with Friday the 13th and other movies that tried to imitate the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween. But what Carpenter understood is that having well-developed characters heightens the horror, since we actually care what happens to these people.

With Terrifier 2, Leone makes clear he has learned and applied this lesson. At 138 minutes, the movie is startlingly long by slasher standards. But even though Leone, who also served as editor, could have cut more, the movie doesn’t wear on the viewer’s patience because what we’re seeing onscreen holds our attention: whether that’s intimate character moments, well-composed atmospheric shots, creepy scenes of Art and the Little Pale Girl, comic relief, or the bloody set-piece murders.

Of the gore, it’s debatable whether this movie goes further than the first Terrifier. At a certain point, you can only go so much more over the top. What I can say is that armed with a crowdfunded $250,000 budget—still small by Hollywood standards, but a big increase from the original’s $35,000-$55,000—Leone has offered more of these gory kills, all of which continue to display a ghoulish inventiveness. Some of the standouts here include Art literally tearing a person’s face off, throwing acid on people, ripping a man’s penis off, shoving mashed potatoes into a gaping bloody pulp that used to be someone’s face, and serving Halloween candy to unsuspecting children from a severed head used as a bucket.

In my review of Terrifier, I said that the gore was “just gratuitous enough”. Terrifier 2 lingers more on the horrible mutilations its killer inflicts upon the human body. Still, the film remains creepy, which means that the gore enhances the scares by adding extra shock value. This is, after all, a slasher movie. Leone is continually willing to push the boundaries of good taste, including breaking a common horror taboo by showing Art targeting children. What makes the kills even more disturbing is Thornton’s performance, which juxtaposes the horrible, sadistic acts Art is committing with comedic mime gestures.

I’d be lying if I said Art wasn’t funny. It’s that paradox that makes him such an fascinating horror villain. I laughed out loud many times, starting with his early scene when he goes to the laundromat to wash the blood out of his costume. His stalking Sienna in a costume store while silently hamming it up trying on various novelty sunglasses is simultaneously creepy, threatening, and funny. We enjoy watching Art’s antics, but unlike a lot of slasher films, we care about his victims, which makes us that more eager to see Art get his comeuppance.

The higher budget of Terrifier 2 means the sequel is able to offer a greater variety of settings than the first movie. There’s a creepy nightmare sequence at the “Clown Café”, a Halloween party at a club, and the climax set at an old abandoned carnival and its Terrifier attraction, a nightmarish funhouse. That climax does get dragged out a bit too long and starts to display lapses in the movie’s logic, such as when Art knocks out a victim and leaves them instead of killing them. Still, the end is satisfying. Make sure you stay for the memorable mid-credits scene.

One difference between the first and second Terrifier films is where Terrifier was mostly “realistic” until the supernatural twist at the end when Art was resurrected, the supernatural pervades Terrifier 2, out of simple necessity. Once a character has been brought back from the dead, all bets are off. Since the movie acknowledges that Art is effectively immortal, it expands that concept to other characters and objects, such as a magic sword that plays a key role in the plot. The embrace of the supernatural also allows for that mid-credits scene, which sets up further sequels.

Music in Terrifier 2 further improves on the original by incorporating synthwave, a favourite genre of mine that further enhances the movie’s retro 1980s slasher sensibilities. I also appreciated the posters of metal bands like Mercyful Fate, Slayer, King Diamond, and Overkill in Jonathan’s room (was his name inspired by the character Jonathan in King Diamond’s concept album Abigail)? It’s a subtle way of establishing his character as the kind of adolescent fascinated by dark subject matter, while reiterating the filmmaker’s own love for dark, theatrical 1980s pop culture.

Despite its length, Terrifier 2 is supremely well made and atmospheric, offering an iconic heroine to match its villain and macabre imagery that is perfect for Halloween viewing—and makes a convincing case for itself as ranking among the best slasher movies ever made.