I had the opportunity to see Damien Leone, writer and director of the Terrifier franchise at a recent horror con here in Richmond… “cons,” for those unenlightened, are temporary pop-up specialty shopping malls where you go shopping in costume. Festivals are places where you dress up and go shopping but there is a modicum of entertainment involved. We Americans love to go shopping. That’s why we buy houses, because we eventually run out of places to store all the shit we buy at cons and festivals and malls and on Ebay and Etsy and on Amazon and on all the Chinese junk clothing stores that advertise on Facebook. I think my personal dragon hoard of belongings is like 50% useless junk that I bought somewhere on impulse because I thought it looked cool. Like going to a museum exhibit and then stopping at the gift shop to spend 75 bucks on the coffee table book about the exhibit I just saw, because it looked cool, and then it spent the rest of its life unopened on the coffee table.
…anyway I didn’t get to meet him, we had a wedding to go to out of state.
Meanwhile, Terrifier 2 is the latest addition to this new horror franchise that places Art the Clown as this generation’s JasonFreddyChuckyMichael. It’s a little more fully-realized as a movie, now, but still the mindless skull-ripping bloodbath I came to watch. It’s a messy movie, there’s just nothing but blood and intestines everywhere. This entry, however, has a storyline to it! Neat!
A mom and daughter who both go to the same eyebrow groomer also have a sonbrother who doesn’t have Instagram eyebrows but what he DOES have is a fascination with killer clowns. This is going to be your lucky day, you ghoulish little creep! Daughter wants to be a DIY superhero because “dead dad stuff.” It’s a generic story, I’ll spare you the details, because nobody cares.
Oh and it’s Halloween and everyone is all about costumes and alcohol.
So the clownmonster comes back from the dead, and he now has a magical ladyclown friend that no one can see but the main characters in the movie. Clown magic! He gets right to weaponizing scrap metal and chopping up humans while the main characters establish their personalities and back-story for a good hour.
Then the clownmonsters get into the story, and they get established awkwardly into the family backstory, and do a little murdalicious side hustling that has nothing to do with the rest of the story, they just were tired of waiting.
Terrifier 2 has the feel of an 80’s franchise slasher, down to the music. The pacing, the dialog, the story, the heroic showdown… all we need is a prom and all the bases be covered!
No boobs, no sex, minimal naughty words, nobody smokes cigarettes, it’s like PG-rated nightmare fuel to bring to your next babysitting job. I like this franchise. It’s a re-envisioning of boogeyman-driven franchise horror for freaks like us who have seen it all in movies, and need the boundaries pushed a little.