Macabre…ish Horror Review: Terrifier 2

 

 

 

Terrifier 2, 2022/ 2 hrs 18 min

 

 

Art (David Howard Thornton) stalks a dying coroner (Cory DuVal) as he crawls across the floor. Art is slowed by his reflection in the mirror, he writes his name on it with his own blood just before he finishes the job of brutalizing the doctor, beating his head in and disarticulating his face, scattering teeth and eyeballs and finally pulling out the doctor’s brain.

 

His next stop is a public laundromat where he strips naked and washes his clothes. Also in the laundromat is a sleeping man and a terrifying little girl clown, who appears to be a figment of Art’s imagination. Art then cleans up, kills the man and mops the floor before he leaves.

 

This was all before the credits ended…

 

It’s almost Halloween and Jonathan (Elliot Fullam) wants to dress up as the Miles County Killer aka Art the Clown, it’s vetoed by his mom, Barbara (Sarah Voigt). He has a little obsession with mass murderers but Art specifically, who could still be out there after disappearing from the morgue.

 

Sienna (Lauren LaVera) later dreams about Art arriving on the set of a commercial she’s watching as she falls asleep. After passing out gifts, he takes a tommy gun out of his trash bag and shoots the place up. She is one of the cast members and the last one alive, Art chases her with a flame thrower. Sienna pulls a weapon out of the box of cereal and blocks the flame. But in real life, her angel wings that hang on her wall, catch fire.

 

Meanwhile, Art is in what appears to be his work shop, making weapons. Also there is the imaginary clown girl (Amelie McLain) and they are watching tv, on it is the interview with his last surviving victim, Victoria Heyes (Samantha Scaffidi). And she’s no longer recognizable.

 

The next day at school, Jonathan sees Art and his little friend sitting in the hallway, playing with a dead possum. Unnerved, he runs away. And his sister, Sienna, has a panic attack at school, she’s unnerved by what happened last night. The fire, the dream, all of it.

 

And later on, at home, Jonathan is blamed and punished for the dead possum in school, because no one else saw the clowns. Just the possum. While, Sienna is out looking for wing replacement, she spots Art, watching her. When she runs off, she forgets her bag but Art suddenly and aggressively drops it on the counter in front of her. And while she frantically searches for her wallet, Art is behind her, goofing off and frankly it’s terrifying.

 

Sienna escapes but the costume store employee, Ricky (Johnnath Davis) is in danger and his death is brutal.

 

At home, with their dad’s old sketchbook, Jonathan explains that the clown girl he saw was one of Art’s victims but she looked different. And the sketchbook is full of drawings their dad made and many of them are dark, one of them is a drawing of Art. Their mother doesn’t believe him and Sienna tries to comfort him. Jonathan begs her to stay home tonight, he is certain something is going to happen.

 

Meanwhile, Art is trick or treating and shows up at the house of a shopper he saw at the store earlier. He aggressively but silently demands candy, the lady spots the pile of bloody tools at the bottom as she throws some in.

 

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Art makes himself comfortable in Allie’s (Casey Hartnett), one of Sienna’s friends, house, before savaging her and tearing her apart. Her mother (Amy Russ) arrives home to Art still brutalizing her child, who is somehow, still alive. When trick or treaters arrive, he passes out candy using Allie’s mom’s head as a bowl.

 

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At the party, Sienna’s is getting worried about Allie but is told to relax by her other friends. And at home, Jonathan is at home, still trying to convince his mom, who, instead of believing him, tears up his dad’s drawings and slaps him.

 

Jonathan takes off and after he does, his mother notices vandalism and attributes it to him. But she’s wrong and finds out how wrong when she finds Art, in her car. When Jonathan returns home he find’s his mom’s corpse complete with the obliterated remnants of her head, staged at the dining table. Art enters the room with food and stuffs it into what’s left of Barbara’s head.

 

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Sienna freaks out at the party when she sees the little clown. Her friend Brooke (Kailey Hyman) and her boyfriend, Jeff (Charlie McElveen), give her a ride. She gets a call on her way home that’s supposedly from Jonathan who is actually unconscious in the trunk of the car driven by Art. The call is actually from the demonic kid clown. She’s to meet him at an old carnival where a little girl was killed, in the Terrifier.

 

Her friend Brooke and Jeff wait in the car until his penis is pulverized by Art while he’s trying to urinate. Brooke barely escapes the car but really hurts herself in a trip and fall. She manages to make it to Terrifier to try to find Sienna. But she’s cornered by Art and the carnage begins with an acid bath to the face and ends with a battering from a bat that’s loosely related to Lucille. And it happens quick, Sienna finds what’s left of Brooke after Art eats her heart.

 

And he is still there and so is Jonathan but Sienna orders him to run and he does. Art stalks him through the haunted maze, catches him and cuts him up but Sienna is right behind him with his own weapon. After burying it in the hole in the back of Art’s head, the injured brother and sister take off.

 

But Art keeps coming, this time with a metal, tipped pronged whip, he flogs them until Sienna’s had enough and she tears him up with his own whip. But once again, Art rallies and then it’s Jonathan’s turn to save his sister. He grabs Art’s gun and pulls the trigger. Sienna wakes up thinks she sees their mom but she’s wrong, it’s that demon. They may not make it out alive but it’s not for a lack of trying.

 

This slasher was directed by Damian Leone and it’s a direct sequel to the original. Yes it is grotesquely bloody, gory and graphic. And the violence is drawn out and over the top. But I can’t imagine a fan of the original expecting any less. There are also some elements to this movie that feels like an homage to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Also Felissa Rose is in this film!

 

P. S. Watch past the credits