I Just Saw

I just saw FX maestro Damian Leone’s Terrifier 2 finally, and it was pretty okay if you like this sort of thing, and probably the worst film ever made if you don’t. I dithered about watching this one for a while because of its reputation for sadistic violence but pushed ahead because the material I’d seen in previews made it look like the type of pulpy, Pop Art, comic book horror I enjoy between more thematically dense offerings.

The story is that Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and her little brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) are mourning their father’s death when Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), a demonic mute who in the previous film committed a massacre, returns to their town. This time he’s assisted by a little pale girl also dressed up in Halloween clown makeup and who may or may not be his daughter and may or not be a figment of his imagination.

That’s kind of all there is going on plot-wise, although the film tries to incorporate more developed storytelling and characterisation in stark contrast to Terrifier (2016), which essentially had no plot. As you can probably tell it’s still thin stuff, but to start with the positives it’s colourfully shot, stunningly vile in its practical effects (if you count that as a positive), has some effective nightmare sequences that are almost David Lynch-ian, and a macabre sense of humour that’s genuinely funny.

My favourite gag was a shot of a Live Laugh Love-esque tchotchke, the sort of thing that decorates a woman’s vanity table, midway through a scene of violence so disgusting it’s reportedly caused audience members to faint. (Although I never take such marketing too seriously.)

There are a fair few downsides that hold the film back, however, one of them being that it’s pointlessly long at just under two-and-a-half hours. Buried within Leone’s script is probably a decent Stephen King-esque story about a mentally ill artist plagued by visions from a nightmare world, who died and left behind a sketchbook that his children discovered and used to face off against the demon that comes from that realm.

But although Leone is admirable in his attempt to tell a story, he would have needed to be a lot more ruthless in the editing suite to make it work. It’s not like he needed complex dialogue. Halloween (1978) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), what most would consider highly artistic slashers, were both extremely straightforward in their storytelling at a script level, relying on a strong central concept (a motiveless killer and a killer in your dreams, respectively) to do the heavy lifting. This is a genre where a little says a lot and a lot says little.

Art the Clown is beautifully played by Thornton, a gifted silent actor whose creation is like a hellish response to Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Even as he scalps and dismembers and rips a victim’s arm in half he has a capering comedic air about him. That he operates by no consistent set of rules so that his survival and defeat are always just whims of the script and have no reality, wouldn’t be a problem if the film was 90 minutes and focused on action over half-baked character stuff.

Leone tries to make the characters likeable but for me at least they weren’t. Sienna and Jonathan’s mother Barbara (Sarah Voigt) in particular was shrill and unpleasant. Leone tries to give her some warmth at a couple of points but it doesn’t work.

She’s just a miserable and unsympathetic harpy. When she appears in a dream sequence to comfort Sienna I wanted Sienna to say ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t comforting, I hate you!’ Plus, let’s be honest, none of these actors is a future staple of the Oscars broadcast, even if they surpass the porn-level emoting of Terrifier’s players.

Also, although the film is colourfully shot, it’s very flat and stagy with it. It has the look of a television sitcom. Still, at a 250,000 crowdfunded budget, you really can’t gripe about that. The gore is the main selling point of this film, and it is spectacular. For me, the edge is taken off by the silly OTT nature of everything. None of this is real, but it’s a lot of fun. Just maybe make a sandwich or scroll through your phone during dialogue scenes.