Review Tuesday: Terrifier & Terrifier 2

During creepy season my bro-in-law recommended Terrifier, partially because the sequel had come out. Since he NEVER offers suggestions we decided we needed to give this franchise a whirl. 

 

TERRIFIER

2016

When a psychopath clown goes on a killing spree, he leaves a trail bodies and blood in his wake. 

or better:

When two girls attract the murderous attention of a psychopathic clown, he kills everyone along the way to getting to them.  

This isn't a very original concept. psycho-clown kills people. Not a new idea. I wonder if the idea was borne from that hysteria from the people dressed like clowns and hiding on the side of various roads. Whatever the motivation was, this film got made. 

 

The movie starts off with an interview with the sole survivor of the massacre from a year earlier. Afterwards, the survivor snaps and commits an unbelievably violent crime. Afterwards, the movie rolls back to the murderous events of the previous Halloween. Art the clown packs his bag and hits the town when he stumbled across a couple girls leaving a party. AND this begins the chase. 

 

What is there to say? This is a violent slasher-style gore-porn horror movie. What sets this apart from some horror is that Art does some unexpected things. You EXPECT the villain to chase people around and to, seemingly, know where everyone is trying to hide.He does a couple things you DON'T expect. 

 

This was a crowdfunded project. With a fairly small budget the execution of this film is surprisingly well done and polished. The gore and special effects are way better than you'd expect, And, in conclusion, I would say that this was a very well-made horror flick and worth your time if you like such things.

AMAZON

 

    

TERRIFIER 2

2022

Years after the events of TERRIFIER, Art returns to kill. 

After enjoying the original movie, Mrs Bax0jayz and I were very enthusiastic about seeing the sequel. This time, a college girl who loves to cosplay and her family seem to experience strange things. To make matters worse, the younger brother seems OBSESSED with Art the Clown. 

This movie just didn't measure up to the first. It started off with Art killing people, I suppose in some lab? Maybe it was the morgue his body mysteriously disappeared from in the first film? Well, they don't really explain it. A large chunk of his skull is missing leaving his brain exposed. He wandered to a local laundromat and washed his blood-soaked costume, it's perfectly clean, and he seems to ave teamed up with some weirdo clown girl that's a figment of his imagination. 

I dunno. There's all sorts of weird stuff going on in this movie that doesn't make much sense at all. They seem to suggest what his origin might be, but even that doesn't make sense. I guess they imply that Art was a comic-book ARTist (ha!) who had cancer and died in a car crash years earlier. He has also become abusive towards his end. Now, he seems to be some supernatural murder machine who now has his sites set on his old family. I think? Oh, and there were TOO MANY dream sequences and they were way too long. 

The good. both movies are really well done. The director seems to really like good-looking brunettes. Better than you would expect gore and special effects for super-low-budget horror. The trouble is, the second one really needed some much better writing. i know, horror is NOT known for good writing, but after the first film, the second one seemed lacking. Kind of like a bunch of ideas were tossed out there but never fully developed. And when movies use the dream sequences as serious plot-lines, it disgruntles me. They can't be bothered with something REAL so they dream it up. Lazy writing. 

So, If you love horror and Art the Clown, you will probably want to see this sequel. I think the original is far superior and the sequel actually a let-down. 

AMAZON