Rating: NR | Runtime: 138 minutes
Release Date: October 6th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: Cinedigm Entertainment Group / Iconic Events Releasing
Director(s): Damien Leone
Writer(s): Damien Leone

You’re really weird, you know that?

It looks like third time’s the charm when it comes to Damien Leone and Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) as Terrifier 2 actually feels like a real movie. The fact that it only spends about two minutes catching us up on what happened beforehand proves just how superficial Terrifier and All Hallow’s Eve ultimately were. Suddenly Art has a built-in backstory rather than just being randomly dropped in to wreak havoc for no reason. He killed a bunch of people on Halloween in 2017 and now Miles County wonders if he’ll strike again one year later.

More than a fixed presence in the minds of kids like Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and her brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), however, Art has also been release of his corporeal form. Where Leone stripped him of the dream-like, Freddy Krueger existence as evil incarnate he possessed in the original short film Terrifier by shooting a prologue wherein Art puts on his costume and make-up in the feature-length Terrifier, things are thankfully put back in place. Jonathan must only speak his name for him to infiltrate Sienna’s nightmares and inevitably crossover into reality. They bring him to life and he thanks them by dismembering their friends and family.

The kills still skew towards misogyny, but nowhere near as much as the previous installments. It helps that Sienna isn’t just some woman picked from the crowd for Art to deem a “slut” and pounce. This time it’s personal—vague and unexplained mythology-wise like always, but intentional as far as drawing a connection between this monster and her recently deceased comic book illustrator father. Add The Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain) as a hallucinatory sidekick for Art (bridging the gap between fantasy and reality in ways that render the obvious less so) and I’ll admit I was captivated and invested from start to finish despite the runtime ballooning to an insane 140-minutes.

A lot remains unsaid (What is really happening with Samantha Scaffidi’s Victoria Heyes and is her continued involvement more than convenient narrative absurdity?), but Leone has definitely honed the horror aspects enough to gloss over those holes. Where the other chapters were pure homicidal rage, Terrifier 2 better balances the tonal juxtaposition of blood, guts, and vaudeville humor. It’s no longer just about extreme deaths (although they continue to be extreme). This playfulness goes a long way towards mitigating the nihilism. There’s still room for improvement, but Leone appears on the right track.

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David Howard Thornton in TERRIFIER 2.