Best Horror Movies: The Terrifier 2 (2022)

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The Terrifier 2, for me is one of the best horror movies that is relatively recent. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Screambox and Play on TV. I watched it through the Vizio’s TV free TV. Annoying to have to endure the commercial breaks, I know, but it was a spur of the moment thing.

For a while, I was expectant of The Terrifier 2 but a lot of water has flown below the bridge for me in the last 18+ months. So much, so that I almost forgot I began considering this saga (back then not yet a saga) among my top twelve all-time favorite horror movie franchises.

Art’s (David Howard Thornton) return after the events that transpired in All Hallows Eve and The Terrifier, deals with the what-ifs of a situation where an extremely violent, demon-possessed, evil clown would target not just the usual teenagers that get slaughtered in most horror movies, but also a twelve years old kid. It also deals with Art’s inner world, both his dream world and his madness.

If you thought Art the Clown was very expressive in the original movie you’re in for a treat. I thought the exposition of his personality is markedly expanded in this installment of the saga.

That, notwithstanding the introduction of a sidekick, The Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain), an enigmatic character that I enjoyed a lot watching and trying to figure out.

I think Lauren LaVera as Sienna and Elliot Fullman as Jonathan did an okay-plus believable job as the story’s targeted individuals. I also enjoyed watching the other victims do their things until their time in the world of the living was up.

Special mention of Sara Voight as Barbara, Jonathan’s and Seinna’s mother. The character was an unbearable nagging hag and Sara Voight did a great job portraying her.

I was relieved when she got her deserved desserts because if you had a mother like that (which I did) you enjoy watching a character in a movie with a similar personality get mauled to death, even if you understand your mother’s way of being is tough love and you don’t wish anything remotely similar for her.

The Terrifier 2 has a lot of Halloween costumes going on; a classic asset of many horror movies. This was done to satiation in creepy films, and sometimes with a better than okay in some of the best horror movies but I can’t deny I always love it when the time frame of the story is Halloween and there are one or more scenes in a costume ball.

Sienna’s costume is on another level and I couldn’t stop eye-balling it for how cool it looked, and how well it fitted her. She certainly looked like some kind of real-life/live-action She-ra, or something.

The Terrifier 2 has the Best Horror Movies type of Editing/Pacing

Considering The Terrifier 2 lasts for around 135 minutes I can say that I enjoyed every second of it, and the long running time wasn’t noticeable in the least. If anything it felt like a more valuable and especially memorable experience.

Also, it’s cool that the writing isn’t formulaic, it pushes you off the monomyth comfort zone and adds an extra layer of dread in that way.

Art The Clown’s return features several long scenes that happen in Sienna’s nightmares. The bizarre going-ons of astral-plane-grade nightmares are well-done.

I thought that several elements in those scenes were subtly inspired by a Lynchean sensibility and I loved that.

Yet, I would have developed several visual effects to give those scenes a more dreamy ambiance. At the very least I would have smeared a little vaselin in the camera’s lens to evoke the dreamscape.

This sequel certainly ups the ante in the gore department, the first was very macabre, but this one tops it by far. Would that make it one of the best horror movies ever?

The special effects are awesome, but be warned, the cruelest scenes may turn your stomach, make you angry or depressed due to how grotesque they are, or produce any other negative emotion you’ll have to deal with.

The Terrifier 2 delivers the best-case scenario when it comes to its horror entertainment value because the last showdown happens inside a horror-dark ride in a foreclosed carnival.

The opening titles and the credits after the ending have what I’d call a retro-wave or synth-wave background music, but the rest of the soundtrack is a subtle darkbient or deathbient, drones for moments, that adds considerably to the feel of the movie but a very subtle, almost subliminal, way.

Maybe the only aspect of the movie that I don’t find remarkable.

Sometimes it seemed as if sound effects were missing, but I played those parts again and I believe it’s because the darkbient drones in the background are trying to convey to the watcher the tension the characters are feeling and that’s why you can’t hear the sound effects.

I liked that as the other movies in the saga, The Terrifier 2 is realistic. Even if Art has a paranormal side that allows him to return from the dead, most of the other events in the movie could easily happen in the real world.

I loved to see Art doing what he does best again. I think The Little Pale Girl was a great addition. I haven’t read a single other review of this movie but I expect many will express that the saga fell out of favor with them because of the girl.

It’s suggested in the movie that Art is real (albeit supernatural in a way) but the girl is not. That the girl is a figment of Art’s imagination.

I guess the message is socially interesting because a degenerate like Art The Clown left alone with his imaginary friends exacerbates his capacity for unhinged sadism since he feels reinforced and condoned. What about people in society who fall through the cracks of the system, there is always the possibility that they may snap and become a real-life Art The Clown.

The formula by which the karma of the characters in most horror movies works is kind of crude and repetitive. It’s more or less like this:

A) Main and secondary characters go to places they shouldn’t

B) They split into small groups or couples, or they separate solo

C) They do something that’s morally or ethically questionable, sinful, selfish, or otherwise negative

D) They get slaughtered, sometimes in an ironic (when contrasted with their flaws) way

In The Terrifier 2, there is less of the irony and more of the karmic weight at play. This movie left me thinking quite a bit.

What Brooke (Kailey Hyman) did, giving a molly-laced drink to Sienna isn’t anything more than a little peccadillo, and what came after that with her boyfriend is just the thing most teenage couples do.

Teens in general can open different cans of worms doing the things depicted in this movie, even if they are natural things that teenagers do.

How boorishly the naughty adolescents in The Terrifier 2 are dispatched may prove a strong reinforcement in the minds of teens who watch this movie and later associate the dangerous things the victimized teens do with the consequences.

How characters end up in the movie may make teenage watchers think twice before doing things depicted in the movie and other thrill-seeking, dangerous things in their real lives.

If movies with very extreme kills and the gore that ensues put you off, I wouldn’t recommend you to watch The Terrifier 2.

What Art The Clown has to give is art for horror fans in general and fans of gore in particular. If you want to see a killer mime that generally kills with sharp objects surprise you, just watch this movie, and around minute twenty-three it will happen. You can thank me later.

Image Credits: Amazon Prime