For the uninitiated, Terrifier 2 is a new horror film that is getting a lot of attention lately, both in the news and on social media, because of its violent and gruesome reputation. In fact, it's been called "so brutal" that it's apparently making people vomit and faint in theaters.
So, here's everything you need to know about it, should you dare to care...
Note: This post contains mentions of rape and extreme violence.
For a little background, Terrifier 2 is actually the third horror feature film to star Art the Clown.
Created by writer/director Damien Leone, Art the Clown goes all the way back to a couple of short films called The 9th Circle (2008) and then Terrifier (2011).
These two shorts were then repackaged into a feature-length anthology film called All Hallows' Eve in 2013. And that was followed up with a sequel film entitled Terrifier (2016), and now Terrifier 2 (2022).
And I'm not gonna lie to you. These low-budget movies aren't "high quality," which is fine. Work with what ya got. But, frankly, I do think they're actually a little boring. Violent? Oh, definitely. Interesting? Meh.
The two things that make the Terrifier series stand out are 1) Art the Clown and 2) the impressive, albeit seriously gory, special effects, which, if you look up Leone's IMDb, makes sense. (His background is as a special makeup effects artist.)
Although I think the series itself is kinda just OK, I do think Art the Clown is a great horror character. And I understand why these films have gained a cult following. Art is creepy AF, an absolute monster (his weapon of choice is a homemade flogging whip that has things like scalpels attached to it), and...he's also funny?! Like, ridiculous-funny.
Throughout all the movies, Art basically pantomimes everything. He's kinda like Mr. Bean...if Mr. Bean was a demonic serial killing clown. And the actors who portray Art (Mike Giannelli in All Hallows' Eve, and David Howard Thornton in Terrifier and Terrifier 2) do a really great job. They both give great physical performances. And it's this unique combination of scary and funny that makes Art a fun horror character in the vein of predecessors like Freddy Krueger and Chucky.
As you can imagine, Art the Clown has become something of a horror icon over the last few years. His popularity has also been fueled by appearing on a lot of merch, fan art, and even in tattoos. (You may be more familiar with Art the Clown as an image than anything else.)
Happy #Terrifier2 Day from me and my Art the clown tattoo
So, now that you know the ~history~ of the Terrifier films and Art the Clown, I'll give you a quick rundown of what happens in each of these movies, in case you're the kind of person who wants to know but is too scared to actually watch. (If you don't want any spoilers, that's cool. You can just jump to the end and see where you can watch all these movies!)
Also, this is your final warning — there are lots of mentions of extreme violence ahead.
All Hallows' Eve (2013)
All Hallows' Eve takes place on Halloween night and follows the story of a babysitter named Sarah (played by Katie Maguire who also appears in Terrifier as a different character — more on that in a minute...) and the kids she's looking after, siblings Tia and Timmy.
Timmy finds a strange '80s-style VHS in his bag of candy and, of course, the kids force Sarah to let them watch it. What unfolds is three different horror short films (two of which comprise of those earlier Leone shorts mentioned above).
In the first short, Art the Clown terrorizes a woman at a train station. He drugs and kidnaps her, then brings her to some underground tunnels, where she and two other women are killed off by Art and a few other scary, supernatural creatures. One woman is dismembered, the other, who is pregnant, has her baby ripped out of her stomach, and finally, the woman from the train station is tortured and raped by Satan.
The second short features a woman who is terrorized at home by aliens who chase her through the house. It ends with the reveal that she's had a mysterious painting of Art in her home the whole time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (This short is by far the tamest and most boring of the three, FWIW.)
The third and final short follows another woman (sense a theme here?) who is lost and asks for directions from a nice gas station attendant. The attendant gets chopped up by Art, and then Art chases down the lost woman. He attempts to suffocate her with some plastic wrap, and then they get into a car crash. When the woman wakes up from the crash, she finds her limbs amputated and her torso covered in nasty words that have been carved into her skin.
Back in real time, the babysitter finally stops watching the creepy AF movie (the kids didn't see past the first horror short). Unfortunately for her, Art somehow manages to come out of the VHS and into her house. She thinks maybe she's seeing things until she realizes the worst possible truth. Art is real, and he's killed the kids.
Terrifier (2016)
This one opens with a talk show host, Monica (played by Katie Maguire, the babysitter from All Hallows' Eve) chatting with a woman who has a severely disfigured face. The disfigured woman talks about being the sole survivor of a Halloween night massacre one year ago — the killer being, who else, Art the Clown. After the interview, the woman attacks Monica.
We then cut to friends Tara and Dawn. They're out on Halloween night just looking to have fun.
Unfortunately, they come across Art instead. He stalks them to a nearby pizzeria. Although the girls get away before trouble starts, the pizzeria workers don't fare quite as well and get both chopped to bits and decapitated by Art.
The girls discover their car has slashed tires (dun dun dun), and Tara calls her sister Vicky to come pick them up. In the meantime, Tara goes into a vacant building nearby to use the bathroom after a pest control guy lets her in.
A little later, Art chases Tara through the building only for her to find out that Dawn has already been caught by Art. In what is probably the goriest scene of all three films, Tara has to watch Art cut her friend Dawn in half with a hacksaw. Tara is eventually killed by Art herself in a kind of surprising and lame way. He straight-up shoots her to death.
Anyway, through all this mess, Art attacks the pest control guy and also kills a wacky lady who's carrying around a doll and acting like it's her baby. He cuts off and puts on this lady's scalp and chest to disguise himself. When Vicky finally arrives, Art tricks her into thinking he's Tara. For a second, anyway.
With the help of the pest control guy, Vicky is able to evade Art for a bit, but he eventually catches up with them. Art kills the pest control guy by knocking him down, then stomping on his head. He then whips Vicky with his nasty blade whip, and eventually runs her down with a car. When some cops finally show up, they find Art eating her face. Before the cops can take him down, Art shoots himself in the head.
When Art's body arrives at the morgue, through some kind of evil mystical powers, Art comes back to life. It's also revealed at the end that the woman with the disfigured face from the TV interview at the beginning of the movie was Vicky.
Terrifier 2 (2022)
The story picks up right where Terrifier ends. A reanimated Art kills off the coroner in the morgue. Art then heads to a laundromat to clean all the blood off his little clown costume (LOL).
At the laundromat, Art has a vision of a mini-me of sorts — a young girl dressed in an outfit very similar to his with the same creepy sort of presence. Cute, right? I mean, they are literally not cute, but you get it.
Another year passes, and we land on the following Halloween. A girl named Sienna works on her Halloween costume — a warrior princess with angel wings. Her young brother Jonathan, meanwhile, plans on dressing as Art. Apparently he's into freaky shit.
Their mother, Barbara, is overworked, tired, and generally angry at the world. And their father? Well, he died not too long ago. Apparently, he had visions before he passed (including one where he saw Sienna as a warrior princess).
Sienna also begins to have visions (or dreams), and one night she sees herself on the set of a commercial for a place called the Clown Cafe (there's even a goofy jingle everyone sings: "Food's a little funny at the Clown Cafe!"). Of course, the cafe belongs to Art, and he proceeds to gun down everyone in the dream with a Tommy gun as the set catches on fire. Back in the real world, Sienna's wings for her costume also catch on fire...from the dream.
In school, Jonathan gets into trouble with some friends, and Sienna's friends talk about the mauling of talk show host Monica by Vicky (from the previous film). Later, Sienna picks up new wings for her costume from a Halloween store, where she and her friend Allie meet Art. He creeps them out, they leave, and then Art kills the store clerk by gauging his eye out with a broken bottle and then chopping off his head.
Art follows Allie to her home, and in the most violent scene of the movie kills her...slowly. He scalps her, pours bleach and salt all over her wounds, breaks her arm backward, cuts a limb, and carves into her skin. So...yeah, it's QUITE grotesque (and borderline cartoonish). In fact, I'm guessing this is one of those scenes everyone seems to be vomiting over.
Allie's mother returns home to find Art cutting up her daughter's body. The twist? Allie, whose skull is half exposed, still has enough life in her to say, "Mom?" Allie dies, and then we see Art use the mother's head as a candy bowl to hand candy out to trick-or-treaters. Yikes.
While Sienna and her other friend, Brooke, go off to a club for Halloween, Jonathan is grounded back at home (for the trouble he got into earlier at school). Art kills their mother and eventually kidnaps Jonathan in order to lure Sienna to him.
Sienna, Brooke, and Brooke's boyfriend track down Jonathan. The boyfriend (who wears a "just the tip" T-shirt) eventually loses HIS tip, thanks to Art. Art chases Brooke through a haunted house, and although she puts up a good fight, she's ultimately cut up and smashed to death in a bathroom covered in blood and shit.
Sienna is just too late in saving her friend, but that doesn't stop her from fighting Art. They duke it out for quite a bit, Sienna is even able to use Art's nasty blade whip on him, but Art eventually stabs her with her own sword from her costume.
He pushes her into a pit that somehow leads her into the Clown Cafe dream from earlier. Through the powers of her costume/her father (I guess?), Sienna is brought back to life and finally kills off Art, chopping his head off with her sword.
The little mini-me clown girl appears and takes Art's head, leaving Sienna and Jonathan traumatized, but alive.
But you know this story isn't REALLY going to have a happy ending, right?
In a mid-end credits scene, we see Vicky. She's now locked up in a mental institution. And in the strangest twist yet, she gives birth to Art's severed head.
So there you have it.
Terrifier 2 is playing in theaters now, and here's a trailer if you think you can stomach it:
