So the other day I fired up the ol' GoogleMachine, queried "best recent horror movies" and out popped Terrfier. Since I've been on a slasher kick lately and it's right there on Netflix, I thought "Hey, why not check out what a modern example of the genre has to offer?"
The fact that the movie prominently features a creepy killer clown is also a bit of a personal dare. Full disclosure: I hate clowns. Actually that's putting it mildly: I effin' despise clowns. Every time my parents took me to a fair, flea market or car show as a kid, there'd always be some weirdo there dressed up like a falking clown. And every time, my brain would fail to reconcile this inexplicable sight.
'Okay, you're tall, so clearly you're an adult. But no sane adult would act or dress like that in public. Ergo, they must have a screw loose.'
Soon I'd be tugging on my parent's shirt-tails, glancing over my shoulder and muttering "Hey, guys I'm just gonna go lock myself in the car, sit on the backseat floor and rock back and forth for awhile. The tire iron is still under the spare, right?"
After re-visiting the classic 1978 version of Halloween recently, the visceral experience of watching Terrifier was downright jarring. But, hey, guess what? Horror movies, real horror movies, aren't supposed to be a montage of cheap jump scares, grainy night vision footage of doors slamming shut or anachronistic trips to the library to research why some hooded ponce with a dog keeps showing up. After emerging from the other side of a proper horror movie, you should feel inspired to find out if the director is still at large, walking around in polite society, free on their own recognizance.
Movies like The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the first and only truly great one), The Shining, Alien, Evil Dead, An American Werewolf in London, and Return of the Living Dead have all made me question the sanity of the film-makers. And such is the case with writer-director Damien Leone. Terrifier might not represent the high water mark of technical film-making, acting and screen-writing, but it also has a balls-to-the-wall, go-for-broke attitude that I find both admirable and decidedly nauseating.
The film opens with a severely disfigured woman being interviewed about her mutilation at the hands of a psychotic clown named Art who went on a killing spree one year ago. Later, when the same exploitative journalist is shown making snide comments about the victim, the interviewee just pops up from out of nowhere and murders her in her eye-holes.
Strap yourself in, kiddies. It's only gonna get worse.
Cut to our two protagonists, Tara (Jenna Kanell) and Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) who are heading home after some "drunken" Halloween shenanigans. They spot Art skulking at them from a distance and beat a hasty retreat to a nearby pizza parlor for solace...and a slice. Unfortunately, the grinning lunatic bombs in, "proposes" to Tina, and then gets thrown out after his "do-it-yourself" redecoration of the bathroom goes over like a lead balloon. After Tara and Victoria vamoose, Art returns to the pizza shop and gives the staff a stern lecture about how "the customer is always right"...by decapitating and / or viciously stabbing their eyes out.
Seriously, it's as if Damien Leone has some personal vendetta against intact eye sockets.
Almost by fate, Tara and Victoria inadvertently wander into the clown's spider web, which turns out to be a virtually-abandoned, dilapidated garage / tenement building that's inexplicably slated for fumigation. What follows is a grand guignol of violent murder, narrow escapes and visual depravity that'll put even the most hardened gore hound off their mixing bowl of Boo Berries.
Okay, so let's talk about the pros. First off, even though Terrifier looks like it was made for about forty-five bucks worth of Canadian Tire money, the low production values actually work in the film's favor. Like the original Dawn of the Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this movie actually looks like it smells bad. Between the dilapidated settings and Art himself (not to mention his gnarly bag of murder implements), the flick looks like it was shot in Smell-O-Vision and the knob snapped off on the "Reeks To High Heaven" setting.
The scant cash the producers did have is generally well-spent. Looking like the love child of a mime on bath salts and the Mouth of Sauron, Art himself is brilliantly realized. He's also impeccably inhabited by actor David Howard Thornton, who confidently steers the villain through bouts of playfulness, rage, resignation, and gleeful psychosis. He's creepy beyond all measure and single-handedly drags the entire production over the goal line.
And although the facial mutilation makeup shown at the beginning of the film is so over-the-top that it looks unintentionally goofy, the rest of Art's handiwork is up-chuckingly convincing. As a professional makeup artist, Damien Leone's practical gore effects are flawless and all of the kills are creatively brutal. In fact, there's a hacksaw decapitation scene that's so nasty and well-executed (pun not intended) that it would inspire a slow-clap from Tom Savini.
There's another sequence that had me just sitting there, staring at the screen and muttering to myself "Nope. No way. They're not gonna do that, are they? Naw...there's no way that they could possibly...Welp, nope, there he goes!" In one fell swoop, this scene:
- Avenges every Friday the 13'th flick that had it's creative makeup effects savagely and mercilessly hacked out by the biased MPAA.
- Shows up all the milquetoast PG-13 dreck that's been passing for horror films lately.
- Informs the viewers that the kid gloves are off and absolutely anything can happen.
Also, with typical mainstream Hollywood fare, you know exactly who's gonna be left standing when the end credits roll. That isn't the case with Terrifier. Since Damien Leone is a bonafide psychopath, he's clearly not beholden to established tropes. Just because you've decided to make a slasher movie, it doesn't mean that you have to advertise who your FINAL GIRL is within five minutes of run time.
As for the performances, it's a real mixed bag. In addition to the aforementioned and thoroughly- exemplary David Howard Thornton, Jenna Kanell is resolute and likable as Tara, although her growing discomfort isn't always convincing. Catherine Corcoran is suitably boorish and amusingly fake-drunk as Victoria. Samantha Scaffidi is appropriately tired as Tara's put-upon sister Victoria and acts shell-shocked as the nightmare unfolds. And while most of the minor performances are pretty ham-fisted, they don't occupy enough screen (scream?) time to sink the proceedings.
Where the film suffers the most is in the writing, or lack thereof. My two-to-three-word descriptors of the performances also pretty much sum up the characters as a whole. Tara is the GOOD GIRL, Victoria is the PARTY GIRL and Victoria is, um...ANOTHER GOOD GIRL. It also doesn't help that the interview and hospital scenes that book-end the film are both pretty pointless. The fact that Tina just so happens to randomly wander into "Uncle Art's High Rise of Blood" is also pretty far-fetched. Then there's the scene where Art experiences some sort of supernatural "re-charge". Perhaps this was explained in his prior on-screen appearance but in the context of the story here it makes zero sense.
The movie also suffers from some sloppy technical issues as well. While the cheap, shot-on-digital image quality gives the film it's "bargain basement" aroma, it also looks like a student film. The scene where the second exterminator shows up even goes wildly out of focus at one point. The coroner's lab sequence is also a complete failure. This should be a pristine and sterile environment but instead it looks as if it was shot in the same run-down apartment building. There are some glaring gaffes that took me out of the film as well, such as when Art "strangles" Tara but he's barely touching her throat.
Like I said, experiencing Terrifier was quite the system shock after watching Halloween. Whereas the latter is an oddly-classy thriller with a distinctive score, memorable characters, generally good performances, tight direction, intriguing back-story and wonderful cinematography, the former doesn't aspire to any lofty goals.
Say what you want about Terrifier, but at least it does what it says on the tin. It's mean-spirited, vicious, nasty, repellent, tense, vile and uncompromising. It's a sleazy carnival fun-house that you dare your friends to try to get through without soiling their Underoos™ or yarfing up their candy corn.
With frayed nerves and bleary eyes, I managed to stumble out of Terrifier's finale, but unlike the experience provided by venerable predecessors like Halloween, I have no intention of subjecting myself to this particular spook show ever again.
Tilt: down
