I’ve been writing for 31 Movies in 31 Days for a decade now, and this is the first time I was scared before the movie even started.
I have a complicated relationship with gore in horror movies. I grew up as a scaredy-cat, and even the hint of something gruesome was a non-starter for me until social pressures forced me into voluntary horror consumption some time around middle school. In high school my friends and I dabbled in some of the ugliest stuff out there, like I Spit on Your Grave and Make Them Die Slowly (although I never could cross the line into the Faces of Death franchise – I’ll take my frights all the way fictional, thank you very much). I think that those viewing experiences cemented some fairly consistent truths for how I view that type of horror. First, they were artless. They didn’t seem to have a point of view, they were simply escalations of the worst things the filmmakers could think of in order to shock audiences and generate the type of word of mouth that would entice teenagers to watch them in order to sate their curiosity. Second, the description of what happens in those types of flicks is probably going to be worse than whatever makes it on screen. Your imagination can conjure far worse images than the special effects of shoe-string budget horror could hope to achieve in the seventies and eighties. So, while I didn’t really enjoy them, they served a purpose in demystifying the infinite possibilities that existed behind their VHS box art at my local video store. In that way, watching them actually alleviated more fears than it caused.
As my horror fandom has matured, those early lessons have helped shape my tastes. I have grown to not fear gore, and actually appreciate it in the right context. I certainly extoll the virtues of some grisly business right here on this blog, a Tom Savini zombie evisceration or a vintage exploding head for instance. I think the difference is whether it seems to be coming from a place of creativity or of cynicism. One of the last movies to make me physically wince at the carnage on screen was Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead remake from 2013, and I think that’s a great movie. It is brutal, but it is also artful and sincerely beautiful in its way. When Terrifier started making waves seven or eight years ago, I pretty quickly relegated it to the “not for me” category and moved on. It wasn’t until the first sequel came out a couple of years ago that I started reconsidering my position. While the first movie was hailed as a gritty, nasty slasher with a cool villain, the buzz around Terrifier 2 focused more on the lore, the supernatural elements, even the humor. I love a supernatural slasher, and my interest was piqued. Still, the film’s reputation for amping up the butchery even further kept me at bay. Finally, the discourse around Terrifier 3 this year got too big and too tempting, and I decided I had to learn what this franchise was about. Despite suspecting that one of the sequels would have the best chance to win me over, I opted to start back at the beginning.*
The thing I can say for Terrifier, is that it lives up to its reputation. Everything I heard about this movie ahead of time is 100% accurate. Not that I had any reason to doubt that, mind you, the real question would be how I responded to it. Let’s start with the gore – It is a lot. There are a bunch of kills, and each one is extremely graphic. There is an infamous scene in this movie that I knew about by reputation (I won’t spoil the movie – or your lunch – by describing it here), and I think I subconsciously tried to apply the lessons from watching splatter films in my youth and told myself that knowing it exists is actually worse than watching it. I’m not sure that holds up here, as the scene delivered pretty much exactly what I pictured in my head in just as gruesome a fashion. In fact, I think it showed more of the depraved act than I expected, which in itself is a bit of an achievement. Terrifier had a $35k budget, and while there are some effects that suffer a bit from a lack of resources, this big centerpiece scene at the halfway point is far too believable. Director Damien Leone is also responsible for the FX in this movie, and it is a masterclass in practical effect work. The sheer volume of grume and viscera on display coupled with the unflinching nature of the camera work is honestly a kind of art in its own way.
Even if you’ve never heard of this franchise, you’ve likely encountered the visage of its famous slasher villain, Art the Clown. Let’s say your interaction with horror (outside of reading 31 for 31, natch) is limited to annual trip to Spirit Halloween to pick up a benign costume for your kids, you would have encountered his black and white, mime-inspired face. The easiest element to recommend about this movie is David Howard Thornton’s performance as Art. He doesn’t speak, or vocalize at all, and the script doesn’t present any background information about the character or his motivations, but Thornton brings him alive in a magnetic and, yes, terrifying fashion. Clowns are already scary to a contingent of folks out there (they have never really bothered me personally), and Thornton is able to tap into the broad physicality and exaggerated facial expressions of both clowns and mimes to bring this character to life. You can see the foundation for Art to become more humorous as has been suggested about the sequels, but he stays pretty firmly on the scary side for this entry. The most chilling thing he does is when his plastered-on smile changes to a sullen expression, indicating that something is spoiling his fun. Art is no more or less dangerous regardless of his mood, but its a great wrinkle that allows Thornton to eke the most out of a performance in which he can’t make a sound.
So what do I ultimately think about Terrifier? Does it fall in the camp of cynical, artless exploitation cinema like the examples I cited above, or is it more akin to that Evil Dead remake? Honestly, it kind of breaks my informal framework. This is undeniably gore and mayhem for its own sake. There is no character development to speak of, and very little plot. This is a nihilistic movie that revels in the brutality of its antagonist – I can’t pretend that there is a deeper meaning here. Yet, as I alluded to above, I can’t call this artless and I don’t think I can call it cynical. This is clearly a passion project for Leone and his crew. I don’t get the same mercenary, cash-grab vibe that I do from, say, Make Them Die Slowly. Simply put, this is a sick movie made for sick people (he says lovingly) and I can appreciate that. I even personally enjoyed it. I found myself genuinely on edge the entire time, not because I was invested in the characters or worried how the plot would play out, but simply because I was anticipating and bracing for the next wild provocation that was going to be coming my way. For all of the horror I consume for this blog, and outside of this blog, it isn’t very often that I get genuinely unnerved, and almost never for the entire run time of a film. I can confidently say that I will no doubt be seeking that high again with Terrifier 2, and I am optimistic that the story and characters will improve enough to make it a much more rewarding experience than this one.
* Technically not the beginning, of course, as Art the Clown had previously appeared in a couple of shorts featured in the horror anthology All Hallows Eve.
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