Review: Terrifier 2

Happy Halloween! What better way to celibrate than by reading a review of a hugely popular, notoriously violent film set on the holiday! Whether you know and love this one, or this review is the closest you'd ever dare get to experiencing it, I hope you'll enjoy the final entry in 2025's 31 Movies in 31 Days (which was really 16 movies, but what are you gonna do?)

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There is little doubt that the most buzzed about new horror franchise of the past decade has been the Terrifier franchise, and our most recently certified new horror icon is Art the Clown. That reputation was largely built on the back of the movie I’m reviewing today, Terrifier 2. When I looked at the first Terrifier movie last Halloween, I saw a raw, hyper-violent grindhouse picture that flashed moments of skillful direction and SFX, but I did not see the type of story or characters that could support a beloved horror franchise. I also didn’t expect to see those things, because all of the horror community discourse that bubbled up while I was actively avoiding the franchise (thanks to its reputation for over-the-top gore) suggested that part two is really when the Art the Clown lore comes into focus, and new characters are introduced that will carry the films forward into the future. In many ways, I subjected myself to the first movie, even though it challenged my delicate sensibilities, so I could eventually make my way here. So how did Terrifier 2 live up to the hype?

The most significant and immediately noticeable difference from the first movie is the upgrade in characters and character development. I don't want to suggest that this is 12 Angry Men all of a sudden, but it certainly clears the bar of your average Friday the 13th movie and especially the original film in the series. In particular, Laura LaVera's Sienna is a great addition to the lineage of strong final girls that includes such hallowed names as Laurie, Nancy and Ripley. She provides a strong rooting interest as her family and friends are imperiled by Art, which serves to cut through the dense nihilism of the first movie. The final sequence, set on Halloween night with Sienna in her homemade valkyrie outfit, is a winner, particularly once the cannon fodder is off the board and it all boils down to Sienna, her younger brother, and their sadistic nemesis. The rest of the characters are still relatively one-dimensional, but at least have a little more personality than the future corpses from the first movie. My favorite of the ancilary players turns out to be the one who gets the worst treatment from a sheer punishment standpoint, underscoring that Art (and by proxy, the philosophy of the filmmakers) does not have any type of moral or ethical drive to fuel his carnage. No one is getting dissected because they "deserve it" here, their only sin need be proximity to Art the Clown.

Just like the first movie, T2 features a notoriously savage kill which has become widely referred to as "the bedroom scene". It is clearly intended to be Damien Leone's piece de resistance when it comes to gore and a willingness to revel in brutality. I don't think it had the blunt, visceral impact on me that the hacksaw scene from the first film did, but the sheer length of the setpiece is really what puts it over the top. The usual cycle of these types of things is a slow building of dread and anticipation, followed by a jarring burst of violence which then cuts away so your nervous system can reset for the next scenario to ramp up. With this scene, Leone relentlessly brings you back over and over after you think its done with, escalating the cruelty each time. It is terribly effective, although it does risk numbing you towards the rest of the violence still to come in the movie. I will also point out that, for as great as the effects are in this movie, they are not anything that could be charitably described as realistic. That is a relief, honestly, because it does provide your brain a bit of a safety valve as you watch someone's arm get twisted out of socket and completely ripped off like it was connected by taffy, or another person's face smashed into an unidentifiable soup of goopy red mush as if their skull was made of paper mache. Make no mistake, however, the savagary may lack versimlitude, but this is definitely not a franchise for the feint of heart.

As far as the lore (or said another way: Art the Clown backtory and motivation), part two definitely amps that way up from basically zero in part one. Yet, I didn't find it as satisfying as I had hoped. There are all types of bread crumbs and hints as to the nature of a relationship between Art and Sienna's deceased father, so much so that I expected to find out they were one and the same at one point, but for so many posed questions there are frustratingly few answers. Simliarly, we are introduced to a young girl entity that appears to be some sort of avatar for Art, and potentially tied to a news story about a missing girl that we see in a newspaper clipping, but there is never an explanation or even an ambiguous puzzle for the audience to debate. It's like Leone subscribes to the JJ Abrams school of introducing a bunch of mystery hooks without a plan and then hoping they get sorted out in some future installment. I know that LaVera is back for the Christmas-themed Terrifier 3, so I will hold out hope that these plot points are explored further, but it is disappointing to sit through two hours and twenty minutes of this movie and feel like nothing is resolved. Speaking of the runtime, that's another problem I had with T2. That is simply a very long time for this type of movie. It is so unrelenting that I felt a bit exhausted at the end, robbing the final showdown between Art and Sienna of a bit of the catharsis I wanted to feel since I was so invested in her character and performance. This is a franchise that seems like it should sit in the 90-100 minute range at most, and you really feel every minute of the extended runtime in the third act. So, since I see that I'm at risk of repeating that particular sin in this review, let's wrap it up with my final impressions.

I liked Terrifier 2. I liked it more than Terrifier, and I liked it enough to forge ahead into Terrifier 3 at some point, but I did not like it as much as I had hoped. The funny thing is, everything I heard about it in relation to its predecessor is true: It has a better plot, better characters, better production value, even a touch of humor. I find David Howard Thornton's physical portrayal of Art pretty masterful and engaging without falling into the trap of making him the de facto hero of the franchise by virtue of how cool he is. Yet, there was so much room to improve in comparison to the first movie along all of those dimensions that I still find myself underwhelmed compared to the overwhelmingly positive reaction that the movie received upon release. I think that the Terrifier franchise still gets a lot of lift from the shock factor related to its violence, and horror fans giddily sharing scenes with other people in a "can you believe what they put in this movie?!?" type of spirit. Which I think is all well and good, honestly, I am certainly not offended by any of this. It just isn't what draws me in, and so I will likely remain a bit of an outside observer of this phenomenon moreso than an active Terrifier disciple. The fact is, I felt like I had to have an opinion on these movies given what I do here every October, and I'm glad that sense of obligation pushed me to set aside my reservations and experience them for myself. I like having my boundaries challenged, and I do enjoy both the character and the films despite my critiques. I'm simply never going to be the type of superfan that has popped up surrounding the franchise, and that's perfectly fine. Maybe you will be, so if you are feeling brave enough, take the plunge.

(Maybe check out the trailer first though, if you can't handle that, then this is definitely not the movie for you...)