If you don’t like gore or movies that go over the top, ‘Terrifier 2‘, which has just arrived on Prime video, is not for you: absolutely nightmarish and excessive, not only are its sequences of violence brutal (there is a central one that must be among the most violent ever captured on screen) but the development of the plot itself is like a feverish hallucination. Chases that go nowhere, spiraling plots, disconcerting humor… all in all, the film became a phenomenon: it cost $250,000 and grossed $15.7 million.
‘Terrifier 2’ gives the viewer few levers to hold him back: its protagonist is Art the Clown, a clown whose sadism puts Pennywise himself to shame, and who is occasionally accompanied by a clown-girl similar to him. There is no origin story, we don’t know where he comes from or what he intends.nor why he has strange supernatural powers. This is just one crime after another with hardly any plot connection.
The original idea of its sole responsible, Damien Leone, was to give the film a limited theatrical release (just 800 screens) and then move to the genre-specialized platform Screambox and the domestic market. But word of mouth and a series of small scandals, with people vomiting and fainting at the screenings, made it gross double its budget in its first weekend in theaters, and exceed one million in the second. All this without the support of a major for distribution, which was carried out almost in an “artisanal” way.
‘Terrifier 2’ is so absolutely brutal and made without giving the viewer any concessions or respite that at times it almost seems like art house cinema, with its moments of violence isolated from the rest as in the distant beginnings of gore cinema. A real rarity far removed from the productions of Blumhouse, which is about to release a third part that will have a much more generous (but still very modest) budget of two million dollars.
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