Terrifier 2 (2022) Dir: Damien Leone
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I recently watched the first of these cult horror films, by Damien Leone, and had pretty mixed feelings about it. It had a fair few ups, but just as many downs. If I'm totally honest, I was a little hesitant to watch this sequel. I was definitely put off by the 138 minute run-time - a significant increase. But, I had hopes that Leone would be able to explore more and build a more complete film this time.
The budget for this film jumped up a good deal, relatively speaking, from $35,000 to $250,000, compared to the first feature film. In fairness, this was clearly money well spent, because the practical effects, props, and sets used were significantly better than the 2016 film.
The last film could get away with being kinda light on story and heavy on horror set pieces. This sequel, being almost an hour longer, did not get away with it. Boy, does this film drag. It's a shame, because if this film had been streamlined a little, it would've been a lot better, in my opinion.
There was a mild, but noticeable, mark-up in cinematography quality, which I did appreciate. There were some really fun shots, particularly in the second half of the film. I do think the sound design was a little poor though, but it wasn't the worst I've heard.
The narrative wasn't great, but these films aren't exactly built on story. I think the first half of the film could've been cut down significantly, but once things actually started happening, it wasn't so bad. The film was definitely far too long though, and wasn't helped by the majority of the cast giving pretty bad performances.
David Howard Thornton returned to his already iconic horror role as the creepy clown killer, and gave another really quite solid performance. Sure, it wasn't exactly anything new, when comparing it to the first film, but, let's face it, he doesn't need to do much new. What he and this film have is a horror formula that fans of the genre respond to.
I also quite enjoyed the acting of Lauren LaVera, for the most part. I won't call it an amazing performance or anything like that, but she won me over with her scream queen style performance in the final thirty minutes of the film. Her acting was shaky at points, but the way she finished the film was goos.
I'll give a special mention to Amelie McLain, who was extremely creepy in her bizarre role. The rest of the actors honestly weren't great, but I'll still give mentions to some of the more prominent performers in the supporting cast; Elliott Fullam, Sarah Voigt, Kailey Hyman, and, somewhat randomly, Christopher Irvine - aka legendary wrestler Chris Jericho.
Overall, this was a bloated sequel, which suffered from a case of "more money means everything must be bigger, better and longer" disease. I do think it's a real shame. More concise storytelling would've made this so much more watchable. As it happens, this is one that has plenty of memorable clips, but a bunch of wasted space in-between.
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