The ‘Terrifier’ franchise is one i’ve been meaning to check out now for a few years after it initially caught media attention and controversy in the form of several hit pieces claiming it was one of the ‘sickest’ and ‘most graphic’ films ever made, and serveral sensationalist pieces regarding people throwing up in the isles and walking out within the first 20 minutes. Well, i’ve seen it now, and I dont think people were walking out of the theater due to it being too shocking. Rather, they were walking out because of how frankly DULL this thing is.
The plot is paper thin, essentially a couple of drunk women are walking home from a night out, when they encounter ‘Art’ the clown (here I dont believe he’s named in the film….but hey ho.) He stares at them for a while while they go and buy drunk pizza, and then Art basically stalks them from the pizza shop to a nearby apartment complex/warehouse where the rest of the film is basically just art hunting down the girls and the randomers who are in the complex killing them in moderately graphic ways until we hit the credits.
Its hardly the most original idea, in fact, my mind almost immediately went to the scrapped plotline for ‘Halloween 2’ where Laurie Strode was going to be ‘surviving’ a night in an apartment complex with Michael Myers stalking her across multiple floors, picking off the residents. Well…this film is basically doing that, only rather than a load of residents, its some exterminators and a crazy lady…and when I say ‘Characters’ I mean THE most stock/generic NPC types you could have for a horror movie. and its dull, REDICULOUSLY dull.
The scripts threadbare, theres a lot that can be done with the ‘stalker/pray’ subgenre of slasher, but here. theres just not a lot happening. Most of it is scared women running and hiding, occasionally getting a shot in at Art and VERY occasionally a moderately strong gore shot, where they’ve clearly been told to ‘tone it down’ by the MPAA because it cuts away frequently from all the ACTUAL nasty bits.
The tone is lumpy, it doesnt know if it wants to be a pure gore flick, a supernatural-esq horror film or some kind of dark horror comedy. the ‘jokes’ arnt particularly funny (though I will praise David Howard Thorntons animated performance as ‘Art’ for gracing Tiktok videos everywhere with some entertaining ‘reaction’ videos) and the kills arnt really new or interesting, and that leads me to the biggest problem this film has for me.
The films got no ‘soul’ for lack of a better word, theres no particular vibe or feeling to this for me. Art as a character feels like something pulled out of 2000s era creepypasta stories, but as written by Ai. theres no clear intention to this picture here for me. no deeper meanings or metatextual element. Im sure SOMETHING could be written in regards to the graphic abuse of women in this film and in particular how the femenine form is ridiculed, mocked and mutilated by Art across the runtime. But I dont think that was the film makers main goal here…or at least, if it was, its VERY badly handled in my opinion.
No, to me? this film feels less like a solidly well paced story and more a movie where the gore scenes were planned out first, then the plot was written to tie those elements into it. For the hardcore dedicated ‘horror fans’ im sure thats all they need to whet the whistle, but I like a bit more meat on my gristle, and this film just doesnt provide that.
The directions fine enough, Its got a relatively clear vision of what its trying to create, but I wasnt particularly ‘enthralled’ by it, mainly due in part to the creative choiced around the colour grade and editing because for some reason, for the grade for this thing they decided to just turn the saturation right up, and turn the ‘highlights’ right down, leaving parts of this film black crushed into the void and others looking fuzzily overvibrant in a quite offputting way.
That combined with the edit, which is a little too fast paced for me and, in places, felt like there were large chunks suspiciously missing from the action, left it feeling like an incomplete work, something where the final edit hadnt actually fully taken place and they were awaiting the final sign off before it went out to the public…only its somehow got out to the public.
Direction of the cast is fine enough, but given the characters are SO one dimensional and largely spend the movie silently running around a warehouse, or screaming…there isnt really much to be said about it. they manage to handle the kill scenes semi-effectively, but I do wish they’d really gone a bit more out there than they did, because the kind of stuff being shown here, felt quite by the numbers when compared to the rest of the genre.
The cine was probably the films strongest element, keen composition really helps create some visually interesting shots, the colour grade, while largely distracting, does on occasion work in the films favour to produce some solid results. they largely follow the line and ruls of thirds, theres some nice-ish depth of field stuff. Nothing out and out ‘Wow’d’ me. But it was probably the element I was most impressed with.
Performance wise, David Howard Thornton is the only good thing about this movie. His performance as Art is VERY animated, lively and at times genuinely menacing. My only complaint is a bit of a complex one honestly. Usually, the less you know about a character and their motives, the more interesting they become because you WANT to find out about these evil characters and how they came to be. Well; the problem with Art is they give you TOO little. I dont know who Art is, where he comes from, how he’s as powerful as he is. His history. I know nothing. and because I know absolutely nothing and BECAUSE his character is so one note, it actually made me care even LESS about this guy, because they didnt give me enough TO be interested. Throw in a couple of ‘out of left turn’ twists for the clown, and I just became a bit frustrated with him more than anything else.
…But I digress, Thorntons performance is fantastic here, he’s amazing and probably the only other reason to catch this thing. The rest of the cast are generic, but kind of sort of okay in that sense…Put it this way, there was a terrible performance.
The music was so generic (screechy, bangy synth gumpf that has been the horror standard since 2011) that I have no comment on it.
‘Terrifier’ to me was a beige watching experience. a handful of interesting moments woven into an hour and 10 minutes of people breathlessly running around and not much else. Based off of this, I have NO idea how Art has become this figure representative of 21st century slasher icons. I can just about see why someone would think the character was funny/interesting…but ‘Iconic’? no. not in my opinion.
I cant honestly think of an audience who would be genuinely enthralled by this film. Gore fans would be let down by the lack of actual proper hardcore gore, but probably satiated by the intensity of 2-3 of the kills, story fans will probably be clock watching by the 30 minute mark and broader horror fans will probably find this thing feels like a bit of a ‘by the numbers’ slasher given everything that came before it.
Its not one I can honestly recommend. I could *maybe* see myself revisiting this one in future if I was doing a movie night with friends to try and keep the peace. But honestly? I was just kind of bored by this one.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/terrifier-2016/
