Oh dear. Brother Damien appears to be not exactly making friends with this statement he put out earlier… for one thing, I don’t think anyone was accusing the Terrifier films of trying to make “political” statements in the first place, though perhaps predictably quite a few people have crawled out to be all OMG DAMIEN ALL ART IS POLITICAL AND CALLING YOUR WORK “APOLITICAL” IS A POLITICAL ACT ITSELF… and others are saying it’s because David Howard Thornton and Lauren LaVera, the stars of the franchise, are both massive “wokies”, vehemently anti-fash and pro-LGBTQ and all that, and MAGA dickheads have been coming after them and Leone’s just trying to keep a distance without taking sides, but then again Leone’s apparently come out and said he agrees with Thornton’s stance… so what’s this really about? I don’t know. Everything is headache-inducing these days, and the world of cheap gore cinema is evidently no different…
There’s an awful lot of hype around this franchise at the moment, with the recently released third installment attracting attention for stories of people walking out on it, vomiting, etc cos the violence is just too much for them. Stories like this, of course, go back to the early days of horror cinema in the 30s, they were bullshit then and I suspect they’re a bit bullshit now (even though I’ve seen a bunch of folks on Threads claiming they saw it happen at the screening they attended). That said, having finally seen the first in the series, and having gathered that it’s apparently mild compared to the sequels, I could kind of believe that yeah, people really do find it excessive. Terrifier seems to have attracted attention mostly because of one notorious gore scene; director Damien Leone apparently made the film (which only cost around $50,000 or something) mostly as a showcase for his own makeup and FX skills, and goddamn if he doesn’t have those to spare indeed. He generally makes good use of his limited resources, particularly the grotty main location, although his story pacing is wildly off; the aforementioned hacksaw business is the film’s peak but it comes about halfway through it, after which it does kind of drag significantly. It weighs in around 84 minutes but could’ve been tightened to just over an hour. What makes it all work is David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown, the killer who’s clearly been calculated as a modern successor to the 80s franchise monsters, but who’s made more interesting by Thornton’s performance. Art not only has no dialogue but also no voice (ironic, since many of Thornton’s other credits are voice work), so he does everything in mime, including the surprisingly numerous times he gets something stuck by something and makes no sound… yikes. Thornton’s physicality makes Art a lot more effective than I’d initially expected. Despite its problems I think I enjoyed Terrifier more than I’d thought I might, not a great film but I can understand why the franchise is popular. I might even watch the sequels at some point. Stranger things have happened.
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