Written and directed by Damien Leone
Starring Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, David Howard Thornton and Catherine Corcoran
USA, 2018
I've finally seen the much buzzed about modern cult classic TERRIFIER! I steered clear for a while because it appeared to be a case of mean spirited edginess for edginess' sake, which is not something I'm really interested in now that I'm an old man, but it's Horrorfest, so what the hell.
TERRIFIER is a throwback to slashers of yore, featuring a villain dressed as a clown who embarks on a murder spree one Halloween night. The movie's not reinventing the wheel, here, but it has a few things going for it, and a few going against it.
It's kind of refreshing to have a nice, simple, straight forward slasher where you don't have to sit through a bunch of bad plot and worse character development. However it might have been nice to have some plot or some character development instead of none at all.
Secondly, the gore effects are impressive and inventive for such a low budget indie flick. Unfortunately they push the boundaries of good taste... like, push right past the boundaries.
The movie's greatest strength is that it has a memorable slasher villain in Art the Clown, something which has been lacking in all movies since... I dunno... SCREAM? Has it been that long? Well, in any case, Art's not just a triumph of makeup, costume and... well... art design... he's also played well by David Howard Thornton who puts a lot of physicality into the silent performance. Honestly, the movie would be nothing without him.
Which brings us to the movie's greatest weakness. It'd be nothing without Art the Clown. Which, I dunno, I guess is okay... but it's kind of sad to have such a great villain in such an otherwise middle-of-the-road movie. It's almost universally agreed upon that TERRIFIER 2 is an improvement, so we'll see.
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