



Dir. Damien Leone





Terrifier feels like if Party City and Monster Energy teamed up to produce a horror movie as quickly as they possibly could. Like they had a checklist consisting of; 1. Creepy Clown and 2. Gore. And nothing else. What little plot there is seems to revolve around the idea of, now wouldn’t it be fucked up if the clown... I get that it’s a slasher movie but it’s so barebones that there’s nothing to enjoy.





Ok I’m getting ahead myself. So...plot. Girl 1 and Girl 2 (I can’t remember their names) get out of a Halloween party and run into Creepy Clown. Girl 2’s car tires are slashed so Girl 1 calls her sister (to be referred to from here on as Girl 3) to pick them up. Girl 1 goes into dilapidated building to pee. Creepy Clown begins killing and continues to kill until the end of the movie. Now a movie this devoid of substance can work. But there has to be something to latch onto. Likable characters, interesting visuals, inventive kill scenes. Terrifier doesn’t have any of this.





So what are we left with? To be fair, the creepy clown is actually kinda creepy. The make-up and costume are well designed and the performance is inspired. The guy playing the clown seems to really revel in his evil clownieness. Still though, and maybe this is my issue with most killer clown films in general; it feels like the filmmakers just picked a guy out of Six Flags Fright Fest, slapped a clown costume on him and wrote some kill scenes for him to carry out without any consideration for what makes a movie a movie instead of a theme park attraction. The gore effects are serviceable, but nothing to write home about.





Another thing is that the clown as a character is inconsistent. There’s a moment in the movie where Girl 1 gets the upper hand on him (three times [THREE!!!] this movie exhibits the maddening cliche of a character getting the upper hand on the killer then either leaving the scene or hesitating so that the killer can recover), so he just pulls out a gun and shoots her in the stomach. I don’t know if this moment is supposed to be a comedy beat but it did make me laugh. Like if you’re gonna put on all the pageantry that comes with being a killer clown and through all the trouble of carrying around a garbage bag full of rusty stabbing and slashing implements, wouldn’t a gun kind deflate whatever fulfillment you get from killer clowning? Also, it’s implied that the clown is a supernatural entity when at the end SPOILER: he recovers from a gunshot wound to the head. But at the beginning of the film we see him putting on all his clown makeup and stuff. So is he a demonic clown? Or just a demonic dude he enjoys dressing as a clown? Maybe I missed something?





Overall, Terrifier is a mind-numbing and joyless 82 minutes that feels like a decent, if uninspired short film stretched beyond its ability to hold the viewers interest (indeed this feature is based on a short, maybe the short is better?). With too thin a plot, blank slate characters, and bland visuals, the heavy lifting falls to the creepy clown himself. But the clown is too inconsistent and indistinguishable from most other creepy clowns to be the prospective horror icon the writer/director wants him to be. If watching women get brutalized by creepy clowns is your thing (and maybe it is, who am I to judge?) then you might get something out of Terrifier. My recommendation though is to stick with Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) or, if you're looking for something more recent, Stitches (2012), both films infinitely more creative and more fun than this generic slasher.



