It's not just that gore is the whole point of "Terrifier 2," the sequel to 2018's low budget cult favorite "Terrifier." It's the only point of this bludgeoning exercise in splatter, which drags on well past the two hour mark with no sense of purpose other than its own inert attempts to shock. It's repetitive to the point of numbing.
David Howard Thornton is back as Art the Clown, a silent stalker in demented black-and-white clown makeup and attire who mimes his reactions to his victims' pleas for mercy and his own bloody massacres. Thornton is a gifted physical actor and Art is undoubtedly first-rate creepy, but with little or no backstory or character to lean on, there's nothing here to justify his character's bloody exploits.
After the grisly events of the first film, Art is back, pulling out victims' eyeballs and hallucinating visions of evil little girls at the laundromat, as psycho clowns do.
Meanwhile, a family — daughter Sienna (Lauren LaVera), son Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) and mother Barbara (Sarah Voigt) — are prepping for Halloween. Sienna plans to dress up like a warrior princess, a nod to her late father's comic sketches, but she's growing worried about her little brother's fascination with the macabre and his obsession with Art the Clown. She begins having nightmares about Art, and when she awakes, her bedroom is engulfed in flames.
Her dream sequence is an early indicator that writer-director (and producer, and editor, and sound designer, and special effects creator) Damien Leone is working without a net. What could effectively be captured, communicated and moved on from in a minute or so of screen time goes on and on and on, with no sense of pacing or intent. That lack of discipline continues throughout "Terrifier 2," with sequences extending well past their points having been made, simply to inflate the overall runtime.
For horror junkies, the idea of a 138-minute slasher film is part of the allure of "Terrifier 2," but there's barely enough story or character development to support a runtime half that length. So a sense of restlessness quickly settles in, like watching a band stretch out a three minute pop song to eight minutes but not adding any new elements, just repeating the ones that are already there.
So, the gore: Art doesn't just mangle bodies, he mutilates them, and Leone revels in the depravity of it all like a teenage boy leafing through Fangoria magazine. Heads and limbs are hacked off, body parts are blown to bits, chests are caved in, you name it.
These kills are the main event, but they're rendered gratuitous for gratuity's sake, with no sense of suspense or art, pardon the pun. If you're a film student, Leone would make a great professor in the special effects department. As a storyteller, he leaves a lot to be desired.
As the story lumbers toward a showdown between Sienna and Art, the stack of bodies builds, but intrigue never does. It's all just blood and guts, with nothing holding it together. "Terrifier 2" presents itself as a dare — how much carnage can you take? — but it's not the gore that makes it difficult to sit through. It's how dull it all is.
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'TERRIFIER 2'
MPAA rating: None (Film contains extreme violence and gore)
Running time: 138:00
Where to watch: In theaters
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