Film Review — Terrifier (2016)
A new horror icon slashes through this low-budget shocker.
A deranged mass-murdering clown goes on a killing spree.
There was a time back in my messy, gorehound youth when I would actively pursue a film like Terrifier. But times inevitably change, and so do tastes. So as you can imagine, sitting down with a gore-filled slasher with the reputation of Damien Leone’s video nasty breakthrough came with a hefty amount of trepidation.
Terrifier wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting. I mean, it’s still filled to the brim with enough brutal violence and viscera to make the average viewer more than a little nauseous. I’ve seen much worse than this, clearly still desensitised from my blood-splattered adolescence.
As you would expect from a feature with a minuscule budget, the performances — with the exception of David Howard Thornton’s demented, instantly iconic Art the Clown — are pretty rubbish. The story is virtually non-existent, designed to facilitate the carnage and little more. The cinematography comes with that cheap, overly-artificial haze that you’d never experience in real life. This is, by most metrics, a pretty amateurish production.
But Leone clearly knows a thing or two about making horror flicks. His practical effects are outstanding and, unlike the majority of similarly budgeted efforts, are quite believable — deployed with a devilish gusto that would surely have Tom Savini nodding in approval. Leone also demonstrates a strong sense of direction and pacing, allowing the tension to build, and playing with audience expectations with the usual suspect angles before cutting, quite literally, into the action.
It’s nasty. It’s mean. But that’s supposed to be the point, right?
★★★☆☆
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