I've been trying to get more reviews in this month. So far, I have been doing just that. I still need to work on getting some reviews done through the week though. Work has been busy and leaving me with a bad temper lately, which I hate having. It took me a few days, but I did manage another review at my other blog. This time I watched The Nun, so give that review a read if you want to know my thoughts on it. It was time for me to watch something on Netflix streaming. Terrifier (2017) is a movie that I missed seeing at one of the festivals I went to last year. I think I missed it because I had a choice between this one and another movie. I was happy to see that is streaming now, so I decided to catch up with it.
Tara (Jenna Kanell) and her friend Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) are heading home from a Halloween party. When they get to Dawn's car, they argue over who should drive because they have both been drinking, though Dawn seems tipsier than Tara. While they argue about it, a man dressed up like a clown comes walking down an ally with a garbage bag slung over one shoulder. Dawn teases and flirts with the guy (David Howard Thornton), but Tara seems creeped out by him. The girls decide to go to a nearby pizza place to maybe get something to eat and sober up some. While they are sitting there, Art The Clown comes in and sits near the girls. He seems to focus on Tara, who doesn't want him around still. Dawn teases him some more, even taking selfies with him, but Art's attention remains on Tara. Art gets kicked out by the owner of the pizza place and the girls leave sometime after that. When they get back to Tara's car, they discover a flat tire. Tara calls her sister Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) to see if she can come to pick them up. Meanwhile, Art gets revenge on the pizza guys and then sets his sights on Tara once again.
Terrifier was written and directed by Damien Leone. I didn't know it at the time that I watched this movie, but it is something of a sequel. Leone has done two shorts with Art The Clown as his bad guy. Those two shorts, along with a new short, has been collected into the film All Hallows' Eve. This is a movie I haven't watched yet, but I had it in my Netflix DVD queue already. I decided to bump it up so I will be getting it next. My next Netflix DVD review will be a different film so All Hallows' Eve will get a review after that. Anyway, I don't believe you need to see the shorts in order to understand Terrifier, as it feels like a stand-alone film. As far as I could tell, there are no references to the shorts. The start of the film feels like one because a reporter is interviewing a victim of Art The Clown, but then I realized that the majority of the film after that is just a giant flashback scene to show what happened to the victim. Two things that I noticed right away about Terrifier is that despite the use of cell phones, Leone made his film look older. It has a grindhouse feel to it, minus scratches and other damage, and that this is going to be a very gory film. It doesn't take long at all before we get some pretty gory stuff. I was pretty mixed after watching this movie. While I really liked Art The Clown and can't wait to see what the shorts are like, as Art is played by a different actor in those, I was also a bit disappointed that there wasn't more of a story here. We know next to nothing about any of the characters. I'm not complaining about not getting to know Art. He appears to get hurt at times, but there is something at the end that tells us all we really need to know about this killer. I didn't really feel anything towards the girls just because I didn't know anything about them, outside of Tara and Victoria being sisters. I didn't want them to die, don't get me wrong there, but it is easier to feel scared for a character when you connect with them on some level. One thing that impressed me with Terrifier was that it was brave enough to switch its main character roughly midway through the film. This was nice as the cat and mouse game was getting a bit boring, not that it switched it up with a new character...but still.
As I said above, this was one gory film. The effects looked to be all done with makeup and actual effects. None of it looked to be done with CGI. It is never none stop gore, as there are places it takes a while before something gory happens again. When it does decide to get gory though, watch out. Heads get smashed in and a woman gets sawed in half as well. The effects are well done, but there was one thing missing from them...bones. The best example of that is the woman getting cut in half. I seriously doubt that the saw would have cut through bone anyway, but we never actually see any bones even though we see both sides of the body in all their gory detail. The acting was a surprise to me. I admit that I wasn't really expecting much, but all those involved really pulled it out. David Howard Thornton was great as Art The Clown. Without ever saying a word, Thornton manages to be very creepy all the same. There are a couple of times when he tries to act like a clown, trying to get Tara to smile, which just ups the whole creepy thing. I also liked Jenna Kanell a lot in her role. I liked her a bit more than Samantha Scaffidi, not that she did a bad job with her role. Pooya Mohseni shows up as a homeless lady. She is listed in the credits as Cat Lady, but she didn't have a cat so I don't know why she was listed that way. Matt McAllister has a minor role and shows up in just a couple of scenes and does an okay job.
If Terrifier did anything for me, I would say that it made me interested in what else Leone can do. He hasn't directed a lot of films but I'm hoping that will change. This was a close one for me. I went back and forth on my rating but ending deciding on my middle of the road rating just because I did feel there wasn't much going as far as plot. I was also getting a little tired of all the running around the women did as well, but the movie did keep me interested in it all the same. This isn't a love it or hate it type of film, but I do feel you will either get into it for whatever reason or you will just think it is a bad film. I think it is a movie worth checking out, especially if you like killer clowns. Give Terrifier a chance, you may just like it.
3 out of 5 We need a female killer clown!
Tara (Jenna Kanell) and her friend Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) are heading home from a Halloween party. When they get to Dawn's car, they argue over who should drive because they have both been drinking, though Dawn seems tipsier than Tara. While they argue about it, a man dressed up like a clown comes walking down an ally with a garbage bag slung over one shoulder. Dawn teases and flirts with the guy (David Howard Thornton), but Tara seems creeped out by him. The girls decide to go to a nearby pizza place to maybe get something to eat and sober up some. While they are sitting there, Art The Clown comes in and sits near the girls. He seems to focus on Tara, who doesn't want him around still. Dawn teases him some more, even taking selfies with him, but Art's attention remains on Tara. Art gets kicked out by the owner of the pizza place and the girls leave sometime after that. When they get back to Tara's car, they discover a flat tire. Tara calls her sister Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) to see if she can come to pick them up. Meanwhile, Art gets revenge on the pizza guys and then sets his sights on Tara once again.
Terrifier was written and directed by Damien Leone. I didn't know it at the time that I watched this movie, but it is something of a sequel. Leone has done two shorts with Art The Clown as his bad guy. Those two shorts, along with a new short, has been collected into the film All Hallows' Eve. This is a movie I haven't watched yet, but I had it in my Netflix DVD queue already. I decided to bump it up so I will be getting it next. My next Netflix DVD review will be a different film so All Hallows' Eve will get a review after that. Anyway, I don't believe you need to see the shorts in order to understand Terrifier, as it feels like a stand-alone film. As far as I could tell, there are no references to the shorts. The start of the film feels like one because a reporter is interviewing a victim of Art The Clown, but then I realized that the majority of the film after that is just a giant flashback scene to show what happened to the victim. Two things that I noticed right away about Terrifier is that despite the use of cell phones, Leone made his film look older. It has a grindhouse feel to it, minus scratches and other damage, and that this is going to be a very gory film. It doesn't take long at all before we get some pretty gory stuff. I was pretty mixed after watching this movie. While I really liked Art The Clown and can't wait to see what the shorts are like, as Art is played by a different actor in those, I was also a bit disappointed that there wasn't more of a story here. We know next to nothing about any of the characters. I'm not complaining about not getting to know Art. He appears to get hurt at times, but there is something at the end that tells us all we really need to know about this killer. I didn't really feel anything towards the girls just because I didn't know anything about them, outside of Tara and Victoria being sisters. I didn't want them to die, don't get me wrong there, but it is easier to feel scared for a character when you connect with them on some level. One thing that impressed me with Terrifier was that it was brave enough to switch its main character roughly midway through the film. This was nice as the cat and mouse game was getting a bit boring, not that it switched it up with a new character...but still.
As I said above, this was one gory film. The effects looked to be all done with makeup and actual effects. None of it looked to be done with CGI. It is never none stop gore, as there are places it takes a while before something gory happens again. When it does decide to get gory though, watch out. Heads get smashed in and a woman gets sawed in half as well. The effects are well done, but there was one thing missing from them...bones. The best example of that is the woman getting cut in half. I seriously doubt that the saw would have cut through bone anyway, but we never actually see any bones even though we see both sides of the body in all their gory detail. The acting was a surprise to me. I admit that I wasn't really expecting much, but all those involved really pulled it out. David Howard Thornton was great as Art The Clown. Without ever saying a word, Thornton manages to be very creepy all the same. There are a couple of times when he tries to act like a clown, trying to get Tara to smile, which just ups the whole creepy thing. I also liked Jenna Kanell a lot in her role. I liked her a bit more than Samantha Scaffidi, not that she did a bad job with her role. Pooya Mohseni shows up as a homeless lady. She is listed in the credits as Cat Lady, but she didn't have a cat so I don't know why she was listed that way. Matt McAllister has a minor role and shows up in just a couple of scenes and does an okay job.
If Terrifier did anything for me, I would say that it made me interested in what else Leone can do. He hasn't directed a lot of films but I'm hoping that will change. This was a close one for me. I went back and forth on my rating but ending deciding on my middle of the road rating just because I did feel there wasn't much going as far as plot. I was also getting a little tired of all the running around the women did as well, but the movie did keep me interested in it all the same. This isn't a love it or hate it type of film, but I do feel you will either get into it for whatever reason or you will just think it is a bad film. I think it is a movie worth checking out, especially if you like killer clowns. Give Terrifier a chance, you may just like it.
3 out of 5 We need a female killer clown!
