Horror Damien Leone's Terrifier Series

[Kane52630]

 

[Sawyer]

Is that Lee Bermejo artwork??

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Pennywise]

 

[theastsunnn]

I’ve tried so many times to make it thru the first one and I just can’t.

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Kane52630]

Love the Black Christmas nod.

 

[Da-Scribe]

I’ve tried so many times to make it thru the first one and I just can’t.

Treating it more like proof of concept for Art, which I think is exactly what it was, and less like an actual film helped me power through. The sequel was such a vast improvement for me that it retroactively enhanced the first film.

 

[DyeLorean]

This character can be so funny and so terrifying at the same time and that's what makes Art the Clown so unique.
There hasn't been a new slasher icon since what? Ghostface? So he's def in the conversation to join that club.

 

[Gee]

Treating it more like proof of concept for Art, which I think is exactly what it was, and less like an actual film helped me power through. The sequel was such a vast improvement for me that it retroactively enhanced the first film.

Yep, T2 was so much an improvement and this already looks like it has even better production values.

Sure the murder scenes are over-the-top but I'll continue watching these movies as long as Sienna is in them. Possibly the best Final Girl since Sidney Prescott.

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

This character can be so funny and so terrifying at the same time and that's what makes Art the Clown so unique.
There hasn't been a new slasher icon since what? Ghostface? So he's def in the conversation to join that club.

Does M3gan count? I'd say so.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

I've never found Art the Clown terrifying lol. The character is funny in a pitch black comedy sort of way, but it's not scary. The movies themselves are barely horror films to me. It's more violent black comedy. If Leone is honestly trying to present this character as legitimately terrifying, he's doing an awful ****ing job at it because everything in these films is played for laughs.

 

[Sawyer]

This being literally my only exposure to the Terrifier series outside of watching the trailer will never cease to make me lol…

 

[Da-Scribe]

I've never found Art the Clown terrifying lol. The character is funny in a pitch black comedy sort of way, but it's not scary. The movies themselves are barely horror films to me. It's more violent black comedy. If Leone is honestly trying to present this character as legitimately terrifying, he's doing an awful ****ing job at it because everything in these films is played for laughs.

Horror and comedy aren’t mutually exclusive genres. And Art the Clown is, well, a clown…sssooo….yeah.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

Horror and comedy aren’t mutually exclusive genres. And Art the Clown is, well, a clown…sssooo….yeah.

True, but aside from cheap looking gore, these films don't really bother with the horror. They make Evil Dead 2 seem subtle.

 

[Kane52630]

This being literally my only exposure to the Terrifier series outside of watching the trailer will never cease to make me lol…

 

[Arnold Rimmer]

I've never found Art the Clown terrifying lol. The character is funny in a pitch black comedy sort of way, but it's not scary. The movies themselves are barely horror films to me. It's more violent black comedy. If Leone is honestly trying to present this character as legitimately terrifying, he's doing an awful ****ing job at it because everything in these films is played for laughs.

My only complaint with him is two-fold: why doesn't he talk and how the hell does he keep coming back from the dead? It feels genuinely Gary Stu-ish in how nobody can properly stop him and how easily he keeps killing people in these movies with nobody really fighting back. And on a side note, why is the deformed girl from the first movie now working for him? Is it Stockholm Syndrome or something?

The only reason any of this is the case is because Damien Leones is so focused on being overly-gory that everything else is secondary. If he's not careful, this might bite him in the ass going forward.

Lastly, I don't think anyone's made this joke so....

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

My only complaint with him is two-fold: why doesn't he talk and how the hell does he keep coming back from the dead? It feels genuinely Gary Stu-ish in how nobody can properly stop him and how easily he keeps killing people in these movies with nobody really fighting back. And on a side note, why is the deformed girl from the first movie now working for him? Is it Stockholm Syndrome or something?

The only reason any of this is the case is because Damien Leones is so focused on being overly-gory that everything else is secondary. If he's not careful, this might bite him in the ass going forward.

Lastly, I don't think anyone's made this joke so....

Since the early 2000s, we've seen the rise of what I call "fanboy horror" with filmmakers like Eli Roth, Rob Zombie, Adam Green, and now Damian Leone. Guys that have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, but can't practically apply that knowledge to their own work to make their films more effective. When I went and saw Terrifier 2 in theaters, my group was high as a kite on edibles because we had no delusions about what we were getting into and laughed our asses off for two and half hours. Great time at the theater, but could have been better if the film wasn't played for laughs.

 

[DyeLorean]

I think the extremes in which the Terrifier movies deal with is what makes it unsettling. You go from a Mr Bean type of comedy scene to a full-on gore horror sequence. Those tone shifts from a deranged person like Art the Clown are deeply disturbing to me.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

I think the extremes in which the Terrifier movies deal with is what makes it unsettling. You go from a Mr Bean type of comedy scene to a full-on gore horror sequence. Those tone shifts from a deranged person like Art the Clown are deeply disturbing to me.

This makes sense on paper but the effects work is too sloppy for this to work for me personally. If this is Leone's true intention, he should have been more implicit than explicit with its execution.

 

[DyeLorean]

This makes sense on paper but the effects work is too sloppy for this to work for me personally. If this is Leone's true intention, he should have been more implicit than explicit with its execution.

I see what you're saying. For me, the not-quite-cinematic aspect of it works on its favor. The fact that it doesn't look quite right as a movie and that the sort of things he shows are not meant to be seen by anyone and probably have never been done in real life (that we know of), it feels right that it doesn't look like a movie. Those things are not meant to be seen, our brain reacts in a weird way. I don't know how to explain it.

 

[Kane52630]

It's meant to provoke the grindhouse/exploitation era of X-rated horror films. That's the aesthetic. It's meant to be mean, sloppy, relentless, and gory.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

It's meant to provoke the grindhouse/exploitation era of X-rated horror films. That's the aesthetic. It's meant to be mean, sloppy, relentless, and gory.

And that's why it doesn't work for me as a horror film. It's just a shameless throwback for the sake of it. It doesn't take into account the cultural and industry landscape that lead to grindhouse films in the first place. Ti West is hit and miss for me too but this is an aspect I think he objectively nails. He gets close to the edge of fanboy horror without crossing it (most of the time.)

 

[Kane52630]

 

[blueharvest]