Warning! SPOILERS ahead for Terrifier 2Terrifier 2 has overcome its small budget and previously limited release to earn over $7 million since its release in early October. The film's success has also led its release to expand to over 1,500 screens across the United States on Halloween weekend.
Terrifier 2 has held true to the no-holds-barred reputation the franchise earned after the original Terrifier's release. The film resurrects Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) for another violently demented Halloween rampage through the small town of Miles County. This time the murderous clown has fixated on Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) and her younger brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), and he pursues them while brutally murdering and mutilating Sienna's friends. This hunt leads to some of the most truly disturbing kill scenes in horror movie history, including the infamous bedroom scene in which Art the Clown eliminates Sienna's friend Allie (Casey Hartnett) in an excruciatingly drawn-out three minutes.
The bedroom scene has become infamous online, and now Leone reveals that it was the most difficult kill scene to pull off in the film. The Terrifier 2 director explains to Variety how the scene cleverly combines practical effects and digital effects to make Allie's unfortunate death as harrowing as possible. According to Leone, the scene took a long time to get right, but its final result was worth it. Check out Leone's full quote below:
"I had to make a life-sized replica of Allie because I wanted the audience to see it’s a dummy who can’t possibly be a human being anymore, and then I wanted to have it wake up. So I had to figure out how to make this life-sized puppet. I’ve never dabbled in animatronics, but I knew I could turn this thing into a crude puppet. The whole room was built into a set, so I had people under the bed with rods going through it into her limbs and behind the wall operating her head. I put some rubber gloves in her chest with tubing to have her breathe. That took a long time, but it was really rewarding to see that thing come to life to and wake up.
"Everything in the movie is 99% practical effects, but there are little things you can do with digital effects to bring life to these dummies. One of them was digitally putting the actress’ real eyeball on the dummy, so when she wakes up the eye opens. When Art is decapitating the guy in the costume shop, we digitally put his face onto the fake head that we built, so when it’s getting decapitated, you see him blinking and twitching and his mouth opening and closing."
Terrifier 2 Is One Of The Grossest Horror Movies in Years
Terrifier 2's success comes from word-of-mouth advertising that reveals it as one of the grossest horror movies in the genre. The Terrifier sequel utilizes every shocking tool available to grindhouse films from torture to cannibalism to decapitation, all of which appear in some form in the disturbing bedroom scene. While Allie's death may be the most notorious in the film, Terrifier 2 is full of similar carnage. The movie's over-the-top graphic kill scenes are so gross that there are reports of emergency services being called to theaters for audience who have ed out or vomited. Still, such visceral reactions are great news for Leone as the reports have drawn even more to the theater.
While Terrifier 2 will no doubt remain etched in the minds of everyone who sees it in theater, it probably won't be the last anyone sees of Art the Clown. Leone shared his plans to continue the franchise with a potential Terrifier 3. It's hard to imagine that any movie could follow the indulgent violence and gore of Terrifier 2, but slasher fans can look forward to more bloody kills to come.
Source: Variety
