Review of Terrifier 2 (2022) by Kuehnau — 07 Jun 2023

Boy what a mess; a co-worker of mine found out I love horror movies and the gorier the better. They convinced me to watch the first two feature length films. Terrifier was a perfectly acceptable slasher film, the gore and practical effects were done well and there was some genuine scenes that made me feel uncomfortable (which is hard these days!). Terrifier 2 cranks up the violence like twenty fold, the effects and everything are fine, I have no problem with these things, but there are problems, huge problems.

For starters Terrifier 2 is over two hours long, there's no reason for this film to be that long and I cannot believe some people managed to sit through this in the theater. There are several scenes that don't need to be in the film at all and act simply as padding.

It feels like this movie is supposed to have some lore dropped on us, the issue arises from the fact that we have literally no context to any of it.

The main character's Father is dead, they make several references to this, like it's important. When the Father's sketchbook makes an appearance the main character acts like they found the holy grail of artifacts, but they don't explain WHY.

The main character also appears to be obsessed with their Father's "character". "Daddy's Character" is referenced at least three or four times, like it's important, but we don't get anything else besides the main character just saying, "Daddy's character!".

Further, Terrifier 2 couldn't be further away from the first film. While the first one is a pretty vanilla slasher film with a cool little post-credits scene, the second is more like a dollar store rip-off of Nightmare on Elm Street.

None of it really makes sense and there is literally no attempt to explain any of it. Look, I get it, this is supposed to be a horror film, we need to be able to suspend our sense of disbelief while watching it. I can do that, honest! I love Dead Alive and almost all of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street films. This film is more absurd than both of those franchises combined.

Suddenly we got a pale little girl clown, Art can apparently do whatever he wants, invade your dreams, teleport, just all sorts of stuff. Oh wait, now there's an entrance to hell and a magic sword and... What were they smoking?! I feel like you need to be on LSD to enjoy this film!

There is A LOT to appreciate with this film, the writing and pacing are some of the worst I've seen in all my years of watching horror movies. There was no reason this film had to be that long, there was no reason the writing had to be the way it was.

I am willing to bet if there was a super-cut of this film with all of the pointless junk taken out it may even be a fairly decent film. Come for the amazing gore and kills, fast forward through any writing or plot, there is no character development, you will miss nothing and save time.