In short: Terrifier (2016)

Tara (Jenna Kanell) and her friend Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) are having a rather bad Halloween night when they encounter a creepy clown who is apparently called Art (David Howard Thornton). For Art is one of those crazy killer clowns (not from outer space) urban legends warn so much about, and he’s got his eye on Tara.

Perhaps Tara’s sister Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) will come to the rescue?

Plot-wise, Damien Leone’s Terrifier is about as simple as things come. “Killer clown stalks and slashes a handful of characters mostly through one dilapidated building” is a simple set-up even for a slasher (most of which at least feature some backstory), and the film really isn’t interested in doing more than broad-stroke characterization. That does of course also mean it doesn’t fall into the trap of featuring forty minutes of supposed characterization that doesn’t elevate anyone above the slut/jock/etc level, a problem you’ll find in quite a few classic slashers, and provides the film with the opportunity to focus on the more watchable basics of the slasher film.

The film does do a couple of uncommon things with its very standard 80s slasher set-up: Terrifier doesn’t have a proper final girl but shifts protagonists so that really anyone’s a possible survivor or victim, cleverly undermining the one thing that’s absolutely certain in slashers apart from the gore. There are a couple of other surprising shifts from the way slashers usually operate too, but I don’t really want to spoil those for the first time viewer, and will just say that I chuckled when those scenes came up; anyone with even the slightest bit of slasher experience will know which bits I mean.

The gore’s of the gloopy, not terribly realistic sort that’s much more fun to watch than the “realistic” style, providing some neat moments of pleasant ickiness. Leone actually turns out to be too good a director to fixate on the gore, anyway, and while the film certainly is bloody enough to annoy or disturb certain people, there are quite a few accomplished suspense sequences too, as well as a couple of scenes that clearly enjoy going for the grotesque, as befits a film whose killer clown wears a natty little hat.

Speaking of clowns, Thornton is a nicely expressive creepy killer clown actor, filling the simple yet effective make-up and costume he inhabits with an air of menace as well as a sense of unpredictability.


So, if you only want to watch one killer clown movie this week, make it this one.