I, uh, don’t really know where (nor how) to start with this one. I suppose I’ll just point out the minor things first. For one the characters Sienna and Jonathan feel like more multi-dimensional solid versions of a missing short from All Hallows Eve. Sienna even has her own 80s inspired theme while Jonathan hits fairly close to home for some. In fact that’s essentially a third of this movie (if not half): a more character based drama meant to expand the world as much as give us someone to root on. As for the rest of the film, well, most horror slashers have to catch up with the times. Art the clown, however, was always that rare yet extremist case where it was the other way around. From the moment no one was safe (spoiler: indiscriminately) we see that Art was always meant to be as much a throwback as a post-modern update on what we’ve come to expect from the genre. By both deconstructing as much as reconstructing the subjective nature of whatever we may believe counts as “hard horror” (be it psychologically or violently) Terrifier 2 proves how it has come a long way from being a short film paying mere homage to the over-the-top nature of that same horror at the start of one decade. Yes, there are scenes that go too far while others are just inspired in a fairly humorous manner, as is to be expected. However, the ending here is probably the most cinematically epic of all of Leone’s work. Like watching Freddy, Pinhead or even Chucky for the first time not only does it transport you to that same surreal yet creative variety of the 80s you feel as though you’re asleep long enough to watch your nightmare become a better dream. This especially works as Art has become Suspense/Horror-Comedy personified as the unpredictability proves to have evolved from the 6 year hiatus which Leone took to spruce this installment up. And that’s as far as I can say about the entire saga of Art the Clown (as of now). On one hand these movies are very much an acquired taste, not for the squeamish nor faint of heart, and probably all kinds of controversial (at least in my arrogant, biased, subjective, and even stupid/illiterate opinion). But I can say with certainty that the biggest difference between these films and the most gruesome ones that came before is that words could never justify how far horror movies would go to accomplish their “sick thrills”.

That’s why it took a professional mime to prove the point across once these films were adapted into feature length.