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Posts Tagged ‘Damien Leone’

All Hallows’ Eve

Monday, November 6th, 2023

Okay, it’s weird to post a review of a Halloween movie the week after Halloween, but what am I gonna do? I watched it on Halloween. These things take time to write, but not a whole year. I’m posting it now for the record.

The big horror movie phenomenon of Halloween season 2022 was TERRIFIER 2, the unrated gorefest and low budget box office sleeper. The hype caused me to catch up with the first TERRIFIER and then I survived the gauntlet of the sequel so I’m now a ticket-holding passenger on this grimy franchise about a sadistic, thankfully non-verbal, apparently supernatural clown who goes around horribly mutilating random people on Halloween, in ways that he finds amusing.

So this Halloween evening I decided to go back to the roots of the series. Like many aspiring horror directors before they’re able to get a feature film off the ground, makeup artist/writer/director/editor Damien Leone got his start creating horror shorts. The character of Art the Clown first appeared in his 2006 short The 9th Circle, before starring in the 2011 short also called Terrifier. (read the rest of this shit…)

Terrifier 2

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022

TERRIFIER 2 is a genuine little-slasher-sequel-that-could phenomenon manifesting right here in the excellent horror year of 2022. This is the $250,000, ultra-gory evil clown movie that not only finagled an unrated limited theatrical release, but did so well (and got so much press from reports of puking and fainting at screenings) that they added more showings the week after that, and the week after that, and the week after that. It was the movie that finally nudged TOP GUN: MAVERICK out of the top ten, and Variety says it “shocked the industry” doing so well with “next to zero mainstream marketing.”

It’s now made almost $8 million, which is tiny compared to any blockbuster, but it’s about five times what last year’s best picture winner CODA made. So unless I misunderstand how this works, writer/director Damien Leone better make room for five best picture Oscars on the shelf next to part 1’s trophies for ShockerFest Audience Choice Award and Louisville Fright Night Film Fest “Best ‘Grindhouse’ Film.” And I try to watch all the most classy and acclaimed motion pictures so I set aside my belief that evil clowns are corny to watch TERRIFIER, and I liked it enough to go see TERRIFIER 2 when it came back to Seattle last Friday. (read the rest of this shit…)

Terrifier

Wednesday, October 12th, 2022

There’s this slasher sequel TERRIFIER 2 that just had a limited 4-day theatrical release, with some positive reviews. I didn’t see it, but it made me pay more attention to the existence of the TERRIFIER intellectual property brand. I had previously not paid much attention because I had seen pictures of the ugly clown it stars. I respect and support Killer Klowns from outer space, and IT is pretty cool, and I liked THE LAST CIRCUS if that counts, but in general I think an evil clown is about the corniest, most obvious, off-brand Halloween mask bullshit there is. Especially this type where he has a demonic face and teeth trying hard to do the work that the clown makeup is supposed to do on its own by accident. Wasn’t the idea that clowns are scary in the first place? When you have to turn them into monsters isn’t that admitting you don’t really believe that?

Anyway, this writer/director Damien Leone has made a career out of his “Art the Clown” character, first in a series of shorts that he turned into the anthology ALL HALLOW’S EVE (2013), then the two TERRIFIERs. TERRIFIER (2016) is the shortest at 86 minutes, so I decided to start there. (read the rest of this shit…)