The only thing terrifying about this movie is how poorly executed it is.

Shot on a crowd funded budget if $35,000, this is apparently the 4th film in the Terrifier franchise, although it’s the first film in the series called Terrifier.

The film follows Tara and Victoria as they try to get home after a long Halloween night of partying. They drunkenly decide to go to a pizzeria where they are followed by the films real hero Art the Clown. He is a long skinny man dressed in a white silky clown suit and disturbing black and white clown makeup.

The movie loves Art the clown. The filmmakers give Art all the close ups and adoring shots. They really idolize this creature they’ve created. They want us to relish in what he does. He’s not a figure of fear he’s shot like an object of idolization.

The female victims are so underwritten they might as well not exist. They are meat puppets to be chopped up, skewered, and bisected at Art’s discretion.

I hate the lighting in this movie. It looks very ugly. It looks like they took every amber colored light they had and used every single one in every single scene without any intention or artistry behind it. Every shot is awash in ugly amber. But I can understand this decision. They had a tiny budget and it was the directors second feature. I will give it a little credit.

The characters are non existent. I hate the way these women are portrayed here. The actors do fine work. Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, and Catherine Corcoran all do fine work even when saddled with a terrible script that turns them into vapid dumb dumbs. I understand the idea. No backstories. Just pure horror. The intention I get.

The execution is the problem. The director doesn’t understand horror. There’s never a single moment where he is able to build a se se of fear in the movie. He mistakes relentless gore with scares. He thinks that the act of killing will create a fear response. It doesn’t. Even Eli Roth director of the awful Hostel movies understood that the gore doesn’t create horror the anticipation of the gore is where the horror lies.

There is a famous scene in this film in which a woman is cut in half. She is hung naked upside down and sawed in half with a hacksaw. The choice to make her naked and upside down only dehumanizes and exploits this poor character. The film is shot from Art’s perspective. This only further solidifies Arts place as the true hero of the film. He taunts the other woman who is tied to a chair for a moment before sawing her in half from crotch through her head. The act itself is shown in detail. Blood sprays. Viscera spills out. It’s nasty and ugly. It is disgusting. But it is not scary.

Horror is not just the act of killing. If it was then John Wick would be the scariest movie of all time. Horror is not just blood and guts. if it was then Kill Bill would be terrifying audiences ever Halloween. What makes something scary is the build up to it. It’s the tension of not knowing. It’s the knowledge that something bad is going to happen and waiting for it to happen.

Terrifier is about doing nasty things to people. It’s about brutality and cruelty and blood. It’s about hero worshiping a killer clown. It’s about showing off your makeup effects. It’s not about scaring the audience. It’s about rubbing the audiences noses in the worst things the director could imagine.

I didn’t like this movie. It was bad. It wasn’t fun to watch. You can skip it. Not my cup of tea. F