Evening, ghosts and ghouls!

As All Hallow’s Eve approaches, I thought I owed it to you all to help you plan out your Hallowe’en (for those of you who are homebodies like me and are planning on a horror film marathon on the 31^st) by throwing out some movie reviews of some recent horror films I have seen. Of course, I greatly recommend that you throw in some suggestions in the comments for what I should watch!

For today’s review, I wanted to highlight a 2017 film: Terrifier. It is directed by Damien Leone and based on Leone’s short film of the same name which was featured in his anthology All Hallows’ Eve. It starts with a TV personality interviewing a super disfigured woman about her crazed attacker, known as “Art the Clown” and highlighting the fact that the clown’s body has disappeared from the morgue. From here, it jumps back in time.

/cue record scratch: “You’re probably wondering how my face ended up this way” – the disfigured woman probably/

We then get to see how everything went down in all its bloody gory. Warning for everyone: this is a gore fest! Just look at this guy:

It starts with two women trying to head home after a fun, drunken night. They hit up a greasy pizza place, because who wouldn’t?, and that’s when they meet Art the Clown, who takes a liking to the woman named Tara. Poor clown gets kicked out of the restaurant and the women go to their car, only to find their tires flat. They call Tara’s sister for a pickup and wait. Of course, this wouldn’t be a horror movie if it ended there. Our ladies need to go to the bathroom and hit up a nearby building that’s under construction, a kindly worker lets them in and -BAM- they are trapped in the appropriate horror movie setting.

I won’t go any further for fear of spoilers. Again, those with a delicate stomach should not watch this (think lots of body mutilation and graphic nudity.)

Highlights:

• Very disturbing face make-up/FX for the woman with the messed up face – still kinda haunts me to this day
• Amazing makeup and costume for our pal Art
• Art never speaks throughout the entire movie adding to the creep factor
• Creative use of a hand saw
• Nice throwback to the 80s slasher film style
• Very entertaining

Score: 7/10

Available on: Netflix

I really enjoyed the classic feel this movie gave off, but it did rely mainly on gore horror rather than atmospheric nuances. Despite that, it was still super entertaining, though — for me — more gross than scary. However, I think fans of Saw and Hostel will probably consider this a 8 or 9 out of 10 so take my score with a grain of salt considering my preferred tastes!

If you’ve seen Terrifier, let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you have any suggestions for my watch list, also let me know in the comments.

x P.L. McMillan