Slasher movie Terrifier didn’t make a vast impact upon its release in 2018, despite being a straightforward slice of sleaze that the subgenre’s fans voraciously devour. Its imminent sequel Terrifier 2 is similarly not making huge waves online, but to maintain audience interest, a short comic series is being released featuring the initial outing’s memorable killer.
The first film introduced its audience to Art the Clown, a monochrome-makeuped maniac with a penchant for stalking young women and gruesomely eviscerating them, and set him up to become a recurring horror villain. Throughout proceedings, everything played out like a standard slasher, albeit one with a setting dingy and restrictive that represented the film’s limited budget, but also added to the grimy aesthetic of its nasty events. There was no hint of anything supernatural about its mute antagonist, and only in the movie’s closing moments is this brought up, as Art awakes in a morgue with a hole blown out the back of his head as weird sounds are heard and the lights begin flickering.
It’s possible that the comic will explore, or at the very least, allude to his origin and otherworldly bent, since the mystery behind where these unkillable freaks first attained their ability to defy apparent death is a large part of what makes movies like this so popular.
Even if it doesn’t, it’ll keep audiences entertained until the sequel is released, which was almost complete when the world went into lockdown. The plot of Terrifier 2 sees Art hunting a young woman and her little brother, the latter of whom is fixated on stories of Art’s exploits and terrified of becoming the murderous mime’s next victim. Going by the trailer, there will be more than enough to unnerve the coulrophobic amongst us, and an appearance from horror favorite Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) affords it some legitimacy.
If nothing else, Terrifier 2 will provide some bloody scares while presumably expanding upon its currently limited mythology, and might even develop itself to the point where a continuing franchise might be justified. And a comics series featuring more silent depravity from Art is the first step towards getting there.