Why the bedroom scene in Terrifier 2 is so controversial

Just when it seemed like modern slasher films were losing steam, the More terrible Thanks to Damien Leone's phenomenal direction and script, the franchise stormed in and made for an incredible horror experience. The franchise has established Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) as one of horror cinema's most iconic villains alongside Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees and many others.

The original More terrible The film was a huge success, grossing over $400,000 on a budget of $35,000, but Horror 2 took things to the next level, earning a whopping $15.7 million on a $250,000 budget. While most of its success is due to the significant increase in the production budget, the controversial bedroom sequence is responsible for a large part of the film's popularity. What exactly made it so controversial?

Release date

October 6, 2022

Pour

Felissa Rose, David Howard Thornton, Samantha Scaffidi, Griffin Santopietro, Tamara Glynn, Lauren LaVera

Duration

138 mins

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The controversy behind the Terrifier 2 bedroom scene

Terrifier 2 picks up where the original film left off: Art the Clown is resurrected by a mysterious creature and targets Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and her younger brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam). However, It is Sienna's friend Allie (Casey Hartnett) who suffers the cruelest fate. Before the bedroom scene, Art the Clown expects Allie to give him candy like other trick-or-treaters when she opens the door, but she mocks him for being an adult and still acting like a child. Perhaps this made Art want to kill her even more, but in a far more brutal and horrific way.

What follows is a horrific scene in which Allie desperately tries to escape from the killer, but to no avail. Art brutally cuts the skin from her forehead, rips off her entire scalp, and rips her arms apart as she screams in pain. As if that wasn't enough, he squirts bleach on her wounds and rubs salt into them to make Allie's misery even worse. What's really disturbing is that the victim should have died in the middle of the torture, but due to a supernatural phenomenon, she miraculously stays alive while Art enjoys her torment.

When Horror 2 When the film hit theaters in October 2022, it quickly caused controversy because of the gore and intense violence it brought to the screen, particularly the bedroom scene, which was unlike anything we've seen in other splatter horror films had. While the first film had its fair share of bloodshed, it doesn't quite match the sustained violence Allie endures in the sequel, which left viewers upset and traumatized. Actually, Even seasoned horror fans found Allie's death difficult to stomachSome left the theater and never came back.

This level of gore and disturbing violence has only been seen in a few films, e.g Human centipede And martyrTherefore, it is not surprising that the scene caused such controversy. Aside from that, Horror 2 was released during the Halloween season when people were looking forward to seeing good horror full of jump scares, but instead the film delivered deeply disturbing violence that left audiences unsettled. That means, The controversy worked in their favor as the franchise gained more attention with the release of Horror 2and fans are now more enthusiastic than ever horror 3 on the big screen, especially given its impressive $2 million budget.

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Terrifier 2 pushed the boundaries of horror

As mentioned, the bedroom sequence is in Horror 2 is on par with some of the scariest scary movies, Human centipede And martyrBut The film also proves to be an unconventional slasher film in other placessimilar to its predecessor. Since Horror 2 Having taken six years to release after the prequel, they've upped the ante yet again, rivaling the shocking hacksaw scene from the first film, in which a lady is split in half in front of her equally miserable friend.

Typically, slasher horror films are much more limited in their use of gore, with most killers ending their victims' lives instantly, but Art the Clown is an exception. He finds what he does funny and enjoys every ounce of suffering he inflicts on the victims. This was evident in Allie's painfully long death, as well as the brutal murders of Brooke (Kailey Hyman) and her boyfriend.

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Director Damien Leone was clearly trying to break the norms of slasher horror in all of these cases, and he certainly succeeded, as it's been ages since a horror film has had such a profound impact on viewers. Furthermore, most franchises throughout history have capitalized on controversy, received free publicity in the outraged media, and achieved enormous success for their films, and that's exactly what happened Horror 2.

Therefore, Horror 2The bedroom scene remains one of the series' most iconic moments, not just because it scares us of Art the Clown, but because it foreshadows the boundaries these films would push in the future.