protection – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: We are the most terrifying ones.

Vampire Bat: I don’t think that we are that terrifying as we used to be.

Vampire Owl: It is due to Twilight and Vampire Diaries. They don’t count.

Vampire Bat: They do count for the humans.

Vampire Owl: Well, sometimes I feel that only they count for them.

Vampire Bat: Humans are not that aware about true vampires.

Vampire Owl: There are no true and false vampires. There are only us.

Vampire Bat: We have been children of the night for too long.

Vampire Owl: There are no vampires of the day.

Vampire Bat: Well, the vampires that sparkle have other opinions.

[Gets a chicken biryani and three cups of cardamom tea].

What is the movie about? :: Miles County Massacre was one of the most traumatizing events for the people of the town. Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) who was responsible for the brutal murders does return though. He was considered dead, even though the body was not found – he is once again here though. The police had only provided the statement that the body had just disappeared, and some people do spend the legend that the clown is not dead and might return at some point. The Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain) is another mysterious entity which wears similar clown costume, and seems to join forces with Art. Meanwhile, a teenager named Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) is finishing the Halloween costume which was designed for her by her father who recently died due to brain tumour. Sienna’s younger brother Jonathan Shaw (Elliott Fullam) is obsessed with Art the Clown though, and wishes to dress like him for the Halloween, after finding details about him from his father’s sketches. Sienna ends up having a nightmare about the clown, and wakes up to find the room on fire, yet has a sword from her father as the same as it used to be. She had also seen people being murdered by the clown in her nightmare.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: On Halloween, Jonathan sees Art and The Little Pale Girl at school playing with a dead animal, and he is held responsible for bringing the creature to school as they disappear without a trace. As the school calls the parent, he is grounded at home. Sienna goes to the Halloween costume shop to buy a replacement pair of wings to fit with her costume as the earlier one was lost in fire, and there she encounters Art who stalks her without mercy, and later brutally murders the shop vendor who is left alone in the store. He also manages to make the later customers believe that it is all part of a Halloween show. Sienna is the only one who believes her brother and that the clown might be real as she had seen him in the shop. Sienna’s friend, Allie (Casey Hartnett) finds herself in trouble too, as Art gets to her home pretending to be trick or treating. Allie who is rude to him for asking for candy at an old age is brutally attcked by the clown and left in pieces. Allie’s mother is also killed in the same way, and her head is kept for putting sweets for Halloween.

And what more is to follow with this brutal adventure featuring a clown? :: Art is well-supported by the clown girl in his actions, even though the brutality is committed all by himself. He also resorts to cannibalism at times, even though the act of brutal murder seems to be the one thing that satisfies him more than anything else. He also seems to display a supernatural side to him after returning to the seemingly unstoppable killing spree which goes mostly undetected as the victims are not found. Jonathan shows the paintings of his father to his mother Barbara Shaw (Sarah Voigt), but unhappy with his obsession with the clown and not believing in his stories, she tears them off. She feels that his son requires some serious counselling. At the same time, Sienna goes to a Halloween party dressed in the costume designed by her father, but it seems that Art has other ideas about this particular celebration, and it would involve her family. She becomes drunk at the party and begins to see the clown girl, while the clown attacks their home. Jonathan runs away from home only to find the clown girl in the way. Art seems immortal evil, but how far will he go?

The defence of Terrifier 2 :: For a slasher, the character development of this movie is at an all time high, especially with Lauren LaVera playing Sienna Shaw. She leads the movie here, and as a battle angel, becomes the last hope for a family and the town in general, a role into which she evolves really well. This is one character who rises above the horror tropes with ease, and promises to continue the peformance into a sequel too, if such a thing happens. Lauren in the Halloween costume fighting the clown is a joy to watch. Elliott Fullam who plays her brother also does a fine job. The movie, with blood and gore as well as the representation of the evil on screen lives up to the name, as a work of terrifying nature. The ambience is very well used too, and the Halloween world as well as the carnival attraction works like a fine nightmare here. As you get transported into the world of a seemingly immortal evil clown, the feeling is forever, and here, the grand clown rises above Stephen King’s It as a movie and its second part as the demonic clown of the century.

Positives and negatives :: Terrifier 2 blends into its genre really well. It has some of the very gory scenes which might not be that good for everyone. The signs of such brutality can be seen in the beginning itself. The border lines for gore has been crossed here and most of the natural horror film fans who prefer only those works like Ouija, The Conjuring, The Nun, Annabelle, Curse of La Llorna, Insidious, Sinister and other would not go further with this after the first scene. A murder on the bed might feel to be too brutal even for the best of fans of the genre. The final moments have a little bit of of too much of the supernatural side added to it, which could have been kept to the minimum, especially as both the protagonist and antagonist deserves more in the form of two people going at each other. The movie does remind of those older slasher films with moments which takes us back to the past memories of slasher horror, a genre which has kept us close to the darker side of humanity, the horror which has been inherent in human beings since the beginning of time. While doing the same, the scares work so well.

How it finishes :: Terrifier 2 is the nice slasher horror which we rarely see around these days. After all, it is easy to lose the way whenever a slasher gets a chance to make it big. The movie delivers most of what it promises, and in the end, leaves an open door for a possible sequel, as death does not come easy for antagonists like this, as proven by many slashers including Halloween which has overused the idea. Most of us around here did not hear about the first movie, and a lot of people still need to hear about this movie. It is the kind of movie that has raised the level of slashers in a decade when it hasn’t scored much. With a third movie, things can get even better, as characters are better developed here. Well, we need to celebrate the horror in raw forms when we see them, as this is one example of the same. One can be sure that Terrifier 2 will have its fans, and can develop into a cult classic horror as most of the old slasher horror films have stopped bringing reboots and remakes of relevance to keep the legacy moving on.

Release date: 6th October 2022
Running time: 138 minutes
Directed by: Damien Leone
Starring: Lauren LaVera, Sarah Voigt, Elliott Fullam, Kailey Hyman, Casey Hartnett, David Howard Thornton

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Vampire Owl: There is no devil below us. I am sure about it.

Vampire Bat: You know that there was quite a long talk about such a creature’s existence.

Vampire Owl: Well, I would consider it as absurd. There are only the dead below.

Vampire Bat: The dead becomes one with the devil, they say.

Vampire Owl: The devil do not wish for vampires, I am sure about that.

Vampire Bat: I have known about one of his minions meeting Uncle Dracula.

Vampire Owl: It could be Mephistopheles. He is not from under the castle.

Vampire Bat: Well, you can never be sure about the pure evil ones.

Vampire Owl: I am sure that they are teamed up with the witches of the north.

Vampire Bat: Well, those witches belong to another level, don’t they?

[Gets an onion vada and three cups of mixed tea].

What is the movie about? :: In a mining station, Schuttmann (Will Patton) has a meeting with a strange, terrifying creature in a mine, where his son is taken by it, after stabbing him on the shoulder, leaving him paralyzed. There has been something about the place, which forced a team of scientists to come there, a few years later. The group including Darren (Adan Canto), Shawn (Chinaza Uche), Terry (Jonathan Sadowski), and Jaime (Zach Avery) are led in the right direction by an adventurer named Arianne (Alicia Sanz). They don’t get any signal on the mobile phone which makes their journey a very difficult for everyone. They are looking for the same mine known as Shookum Hills Coal Mine which seems to have been taken out of the maps since the 1970s. The meet a very few people in the town which doesn’t seem to have too many people living there. The people whom they meet out there asks them to go back, and they are also chased by a car on the way, which she also manages to leave behind, avoiding a possible encounter while driving smartly.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: This seems to be a place nobody wants to talk about, or even think about visiting, but Arianne has agreed to take these, and she will do exactly that, whatever be the circumstances. They do find the entrance in the middle of nowhere, but there is an electric fence being put on their way – they manage to use a rope to get past it, and it seems that the new location doesn’t have any human presence as of now. There are many conspiracy theories among the scientists related to sinkholes, superdeep unidentified creatures, unexpected fire and others, but they finally decide that instead of making speculations, they would just need to find out this thing by themselves. When they do find the actual mine, things don’t go well though, as Terry is dragged into a tunnel. They are not able to find him despite looking into the tunnel, and he won’t be the only person to go missing at that time. There is something extremely dangerous hidden in there, and the locals might be right about asking them not to go to the mines. Is it late to have another warning?

The defence of The Devil Below :: You are introduced into the possible horror awaiting us underground with the initial scene of The Devil Below itself, even though it takes more than an hour to get the scares from deep beneath returning. The elements of horror are provided through the dialogues, and there are some chasing scenes in the dark to add to the things. This is the kind of world where a computer game would work perfectly, especially a first person shooter with one of these characters to choose from. The blinking lights can nicely add to the gameplay, and there can be multitudes of monsters to hunt in different levels. The world of this movie is one without hope for survival, and it adds to the scares really well. The atmosphere contributes to the same with a lot of quality, as the world underneath has been created with skill, and the space above is no happy place either. The scares do work differently with this one, as we hope that a sequel can some day elevate this. It is also effective as a survival movie in parts.

The claws of flaw :: After the first incident involving the creature, the movie does take some time to get a monster for it once again. There is also not enough of the monsters, as we rarely get to see much of them – the darkness and the camera shots don’t really help that much in finding them with all the required terror. The movie could have also had better explanations of the happenings around there, and a Doom model situation could have suited the flick better, with action and fear combining the forces in a balanced way. All these creatures could have had better detail, and the difference between them within the species could have been celebrated. One has to wonder why it doesn’t manage to be clear in what it shows around. There are so many things happening in what seems to be a blurred state around here. All these creatures required more focus on their designs and more screen space in a better, clearer form. The movie can have a sequel with the main character as the big action star, but from the opinions this one received, one has doubts about it.

The performers of the soul :: The Spanish actress, Alicia Sanz plays the lead here, and as the protagonist, she is more or less a figure like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider – she plays an explorer who was recently in Africa, and has traveled all around the world, leading expeditions. She could have more action sequences here, and moments which Lara Croft would be proud of, but she manages to do well with what she gets. She could a promise for a future action or horror movie too, as the signs seem to be pretty much clear. Imagine what she could have done with a few ledges to climb, some ruins to explore, along with a lost city or sunken ship underwater to check out. She has the determination and expressions of a Tomb Raider type explorer too. Will Patton as Schuttmann makes a strong fighter from the looks itself. He also has some fine dialogue to go with it, as he is related to everything that happens around there, one way or the other, and has the mission to protect his world. Adan Canto as Darren is the man with not-so-direct intentions, a job done okay.

How it finishes :: We have seen a similar idea expressed in a better with the Russian movie, Superdeep. Well, Russian movies seem to be able to stay ahead of some good number of Hollywood movies when dealing with horror, war and science fiction, dealing better with ghosts and aliens, creating the better atmosphere. This English version of superdeep monsters does its job for sure, but not that much at the level one would expect it to be. The environment is well set, and with some horror, it makes an interesting flick to watch in a human world which is full of the demonic people, but never has enough horror on the screen. With one Corona virus scaring people enough, it might not be that easy to find horror from some random monsters in a mine which you don’t know about, but we can use all the scares in the world to move away from the real evil creatures of our world, humans. Let us try to add this one to our list of interesting horror which has managed to have the courage to take it underneath the surface.

Release date: 5th March 2021
Running time: 88 minutes
Directed by: Bradley Parker
Starring: Alicia Sanz, Adan Canto, Zach Avery, Chinaza Uche, Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse LaTourette, Will Patton, William Mark McCullough, Alpha Trivette, Tom Proctor, Nathan Phillips