Director: Damien Leone
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
After surviving the encounter in the morgue, the killer clown heads out into the wild and begins another rampage across the city which brings him into contact with a teenage girl and her younger brother at a Halloween party where they realize a shared connection between them may save everyone.
Review:
This was a rather fun if slightly flawed follow-up. One of the stronger features of the film is the enhanced focus on the storyline which is a marked improvement over the original. This one actually tends to bring about a solid enough story here with the idea of her being somewhat predetermined to encounter the clown with the series of dreams she has about him leading to the revelation of their history involving the pictures being drawn and the past incidents that tie their family together. This gives the first half more to do when tied together with the relationship building it does between her and her brother as well as with her friend group that she hangs out with so that when it comes time for the resultant rampage, later on, has a lot more weight to it rather than just empty shock effects.
That ties incredibly well into the most celebrated part of this one in the highly effective and almost revoltingly over-the-top gore effects featured. The brutality and sadism utilized here for the kills become quite fun as the various victims are dismembered, torn apart, sliced to pieces, and just generally torn apart with a glee that borders on hero-worship as everyone he comes across suffers an excruciatingly graphic outcome. The effectiveness of the effects and the creativity on display manage to stick out rather nicely as the confrontations throughout the city make for a great time including the dream of her costarring on a children’s TV show with the clown appearing and killing everyone, the slaughter at their friends’ house and the exceptionally brutal final confrontation at the abandoned theme park which provides tons of fun all-around. These all make for a generally fun enough time here.
This one does have some drawbacks that bring it down. The only issue here is that it really feels its length for no reason, opting to extend tons of scenes throughout here to drive up the running time. This isn’t just reserved for the stalking scenes but most of the different areas of the film suffer from this, from the intro to the clown-show-taping nightmare she has, the exploits of the brother at home taunting her with his serial killer knowledge, or the later scenes at the school involving his friends hanging out together. In theory, these scenes are fine and don’t have much really wrong with them beyond just lasting too long as if they could’ve been trimmed down if not outright removed as they’re responsible in large part for the overlong running time here.
The other real issue is the wholly bizarre tone created with the clown who’s given a wholly unnecessary type of hero worship that never fits the tone of what’s going on. As mentioned, the gore here is exceptionally brutal and graphic but the entire tone of everything presented is never really presented squirm-inducing but rather intended to be cheered at in celebration for performing something that vicious and graphic. That causes everything to come off as if the viewer is supposed to be on the side of the maniacal clown who’s out smashing heads in or slicing people to ribbons. Since he never gets any kind of comeuppance and everything is made out for him to have the upper hand by forcing characters into stupidity simply to have him gain the advantage later, it’s all somewhat frustrating which lowers this one.
Overview: ***/5
An enjoyable if troublesome follow-up that’s got some issues with it, that this one still has a lot to like about it manages to keep it entertaining enough in spite of a lot of the drawbacks that crop up. Those who enjoyed the original or are just in the mood for a straightforward gorefest will be the most worthwhile viewers here while most others who didn’t care for the first one or are turned off by the flaws should heed caution with this one.
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