The Most Compelling Part Of Terrifier 2, According To Director Damien Leone
If you're a connoisseur of slasher films, then you're probably aware of the "Terrifier" horror movie franchise. Filmmaker Damien Leone put his own twist on the evil clown subgenre with Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), who looks like Pennywise's black-and-white cousin from New Jersey who got booped on the snoot by Satan's soot-laden finger. He also turns up the gore factor with feces, cannibalism, dismemberment, and more.
"Terrifier 2" just came out in theaters on October 6, and it's already getting higher ratings than the original film (via Rotten Tomatoes) despite reports of moviegoers vomiting or fainting while watching it. However, while the original film was mostly hack and slash for the sake of blood, guts, gore, and creepy clowns, the sequel has a coherent storyline with better character development — and Leone feels that one character in particular is the crux of this more appealing (but also far more disgusting) follow-up.
'Final girl' Sienna was his first attempt at writing a compelling female protagonist
In a recent interview with Awards Radar, Damien Leone shared that his favorite part of making his newest slasher flick was expanding his horizons as a writer and a filmmaker by writing a compelling female protagonist in Sienna (Lauren LaVera). "This was my crack at a heroine, this heroic character that's also very grounded in reality, that I was really hoping that the audience would empathize with and get behind on her journey and really be scared for her and rooting for her during the film's climax," he said. "Thankfully, a lot of people have responded very favorably to her, so that's awesome."
And he's not wrong; audiences are loving the character. Perhaps some of the highest praise comes from film critic Jay Thomas, who tweeted, "@_LaurenLaVera_ was absolutely phenomenal as Sienna. Imbuing her with a built-in history, unabashed likability, and sheer ferocity, she gave this generation an iconic new final girl." The final girl, of course, is a staple trope of the slasher film genre (via TV Tropes), so that's high praise indeed.