The woman that started it all, Jason’s mom, Mrs. Voorhees!
-MonsterZero NJ
Five years after the events of Friday the 13th, a new group of camp counselors line up for the slaughter!
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Jason arrives to avenge his mom and horror history is made!
Life lessons to be learned in F13P2! Fun-loving Ted (Stuart Charno) survives the movie by staying at the bar and continuing to get drunk!
-MonsterZero NJ
Terrifier 2 (2022) (full review HERE) took the horror world by storm when it’s theatrical release earned the partially crowd funded film an over $15 million worldwide gross on a modest $250,000 budget. It wonderfully reignited distributor and theater interest in giving indie horrors the theatrical release they deserve. Recent releases like Skinamarink and The Outwaters owe this flick a debt of thanks. The gory sequel also established Art the Clown as a new horror icon and Lauren LaVera as an instant fan favorite final girl with the horror film community…not to mention filmmaker Damien Leone as a force to be reckoned with. The film was released on physical media on December 27th, 2022.
Sexy and tough Sienna (Lauren LaVera) will prove a worthy adversary for Terrifier2‘s Art!
As for the disc itself….
The high-definition transfer of this horror/gore-fest looks great, especially for a low budget indie film. The colors are vibrant, and the picture is sharp, highlighting Damien Leone’s creative and effective visual style along with Art’s extremely brutal and gory kills. The 2hr and 18min film is presented in the original 1.78:1 aspect ratio with a 1080 high-definition scan. The sound is presented in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.
Now on to the extras….
The extras here are satisfying but hardcore fans will probably be left wanting more. There is a really cool and extensive behind-the-scenes documentary featurette on the making of the movie with a lot of production/FX footage. The leading ladies were all quite the troopers with what they had to go through. There is also an extended cast interview with Bloody Disgusting.com’s The Boo Crew that too features a lot of behind-the-scenes footage. Oddly it appears the menu listing is flopped, though, as clicking on the feature gets you the interviews and clicking on the interviews gets you the documentary feature. At least it’s all there. There is also director’s commentary from Damien Leone, the movie trailer and a fan “Art” gallery. The regular edition also comes with a nice slipcover with different artwork than the Blu-ray cover inside.
Art inadvertently unleashes a warrior within!
Terrifier 2 is now already considered a cult classic blood bath from the mind of innovative director and FX man, Damien Leone. A success equally attributed to Leone’s casting of David Howard Thorton as Art and Lauren LaVera as final girl Sienna. Thanks to the folks at Scream Box, it can be enjoyed any time of year on this solid Blu-ray release! Also available on DVD and 4K discs, too.
-MonsterZero NJ
-MonsterZero NJ
Sienna has gotten Art the Clown’s attention in the worst way!
The sadistic clown even haunts her dreams turning them into nightmares!
Sienna may be dressed as a warrior this Halloween, but she’ll have to fight like one, too!
What horrors await Sienna on this All Hallows Eve!?
What cruel fate does Art have in store for her?…
…or SHE for HIM!!!
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Lauren LaVera! A beautiful and talented actress we want to see more of!
Photo Credit: Joe Kelly/via IMDB
-MonsterZero NJ
And don’t forget to check out our previous Halloween Hotties!
Head over to the Halloween Hotties listings! to read them all!)
It’s a year after the Miles County Massacre and Halloween approaches. Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) is resurrected and now accompanied by a demon (Amelie McLain) in the form of a murdered girl, who is also dressed just like Art. This malevolent mini-me points Art in the direction of Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) and her younger brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), whose deceased artist father seemed to have predicted the coming of the homicidal clown. Art leaves a trail of brutalized and bloodied victims as he and Sienna are destined to collide.
Gruesome slasher sequel is written and directed by Damien Leone who also did the editing and the abundant gore FX. It’s not what could be called a fun slasher as Art’s kills are cruel and sadistic and his victims are kept alive as long as possible as he mutilates and brutalizes them. It can be very unpleasant. The gore is practical make-up, and the FX are quite impressive and effective. Even one like myself who has been watching horror for over fifty years winced a few times. The film didn’t need to be 138 minutes long but also didn’t feel like it was over two hours and Leone wisely uses the time to let us catch our breath, so all the brutality remains effective. It is his best flick yet and he is honing his craft with some disturbing sequences, and a very impressive visual eye. The are some supernatural elements that go unexplained but do work and the abandoned carnival funhouse showdown is quite brutal and effective. Thorton’s Art is creepy as ever, yet can still make you chuckle, and Lauren LaVera makes a really strong and resilient heroine. Sienna is beaten, whipped, stabbed and yet keeps giving Art all she’s got. Complete in her armored angel Halloween costume, she makes quite the opponent for the crazed killer clown. Overall, this is a sick and twisted slasher made by a director who is showing some definite growth with each film and with a really strong final girl/leading lady in Lauren LaVera.
-MonsterZero NJ
Murder mystery/slasher mash-up finds a group of friends partying in a mansion while a hurricane rages outside. They decide to play a game called Bodies Bodies Bodies where everyone draws a piece of paper, one piece selects someone as the killer while the others are potential victims. Lights are turned out and if the killer happens upon a victim, the poke them in the back “killing” them. Someone is playing for real as one of the group turns up dead. Soon fear and paranoia are flaring, fingers are getting pointed and bodies bodies bodies start piling up. Is there a killer among them?…will any of them survive?
Film is well directed with a very European/Giallo flavor by Halina Reijn from a witty script by Sarah DeLappe, based on Kristen Roupenian’s story. We have a perfect set-up with a large mansion, a fierce storm to trap everyone inside and a lot of drinking and partying to dull senses and unleash inhibitions. We also have a lot of drama between characters just bubbling beneath the surface waiting to explode. We then are given the simple rules to the game which apparently gets taken far too seriously by someone…but who? The film is very effective at setting up the paranoia and the fear of the survivors and keeping the guilty party a secret, even as the numbers start to dwindle, as desperate people do desperate things. It’s very entertaining and it comes to a nicely unpredictable conclusion that ads a twisted and fun dimension to the proceedings. It’s a fun and sometimes bloody flick with a nice visual style and a cool score by Disasterpeace, who did the great score for It Follows. Bloody fun slasher/whodunnit. Cast includes Maria Bakalova, Amandla Stenberg, Myha’la Herrold, Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui Wonders, Pete Davidson and Lee Pace.
-MonsterZero NJ
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Good things came from Amazon today! One of my favorites from last year that I finally picked up on Blu-Ray! The Last Matinee is a love letter to both Dario Argento and 80s slashers. Directed by Maximiliano Contenti, from his script with Manuel Facal, South American horror finds young student Ana (Luciana Grasso) working the night shift at a rundown movie theater, where she and her father are the projectionists. While a sub-par horror flick plays to a small, disinterested audience, Ana studies in the projection booth, unaware a killer (Ricardo Islas) is stalking the theater and has started to kill its patrons. Will Ana, or any of them, make it to the end credits? (Full review HERE)
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MonsterZero NJ
Flick is a remake/reimagining and, to a degree, a sequel to the Roger Corman cult classic. Flick opens at a slumber party in the 90s where power-drill wielding serial killer Russ Thorn (Rob Van Vuuren) murders all the girls except for Trish (Masali Baduza). In present day, Trish (Schelaine Bennett) is now an over-protective mother of her own daughter Dana (Hannah Gonera), who is headed off to a slumber party of her own with friends. Needless to say Russ Thorn shows up, but the hunter may become the hunted as Dana and her friends are not the helpless victims her mother’s friends were.
Flick is written by Suzanne Keilly and directed by Danishka Esterhazy, who directed the disappointing Banana Splits Movie. This slasher remake/homage is a dull mess that tries to be contemporary and clever, but is just routine and dull and never takes full advantage of any of it’s own ideas. Making the girls survival savvy and actually luring Russ into a trap was an amusing idea, but the film defeats it’s own purpose when the ladies start to fall victim anyway to serial killer #2—and that killer’s identity is so obvious, not sure why they bothered to try and keep it a secret. There is also a subplot of a house full of boys who mistake Dana and her friends for the killers, but that doesn’t go anywhere either, as the arrival of killer #2 puts an end to that plot element. The end confrontation is somewhat effective, but at that point the film has gotten so convoluted, you really don’t care. Stick with Corman’s classic as this SYFY misfire will be forgotten before October is even over.
-MonsterZero NJ
Death Drop Gorgeous tells the story of a sadistic killer stalking Providence, Rhode Island’s LGBTQ+ community leaving mutilated, blood drained bodies behind. An assorted group of eccentric individuals, including a down on his luck bartender (Wayne Richard), a sleazy club owner (Brandon Perras) and an aging drag queen (Michael McAdam), all try to stay out of harm’s way, while trying to deal with their own issues and lives.
Film is written and directed by Michael J. Ahern, Christopher Dalphe and Brandon Perras, who all have parts in the film. As such, it’s a low budget effort with a visual style as colorful as it’s characters. This is the film’s strong point, as the cast try hard and do bring some enjoyable life and energy to their characters, especially the various drag queens who all want to be the star of the show. The drawback here is that the film can’t quite decide on what it wants to be. Is it a slasher? The death’s are vicious and very gory, but few and far between. The killer’s identity does make sense, though, and is a bit of a surprise. Is it a comedy? There are some laughs and some very spicy dialogue, but not enough to be an outright comedy. Is it a drama? There is plenty of drama, especially amongst these drama queens, but sandwiched between the scenes of gruesome murder, when the film decides to go back to being a slasher. As a whole, the tone is all over the place and maybe three writers and directors is why. The flick is also a bit too graphic and raunchy for it’s own good, sort of Herschell Gordon Lewis meets john Waters, but that, however, is a matter of one’s personal taste, as to whether this movie goes too far, or maybe, not far enough. Still Drop Dead Gorgeous is the type of film that could catch on amongst the LGBTQ+ audience it’s aimed at and become a cult midnight movie, which would suit it’s offbeat style just fine. You have to give these folks credit for getting their movie made and their way! Death Drop Gorgeous hits VOD on 9/10/21 and has a cameo from the legendary Linnea Quigley.
-MonsterZero NJ
MonsterZero NJ's Movie Madhouse 