Despite the fact that the movie made some people ill, Terrifier 2 has been quite profitable. Art the Clown makes his psychotic comeback a year after the events of the first movie, dismembering his victims in a grisly manner while grinning widely. Terrifier 2 may have had a little budget, but you better believe it’s making up for it in box office receipts.
Sometimes, a movie’s budget has no bearing on how successful it will be. Terrifier 2’s modest $250,000 budget was returned in box office receipts 30 times over. The gross-out slasher made $403,900 on its first day of release on October 6th, according to Box Office Mojo.
The following weekend, it earned $805,000 in sales. Damien Leone’s original sequel finally made it to the million-dollar summit at $1,030,500 two weekends later. This represents a 28% increase, which is astounding given the low budget and the paucity of promotions. Terrifier 2 has now played in 1,550 theaters after initially debuting in 770 locations. This past weekend, it brought in $1.8 million, bringing in a total of $7,638,050.
It makes sense that this low-budget slasher film didn’t receive much publicity when it initially released. The sole promotional material it had was a teaser video that was unveiled on July 24, 2020 and made sure to include a minute of Art the Clown’s grisly performance techniques. But after hearing that several moviegoers had puked during the film, horror enthusiasts couldn’t help but wonder what all the fuss was about. One theater even had to summon an ambulance because people were passing out and throwing up after the graphic show. demonstrates that theatergoers won’t stay away despite the hoopla surrounding a production making them physically unwell. Instead, it will make those ticket sales soar.
On March 15, 2018, Terrifier, a film that came before it, was released. It had an even lower budget of $35,000. The Telluride Horror Show Film Festival had the world premiere of this horror movie in 2016, while the Horror Channel FrightFest held a screening the following year. Then, Dread Central Presents and Epic Pictures acquired this independent horror movie for a 2018 limited release.
So it would seem that Terrifier would only have been available to the most ardent horror fans. However, independent horror films have performed well at the box office this year, with Barbarian earning a respectable $42 million worldwide on a $4.5 million budget, Pearl earning $9.4 million on a $1 million budget, and Smile enjoying a box office surge earning $186 million on a $17 million budget. Therefore, this year, folks were particularly searching for a nice shock.
Terrifier 2 received not only excellent box office results but also favorable reviews from critics. In his review of Terrifier 2, Eric Eisenberg of CinemaBlend argued that this terrifying sequel was “100% disgusting” as promised and a great reminder of why people enjoy horror films.
Even though Terrifier only stands out for its gory special effects, many reviewers felt the plot needed more development, giving it a 56% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie’s sequel seems to have made up for that. It lucked out and received an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising David Howard Thornton and Lauren LaVera for their outstanding performances and for creating memorable characters in the film. This is the ideal example of a sequel—truly bigger and better than the first one.
Despite having a small budget, Terrifier 2 truly lives up to its name by making money at the box office. This can serve as a great example for aspiring horror directors to show them that money alone cannot make a movie. Audiences will be more open to watching if you can provide them with something frightful to anticipate. The recently released film is currently playing in theaters.