Clown Cafe Scene & Terrifier 2 Ending Explained

Terrifier 2 is filled with bizarre and horrifying imagery, from a clown cafe filled with doomed dancers to a terrifying haunted house at a carnival. The gore, terror, and brutality don't stop even after the ending and the credits role. A long-awaited sequel to the 2016 low-budget and cult hit slasher, Terrifier, 2022's Terrifier 2 sees the return of director Damien Leone and the murderous, psychopathic, and wholly original Art the Clown, once again played silently by David Howard Thornton. Terrifier 2 ups the carnage, effects, and story of the original movie without losing its grindhouse core.

The Terrifier franchise is not for the faint of heart, and the violence and gore in the movie is enough to make one sick. Unlike the first film, Terrifier 2 is more than just the sum of its gory kills by Art the Clown, with an engaging story and real characters to care about. In Terrifier 2, the grinning clown survives his apparent death in the first film, and awakes to begin another bloody killing spree, this time with his beady eyes set on the Shaw family on Halloween night.

Related Art The Clown's Scariest Scene Wasn't In Terrifier 2 (Or The Original) Art the Clown’s early work is some of his best and most frightening, with one notable scene outcompeting his scariest moments in Terrifier 2.

Sienna Shaw Has A Nightmare About A Musical Clown Cafe

The Clown Cafe Is Art's Version Of Hell

A year after Art comes back and makes short and gruesome work of two innocents, Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera), her younger brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), and their mother Sarah Voigt (Barbara) are introduced. Sienna goes to sleep one night, watching a TV commercial for a clown-based local business only to have a dream of the very same scene. She finds herself starring in the "Clown Cafe" commercial as a singer (Leah Voysey) performs a sweet but creepy ditty about eating at the Clown Cafe. Painted all over the set are pictures of Art.

Suddenly, the clown of honor appears and immediately guns down the other "actors" in the commercial before finishing off the singer by setting her on fire. Sienna crawls to a box of Art cereal and digs through glass and bugs to procure her father's heirloom family sword, which blocks Art's fire and wakes her up, though not without lighting her real dresser on fire. The Clown Cafe comes up again towards the end of Terrifier 2 when Sienna and Jonathan have been captured by Art. Art stabs Sienna with her father's sword and banishes her to something like hell.

There, she finds herself once again in the Clown Cafe, with the singer still on fire but happily plucking away at her banjo, and the other characters dancing around, covered in blood. The Clown Cafe seems to be Art's version of hell, a world where he can play and be a goofy oddball, and also commit terrible acts of violence as often as he would like. Leah Voysey, the clown singer, also has a chance to take off the makeup and gets a cameo as a nurse in Terrifier 2's stinger.

The Little Pale Girl Could Be One Of Art's Previous Victims

Art The Clown's New Best Friend Is As Creepy As He Is

The Little Pale Girl is a new villain in Terrifier 2 and a mini version of Art, dressed in a black and white vaudeville clown costume, and silent but smiling. She also possesses the same appreciation for killing, though not everyone can see her. One hint at who the Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain) is comes at the beginning of the movie. A newspaper article says a young girl named Emily went missing near Art's funhouse years ago. This demonic entity could be that same little girl.

Leone has also said that the Little Pale Girl is responsible for resurrecting Art at the beginning of the movie, and after Sienna decapitates the clown, it's the Little Pale Girl who dutifully takes his head away. She may be the reason for Art the Clown's inhuman and supernatural abilities and a powerful monster herself.

The Shaw Family Is Destined To Kill Art

Sienna Shaw's Father Knew All About Art The Clown

One of the ways Terrifier 2 exceeds the original is with its more engaging story. Sienna and Jonathan are fleshed-out characters an audience can care about and their family history seems to entwine them with Art, adding some interesting lore to the Terrifier series. The angel warrior costume Sienna creates for Halloween, and that she wears throughout the film, is based on a creation her recently deceased father drew. There is also the aforementioned sword he left his children.

Some other drawings in Sienna's father's sketchbook include kills from the first Terrifier and pictures of Art the Clown. It's never explained how the deceased Shaw parent was aware of Art, but the fact he knew him and even had a sword made that seems to nullify Art's abilities, means there's a reason Art is after the Shaws in particular. When Art has beaten Jonathan and killed Sienna, Jonathan's screams of pain magically make Sienna's dad's sword glow and heal Sienna's wounds. She then takes the sword and uses it to decapitate and finally kill Art.

Sienna's dad knew something about Art the Clown and somehow found a way to stop him. These points of lore are only hinted at in Terrifier 2​​​​​​, but they add an important depth to both Art and Sienna, the latter of which comes out of Terrifier 2 as an exciting and capable new final girl.

Terrifier 2's End Credits Scene

The Mid-Credits Scene Is A Horrifying Reminder Of The Original Film

In a mid-credits scene in Terrifier 2, another character from the original Terrifier returns. Victoria Hayes (Samantha Scaffidi), who was briefly mentioned earlier in the film, is a woman who was mutilated by Art in the first Terrifier. The post-credits scene shows her at the Miles County Psychiatric Hospital, painting the words "Vicky + Art" on the wall in blood. She then gives bloody birth to Art's head, which smiles as Victoria laughs. Shaw family blade or no family blade, Art the Clown is not so easily killed.

The Real Meaning Of Terrifier 2's Ending

Terrifier 2's Ending Shows Art The Clown Is Never Down For Long

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Like its predecessor, Terrifier 2 wants to shock the audience with its violence, and it succeeds. However, Leone also has a real love for grindhouse films as well as his character, Art the Clown. Terrifier 2 may not be for everyone, but it absolutely accomplishes what it sets out to do. Terrifier 2 also adds critical lore and deeper story to the franchise. The end of the film finds the Little Pale Girl taking Art's decapitated, and dead, head to some unknown location, only for his head to reappear very much alive after Vicky gives birth to it.

If the Little Pale Girl is indeed Emily, then it seems that Art has the ability to control his victims and use them to facilitate his resurrections. Art the Clown alone is terrifying enough, but an army of unhinged acolytes is an even more grim prospect. Though Sienna may be a formidable rival to art in Terrifier 2, his gang of victims is growing, and he appears always ready to come back for more mayhem.

How The Terrifier 2 Ending Was Received

The Final Moments Set Up And Secured A Sequel

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Terrifier 2 was a runaway success compared to the original Terrifier, and a key reason that it was received so well is that it added a fleshed-out narrative. The ending was a key part of this, setting up more story to tell and securing the future Terrifier 3, which arrived in 2024. However, while the ending of Terrifier 2 was perfect for director Damien Leone's gory love-letter to the slasher movies of the 1970s and 1980s, it didn't feature heavily in many of the reviews of the movie.

This isn't because critics felt the ending of Terrifier 2 was bad. It's simply because there were other elements of the movie that they tended to focus on, such as the immense gore and practical effects, as well as the performances of both Lauren LeVera as Sienna and, of course, David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown. There were also a few other specific moments in the movie that warranted more attention than the finale, such as the brutal killing of Allie which caused many audience members to walk out.

However, while the ending wasn't prominent in many critics' reviews of Terrifier 2, it was heavily discussed by the fandom. The many teases and questions it left for Terrifier 3 were dissected repeatedly online by fans in the years between the two movies, both in terms of the mystery of Sienna's connection to Art, and because of the striking mid-credits scene that saw Victoria give birth to Art's head.

One particular aspect of the ending that did gain some coverage was the final showdown between Art and Sienna. This was an unexpected turn of events, especially Sienna's father's sword being the weapon that could ultimately strike Art down. A few critics also picked up on this, and the key reason it was seen as a positive is that it established there was a deeper supernatural lore behind Art than him simply being an immortal clown with a penchant for disturbing violence.

All in all, as solid as the climax of Terrifer 2 was, it's also not a movie that hinged on its ending. The film surpassed expectations when it came to box-office performance, and surprised many by having a deeper and more coherent narrative than a shock-heavy slasher with plenty of visceral spectacle needed. However, by the time the final scenes actually arrived, Terrifer 2 had already delivered more than enough to satisfy existing fans of Art the Clown, and newcomers who simply wanted to see a gory slasher about a killer clown.