The Jester 2 – Trick or Treat (2025)

The Jester 2 – Trick or Treat (2025)

There we go! We’re continuing to slide down and sink even deeper!

The first one, The Jester – He Will Terrify Ya (2023), wasn’t exactly brilliant. Or, to put it more positively, you could just say it wasn’t too bad!

Stitches (2012), on the other hand, was absolutely rubbish!

I’ll admit, I’ve never been a huge fan of It (1990) either, although I’ll concede that the first part is brilliant. It’s the second part that really spoils it. I don’t like the remake, It: Chapter One (2017) either. So I didn’t bother watching the 2019 one. Nor did I watch the series, IT: Welcome to Derry. Yet I’m a huge Stephen King fan and I’m convinced the books are very good.

The prequel series, apparently terrifying, goes back to 1962 to trace the origins of the now legendary character known as Pennywise the Clown.

That’s not all: I had absolutely no desire to watch the Terrifier films (2016 to 2024). As you can see, psychopathic killer clowns really aren’t my thing. They’re often more disgusting than scary.

On the other hand, I quite like the Jack in the Box trilogy (2019 to 2024), but they’re probably the least appreciated by die-hard gore fans.

This Jester is still there, still the same, still the same actor, the same costume. I quite like that orange costume. The mask is also rather unsettling. It’s clearly inspired by the mask in Black Phone (2021), which isn’t the worst film. It’s actually quite good, but I’ve been told that its sequel, Black Phone 2 (2025), was a real let-down and best avoided.

As a reminder, Colin Krawchuk’s villain and his trilogy of short films featuring the killer clown have been viewed over 30 million times on YouTube! People complain far too much on social media that short films are often much better and that they should be turned into proper films. What they don’t understand is that it’s precisely if it becomes a feature-length film that it will turn out badly. There’s too much at stake in a film that lasts over an hour. You have to come up with ideas, avoid dragging things out, create a consistent atmosphere throughout, find good actors, and so on. It really is a huge undertaking.

There are loads of short films inspired by Smile (2022) that are well worth watching. But every concept quickly becomes tiresome, especially when you watch ten that follow exactly the same formula.

Kaitlyn Trentham is an excellent actress. At least in this film. She does a really good job, but I don’t know how she’d fare elsewhere. She’s a fairly solid element. It’s more the script that doesn’t quite work.

The clown is as terrifying as ever! He’s not the sort of jester a king would really want to have for his amusement, unless he had absolute control over him! As for the film itself, it’s far from brilliant, which makes the quest to find good films featuring killer clowns even more difficult.

The story is nothing special. It’s based on a series of very violent murders on Halloween night. Yes, yet again! Remember that the Jester is an old legend, well known to Americans, a diabolical clown who returns to haunt and kill every Halloween.

It isn’t even decent horror entertainment, because, unlike the first one, it’s quite heavy on gore and splatter. I found it very hard to watch. And I hate scenes where you see huge streams of saliva dripping from the mouth of someone who’s speaking. Here, it’s even ultra-exaggerated! These elements ended up completely ruining my enjoyment.

Too many slow bits and very little makes sense. Inconsistency and nausea are the words that sum it up perfectly for me. It’s a shame, but in the first one, the villain was the main draw of the story. But here, he didn’t interest me and didn’t really make me smile.

That said, you’re free to form your own opinion, because, thankfully, no one is obliged to think like me. But, personally, this film is almost worthless. It didn’t offer me much apart from introducing me to the actress.