Here at Dread Central, our Digital Features let us spotlight the creators, projects, and talent pushing horror in bold new directions. Today, we’re turning that lens inward to celebrate one of our own titles: The Jester 2, produced by our parent company Epic Pictures, a film that promises to make this Halloween season one you won’t forget anytime soon.
Written and directed by Colin Krawchuk, the sequel builds on the viral shorts he first made in 2016 and the feature debut that followed. Now, with The Jester 2 hitting theaters nationwide on September 15 and 16, Krawchuk is taking his masked trickster bigger, badder, and meaner than ever before.
The journey began at the world premiere last month during Midsummer Scream, the sprawling celebration of all things spooky. For Krawchuk, it was a first. “It was my first time going to Midsummer Scream,” he says. “My first horror convention at all. I had no idea what to expect. Going there and seeing the huge horror community, with people walking around in elaborate costumes—it was a little intimidating. I just hoped I could win them over.”
He needn’t have worried. The Jester already has a fandom, and its devotion borders on surreal. In Uruguay, one fan painstakingly built his own Jester mask and costume out of paper mâché. In Orlando, another fan recognized Krawchuk across a crowded kickoff event, proudly showing photos of himself dressed as the Jester the Halloween before. And then there was the year rapper Tyga unveiled a full Jester costume, complete with a custom-made mask, to tens of millions of followers online.
“My brain could hardly process it in that moment,” Krawchuk laughs. “Then I just went back to doing the dishes. It was a lot.”
It makes sense that the Jester has become synonymous with October. For Krawchuk, Halloween is more than a setting—it’s a cinematic tradition. “Trick ’r Treat is such a good Halloween movie to put on,” he says. “It permeates the atmosphere. You can’t beat Carpenter’s Halloween, of course, but Trick ’r Treat fulfills the promise of the premise. You take Halloween out of that movie, and there is no movie. That’s what makes it perfect.”
By contrast, he points to Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House. “I love that show—it’s one of my favorite things. But there’s an episode later in the season where you suddenly realize it’s Halloween. You could remove Halloween from that story and nothing changes. You can’t say the same for Trick ’r Treat. Halloween is its heartbeat.”
That obsession with the season runs through The Jester 2, a film that practically glows with jack-o’-lantern energy.
The sequel’s biggest addition is Max, a teenage magician and social outsider who finds herself caught in a brutal showdown with the Jester. Played by Kaitlyn Trentham (Murder Made Me Famous, Within the Woods), Max embodies a fresh kind of final girl—scrappy, determined, and armed with her own tricks.
Krawchuk explains that Max grew out of the challenge of pairing the Jester with someone he couldn’t just kill outright. “For me, it was about the kinship between the Jester and Max—it’s an unspoken thing. There are moments where you want there to be a relationship, almost a professional understanding.”
His biggest inspiration? Michael Mann’s Collateral. “Even though Vincent would kill Max in any other circumstance, you get glimpses that Vincent might actually be the best thing to happen to him. That’s why Max in The Jester 2 is named Max: it’s an homage to Collateral.”
Krawchuk is quick to place Max in the lineage of horror heroines he admires. “Shawnee Smith in Chuck Russell’s The Blob (1988) was really good,” he says. “She sells the horror of seeing this amorphous blob erupt out of a sink and suck a guy into a drain. There’s no inauthenticity in her performance. She commits 100% to what is, on paper, incomprehensible—and it works.”
It’s that same grounded sincerity he wanted from Trentham in The Jester 2. “The movie’s outrageous, but her performance needed to be real. That’s how you hook the audience.”
Of course, not every idea makes it into the final film. Krawchuk grins as he recalls one especially outlandish concept. “There was a trick where the Jester shakes someone’s hand, and when they clasp, his hand pops off like a G.I. Joe piece. It slithers up the person’s arm like a python and squeezes until the arm rips off. Everyone just looked at it and said, ‘We can’t do this.’”
It’s precisely that deranged imagination that has made the Jester such a fan favorite—equal parts macabre and playful, as likely to terrify as to amuse.
The Jester 2 is written and directed by Colin Krawchuk (The Jester). Michael Sheffield (The Jester), Kaitlyn Trentham (Murder Made Me Famous, Within The Woods), Jessica Ambuehl (Becoming, The Dream Motel), and Dingani Beza (23 Minutes to Sunrise, Marshall’s Miracle) star in the film. It was produced by Patrick Ewald, Cole Payne, and Jake Heineke.
Tickets for The Jester 2 are now available via Fathom Entertainment and participating theatre box offices. It’s only in theatres for two nights, so don’t trick around, or they just might sell out before you can get your gloves on them.
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