Tobe Hooper took 12 years to develop a sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, despite the fact that its pale imitators had become full-fledged franchises with yearly instalments, since he had no ideas. The fact that the man who created Leatherface and his twisted gang of psychos experienced a decade-plus of writer’s block is telling, especially when we consider the landscape of this “franchise” and its commitment to rebooting itself every five years, all while deviating further and further from Tobe’s original blueprint. Legendary’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre seeks to be numerous things at once with the next swing at bat, ultimately satisfying nearly no one and proving that there are still no new ideas.
Taking the beat-for-beat principles of 2018’s Halloween reboot and applying them to this franchise, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is set 50ish years after the first picture, with no indication that any of the other films have occurred. Leatherface appears to have gone silent following the events of that film and has been AWOL ever since, settling in a separate, small Texas town and storing his tools for a rainy day. To add a slight element of irony, the events of the original film have become a true-crime legend known as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” which is once again narrated on TV by John Larroquette.
One of the opening images displays a service station loaded with commemorative souvenirs, one of a few instances where the new film, like Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, embodies a wicked sense of humour. In reality, there are a few darkly funny gags in this Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but they’re few and few between, and they’re mostly so distinct from the overall tone of the film that they stand out. This film demonstrates that you can’t mix Tobe’s first and second films.
While the 1974 picture Chainsaw was loaded with subtext and went out of its way to establish a mood through subtlety and everything it didn’t show you, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is as huge, dumb, and loud as a party bus parked near Bourbon Street. Some have speculated that the film will be a satire of internet influencers, cancel culture, and social media-obsessed Zillennials, based on the marketing. It is ultimately none of those things, with those tenets serving only as extremely basic character qualities.
The characters in Texas Chainsaw are so insignificant that most of them, including one introduced in the first few minutes, don’t even have their names revealed on-screen. They move from scene to scene because the screenplay requires them to be present for what happens next; it’s tedious and sloppy, even from a viewing perspective. The film’s attempt to create a Jamie Lee Curtis/Laurie Strode analogue, transforming original survivor Sally Hardesty into a tough-as-nails Texas Ranger with a grudge, is tantamount to this. At least, that’s what the film wants you to think about Sally; really, she’s little more than a prop for Leatherface and a pathetic handoff to the new final girl, Elsie Fisher from Eighth Grade in a thankless part.
There are some bright spots in Texas Chainsaw 2022, despite the fact that it is mostly depressing. Aside from the previously noted black comedy, the gore sequences are usually distinctive and, at times, rather gruesome. A character is hit in the chest with a hammer and flies like a cartoon, while the slaughter of another with a meat cleaver is shown exclusively through a swinging door that acts like a zoetrope, the latter of which is a moment so full of style that it feels out of place with everything else around it. How come there are moments of levity and oddity that seem to have crept into the final cut?
Leatherface, played by Mark Burnham, embodies the peculiarity of the character in the same ways that the late Gunnar Hansen did in the original film, which is another good offering from the new film. It’s a rendition of the character that feels more faithful to Hooper’s vision than any other attempt in recent memory, a larger-than-life person who becomes a living instrument but whose self-expressions wander into new territory when by himself. Unfortunately, the film can’t decide what it wants Leatherface to be. At times, he transforms from the mentally deranged killer we know to Aquaman-style leaping out of a pool of water and creating traps. This Leatherface, like the film itself, waffles from one interpretation of what it could be to another from scene to scene, consistency shedding like a freshly worn suit.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was about the deconstruction of the American nuclear family, the disintegration of a homeland engulfed in the Vietnam War, and the massacre of animals. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Edwin Neal laments that his family “has always been in meat,” and this is part of the movie’s thesis, which Tobe himself stated was about meat. This Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t about anything; at least, not anything other than a cheap cash grab, which is, well, in keeping with the rest of the franchise. I will give it this: it does have a massacre, giving a sequence so drenched in blood that you may forget how monotonous the rest of the film might be.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
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