It may be regarded as one of the great cinema meanies, controversial for its graphic violence and sadistic treatment of female characters – including skewering one on a meathook – but we owe 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre a lot.
Arguably as influential a horror film as Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead would become in the zombie sub-genre, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre planted the seeds for future slasher films. It opened the door to other hulking WWE-reject killers with a fondness for slicing up teenagers, wearing masks and never uttering a word – like Halloween’s Michael Myers and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees.
Meanwhile, with its family of bloodthirsty, backwater lunatics, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was to lay the foundation for every crazy, torture-loving hillbilly tale from The Hills Have Eyes, to Wrong Turn, and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
As distasteful and disturbing as it may be, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has had a far-reaching impact. 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a sequel set half a century after the original, seems on a mission to honour that legacy. However, its tribute – from director David Blue Garcia and a story by Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe’s Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues – is only partially successful.
It’s hard to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre and not compare it to Halloween (2018). In both cases, the latest movies disregard the dozens of sequels and reboots that followed the groundbreaking first instalment in the franchise, preferring to treat the newest entry as a direct sequel, which kicks off decades later.
So, in Halloween (2018) you catch up with a Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) who, for 40 years, has been living with life-wrecking anxiety and making paranoia-fuelled preparations, because she believes that one day her brother Michael Myers will come for her. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though she’s not the main character, Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré replacing deceased Marilyn Burns) is in a similar situation. As the only survivor of Leatherface’s original rampage, this college-girl-turned-hardened-ranger has been waiting fifty years for the madman to resurface so she can get her revenge. Badass, white-haired old ladies for the win!
The difference between the two slashers – and the source of Halloween’s superiority – is the fact that the 2018 film allows itself to have a lengthy build up. It spends a lot of time drilling down into characters, probing their motivations and relationships with others, before the violence explodes. To be fair, that is the structure of the original Halloween as well, but Texas Chainsaw Massacre has no interest in embracing such sensibilities.
The new Chainsaw clocks in at just 81 minutes – the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a brisk 83 minutes, for the record – leaving little room for anything beyond the basics. As a result, the audience receives a thinly sketched plot about San Francisco influencers and investors who arrive in the ghost town of Harlow, Texas, with a dream of turning it into a gentrified haven for other young people disillusioned with big city life. Their arrival, and a tragic misunderstanding, stirs up a long dormant Leatherface.
Cue stomach-roiling carnage, extremely dumb character decisions to manoeuvre the story… and little else.
As one of the goriest releases to hit a mainstream screening platform in years, Texas Chainsaw Massacre nudges viewers to the meat-free life much like the 1974 original. At the same time, though, it forgets that some of the most succulent cuts of meat actually contain fat. Texas Chainsaw Massacre has hacked all of its flavour away, leaving a bloody slab that can only deliver a single, unsatisfying taste note.
Outside of school shooting survivor Lila (Elsie Fisher), and, to a lesser degree, Sally, the movie isn’t interested in character development, or even introductions. It also, criminally, isn’t invested in building any sort of tension. You don’t know these people. You don’t care. You can’t really fear for them. You’re not even put in a position to relish their gruesome demise.
Set in the present day, contemporary technology and cultural touchpoints like self-driving cars and social media make an appearance in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, the latter is inconsistently and jarringly integrated, apparently present only to introduce a smattering of uncomfortable laughs to the film’s tentpole bloodbath. It’s also strange to position characters as influencers and not show them as doing anything remotely influencer like. Especially when you compare the film to something like 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection, which embraced its live-streamed reality show concept.
To be fair, Texas Chainsaw Massacre does display flashes of something more interesting. It includes nods to the true story of skin-wearing serial-killer Ed Gein, which inspired the franchise (and Psycho of course). Alice Krige’s mother figure is positioned as the North Star in Leatherface’s life, and without her, there are no reins on his murderous urges.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre also revisits original franchise themes like the clash of new and traditional values, and the destructive impact of capitalism on small towns – although they’re delivered to the audience with the thoughtful consideration of Leatherface swinging a mallet.
A longer cut of the movie may have fleshed out things, taking better advantage of its tantalising ingredients, but as it stands, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is memorable only for its graphic brutality.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is screaming on Netflix as of February 18, 2022.
| Texas Chainsaw Massacre review | |
If you’re in the mood for gore, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the movie for you. It delivers little else, however. Character, tension and even a sense of nasty delight are missing from this brief, bare bones revisit of a slasher icon. It could have been a lot meatier and more memorable. |
5.5 |
| Texas Chainsaw Massacre was reviewed on Netflix | |