Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

FEBRUARY 18, 2022

GENRE: SLASHER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

This new film is titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which you might think "again?" but it's actually the first one by that title, as it drops the "The" and restores the "Massacre" that was left out of Texas Chainsaw 3D, the last one that was allowed to be a box office hit. Its followup and now this film have largely bypassed theaters in favor of a streaming service, which lowers expectations, though in both cases they weren't designed for VOD - one has to wonder what sort of stuff they'll do if not encumbered by the need to fulfill mainstream expectations or the looming threat of the MPAA. Here's hoping that if this proves to be successful enough for Netflix, a tenth film is commissioned where the filmmakers know they can go for broke right from the start.

Once again billed as a direct sequel to the original (same route taken by Return/Next Generation and TCM 3D, and hell even 1990's Leatherface seemed to be ignoring TCM2), this one has Leatherface as an old man who is apparently living a kill-free life with his adoptive mother (Alice Krige) in a different Texas town. But said town is dying, and some internet startup types have apparently worked to buy what's left of it and auction the buildings off with the intent of turning the main street into a gentrified hipster haven; one girl wins a building and says she'll turn it into a brunch spot. "I love brunch!" says her friend, and thus we quickly understand that when Leatherface inevitably starts killing them all, it'll offer the same sort of glee we got when he took on the two preppy jocks in the opening of TCM2.

In fact, we're practically supposed to feel sorry for him, as he enters the story when Krige has a heart attack after the influencers force her to leave her home, claiming they have bought it just like all the other buildings. She claims she settled the matter with the bank and is still the rightful owner, and only a drunk child will be surprised to learn she is correct, and our "heroes" just forced a woman out of her rightful home. She eventually dies from her heart failure, which naturally pisses Leatherface off enough to start killing again, though first he makes a new mask out of his beloved ma (why he uses her face instead of one of the two cops he murdered immediately after, I don't know. Weird tribute, my man). Then he makes his way back to town, digs out his chainsaw from where it's been sealed up (yes, it's basically a John Wick "I'm thinking I'm back!" kind of moment) and starts killing everyone else in the movie.

Honestly, all of that would be enough to give the movie a pass; there are some nice gore gags (he breaks one guy's arm and uses the protruding/shattered bone to stab him in the throat), it's paced reasonably well, and basically it all just feels like a leaner, less obnoxious do-over of TCM3D, complete with the dumb idea to omit the other family members and let Leatherface be a solo act, i.e. just another generic slasher. But because this is a modern franchise movie, we have to have TRAUMA!!! And we get it in the form of Lila (Elsie Fisher), sister to one of the town-buyers who has tagged along for their road trip. As we learn just before Leatherface has his reawakening, she has survived a school shooting and is thus naturally hesitant around guns/violence. This idea isn't terrible in itself, but the filmmakers bungle it so badly it becomes downright distasteful, because when the big lug starts swinging his 'saw around the bus full with all these anonymous influencer jerks (most of them aren't even credited or given names), Lila, crouching on the floor, starts to mentally compare it to her school shooting experience - an incredibly tone deaf idea for a scene where they've gone out of their way to make us more or less root for Leatherface. That, plus the fact that she eventually has to learn to trust and use guns, makes the whole thing just incredibly icky, and I am baffled that no one on the production thought to point out how misguided it is in its depiction.

They also totally screw up their big selling point, which is that this film brings back Sally Hardesty as Laurie Strode. I'm not really joking; the whole franchise horror genre is built on some level of copycat-ism, but this takes it to another level, giving her the same hair that Jamie Lee had in Halloween 2018 and even making her say "I've been waiting for him for 50 years" as Laurie did (and, no surprise, she's obsessed with but he doesn't even remember her). Maybe it'd work with Marilyn Burns actually returning to the role instead of a new actress (as Burns passed away in 2014), but even then I'm guessing that (big spoiler here, fair warning!) it'd still leave us with a big "Why did they bother?" feeling when Sally is killed almost instantly, without really doing much and being such a limited part of the movie that she could practically be removed from it entirely without it making any difference.

Of course, if they did that the movie would be even shorter, as it's only about 75 minutes without credits, so I've basically left nothing out in my four short (for me) paragraphs worth of description. The only thing of note I haven't mentioned yet is Richter, a local redneck type who drives an exhaust-spewing pickup and carries an assault rifle, so we are supposed to look at him as another antagonist, but (big shock here!) he turns out to be not all that bad of a guy at all. He is far more interesting than any of our protagonists (and he looks kind of like Stephen Dorff, which is amusing re: franchise history), so naturally he doesn't last long - yet another dumb decision in a movie that is positively stacked with them by the time its over, nearly all of its goodwill completely undone by said bad calls.

And I looked, but failed to find any nods or connective tissue to the other films, so I am guessing producer Fede Alvarez was merely doing some damage control/spin when he said that while the film is only directly referring to the original, "I wouldn't say it skips everything. I think it's up to you to decide when and how the events of the other movies happen." Well, all due respect sir, but this film posits that after the events of the first film, Leatherface was taken in at this orphanage run by Alice Krige's character and he's been quietly living there ever since, with Sally living not too far away and dedicating her life to finding him. Seems anywhere from one to four other major attacks over the years would have, if nothing else, given her more to work with in order to track him down, no? She arrives on the scene of this incident within about an hour of being called, so it's not like she's let her self apointed avenger duties slide. So how could any of the other films have ever happened? Even if we assume Sally was just lazy, are we to believe Leatherface simply left his ailing mother from time to time to join other random families, do his thing, and then come home? "Ma, I'm back! Killed some kids coming back from prom, god they were annoying. Vilmer says hey!". Re-cementing up the wall to hide his chainsaw again every time must have gotten exhausting!

Basically, it's just a big ol' "It is what it is" affair. I didn't sit down expecting anything even on the level of TCM3 or The Beginning, nor did I receive it. The handful of good gore gags (for what it's worth, it's the first entry in the series that has "Massacre" in its title and an actual massacre in the film), brisk pace, and hilariously mean spirited final scene (which utilizes a Tesla's autopilot mode in a most delightful way) kept me from hating it, but the sheer number of poor decisions, lack of any real suspense, and completely worthless revival of the series' most beloved survivor meant I didn't actually LIKE it either. It's just there, another entry for our most inconsistent and mismanaged franchise, providing another excuse for the next team to hit the reset button again in a few years. It's about the only consistent thing this franchise can offer anymore.

What say you?

P.S. Don't put too much stock in John Larroquette's return - he's actually just narrating an Unsolved Mysteries kind of special about the first film's events that Lila sees on TV. It's about half the length of his others; he probably just recorded it himself at home and attached the .wav to a text.

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