Texas DJ Stretch (Caroline Williams) hears an extravagant murder committed during a phone-in to her show, and teams up with Lefty (Dennis Hopper) to track down those responsible - a certain family of cannibals...
If you watched The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and wondered where all the gore was, why, here it is in the sequel. Tobe Hooper, working from a script by L.M. Kit Carson, returned to the movie that made him famous after a couple of expensive flops, hoping that lightning would strike twice.
The black comedy is now more blatant, and more money means lots of gory effects by Tom Savini. But the scares have gone. There's a misguided attempt to humanize Leatherface, making out that his sex drive is in fact channeled into his chainsaw, and he even falls in "love" with Stretch. You wouldn't have found this nonsense in the original.
Despite an inspired scene where Stretch is in the embarrassing position of wearing her friend's face, the film is largely a succession of rehashes of the original's best features. The most subversive part is that the family (now called the Sawyers - do you see?) has found a useful place in society as suppliers of meat products. But the half-hearted satire on capitalism doesn't sit well with all the clowning around.
Considering he's the star, it's surprising that Hopper is only in the film for about half an hour. A nice bit with him wordlessly sizing up chainsaws in a hardware store apart, he can really play a nutter like Lefty in his sleep. If he wants revenge on the family, why doesn't he just get an easier-to-use gun, instead? And why wasn't anyone on the trail of the family before? There was a survivor at the end of the first film, after all.
Basically, Texas 2 is to the original what, say, the original Halloween II is to the original Halloween: perfectly watchable, but nothing special. The delirious Lifeforce is more fun than this. Watch for: Kinky Friedman and Joe Bob Briggs. Music by Hooper and Jerry Lambert.
American horror director who has spent his whole career trying to live up to his electrifying debut, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. After the similar but not as good Eaten Alive, he directed the minseries of Salem's Lot, slasher The Funhouse, and blockbuster Poltergeist (despite rumours of producer Steven Spielberg's hands-on involvement).
Then a string of under-achievers: vampire sci-fi Lifeforce, sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and remake Invaders from Mars led to mostly straight to video or television work: Spontaneous Combustion, Night Terrors, The Mangler and Crocodile. In TV he has directed episodes of Dark Skies and Taken. A remake of The Toolbox Murders went some way to restoring his reputation with horror fans.
