Back in the early nineteen-seventies, there was a notorious massacre of some young tourists in Texas, involving a chainsaw and a family of cannibals, and that story has passed into legend. But fifty years later, the region has hit hard times, which can only mean one thing: the gentrifiers are moving in and in this small town, that means Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and her pals are here to bring business to a depressed area. She and her associates have travelled to this part of Texas under some illusions, but on arrival, the locals they meet are somewhat less advanced in their welcome than they might be...
Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the true masterpieces in horror movies, yet its lightning in a bottle scenario and production (and success) has been difficult to replicate, as its umpteen sequels, prequels and remakes proved. The attempt to turn this into a franchise a la Halloween or Friday the 13th was somewhat scuppered by the form of the source being stubbornly reluctant to adapt to such a business concept: sure, you could have Leatherface as a recurring villain, but he only really succeeded as part of the setting he was in, his insane family, the Vietnam era callousness of sending the young off to war.
The original was always purer in its notions than the follow-ups and more complex, even Hooper's rather desperate Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 was forced to turn the premise into a gross out comedy, not something returned to until this 2022 effort, but then again, not committed to. It had a troubled history, losing its initial directors and having to be hastily reconfigured, and then finding production troubles when test audiences hated it, leaving its last resort option to be sold to Netflix. To be fair, many projects do have to fall back on that option, selling to streaming services when it appears there is no real market for their work.
Was TCM '22 sold short? Eh, not particularly, it was slick in ways that the Hooper version could never envisage, but its theme of gentrification intruding on the traditional, applied to the youngsters muscling in on Leatherface's territory, came across as far less cheeky and having its cake and eating it too, and far more tone deaf and painfully lacking in self-awareness. The victims were Millennials, in the main, and we were supposed to cheer their bloody demises because they are addicted to their phones and plugging products on social media for money instead of getting a proper job, but was that actually worth getting murdered horribly? This attitude seemed an overreaction, to say the least, but we were seeing it all over twenty-first century horror.
In a brief one hour twenty, this considered a few reasons why the culture wars might be fuel for horror, yet merely served to illustrate why such subjects simply made viewers very tired rather than enthused about seeing the slaughter. Also, we are asked to believe the Leatherface here was the original - the rest of the family are nowhere to be seen - and how old was he meant to be? He must be in his seventies, yet despite being visibly overweight was able to exercise feats of strength that looked absurd. Just because he was wearing a mask of human skin didn't render him superhuman, those chainsaws are heavy; what about his back, for goodness' sake? To add insult to injury, the sequel saw fit to reintroduce Sally from the first film, now equally elderly (Olwen Fouere), and give her a send-off that went against everything in her survivor’s victory of the classic original. Nothing here sat right and increasing the gore quotient suggested the makers understood nothing of what they were working with. Music by Colin Stetson.
