The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (series)

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (18)

D: Tobe Hooper

Bryanston/Vortex (Kim Henkel & Tobe Hooper)

US 1974

81 mins

Horror

W: Kim Henkel & Tobe Hooper

DP: Daniel Pearl

Ed: Sally Richardson

Mus: Wayne Bell

Marilyn Burns (Sally), Allen Danzinger (Jerry), Paul Partain (Franklin), William Vail (Kirk), Gunnar Hanssen (Leatherface)

Fraught with controversy and even banned in some countries since its original 1974 release, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre will either strike people as one of the scariest horror movies of all time, or a shamelessly violent exploitation film.

A small group of teenagers visiting a cemetery in rural Texas pick up a mentally unsound hitchhiker, who they subsequently ditch, only to go from the frying pan and into the fire when they discover a ramshackle house occupied by a family of maniacs.

Adapted by the same true events which inspired Psycho & The Silence Of The Lambs, it displays a sustained amount of terror which never relents, even up to an ending without any real closure.

Though its cult success has turned it into a horror classic, it's a very difficult film to watch, both due to its guerrilla filmmaking style and its bloodthirsty content, but nobody can deny its power to disturb.

8/10

Gunnar Hanssen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (18)

D: Marcus Nispel

New Line (Michael Bay & Mike Fleiss)

US 2003

98 mins

Horror

W: Scott Kosar [based on a screenplay by Kim Henkel & Tobe Hooper]

DP: Daniel C. Pearl

Ed: Glen Scantlebury

Mus: Steve Jablonsky

Jessica Biel (Erin), Jonathan Tucker (Morgan), Erica Leerhsen (Pepper), Mike Vogel (Andy), Eric Balfour (Kemper), Andrew Bryniarski (Leatherface), R. Lee Ermey (Sheriff Hoyt)

Some clueless Hollywood executive must have watched the original movie and felt that a remake would be even more disturbing if the audience saw what "Leatherface" looked like beneath his mask made from human skin. It doesn't work.

It also wasn't a good move to cast R. Lee Ermey either, especially playing the same character from Full Metal Jacket, except as a sheriff rather than a drill sergeant.

Though it may have a bigger budget thrown at it, it lacks the austere style which made the original film so stomach churning. It also lacks a more important factor, which would be to make a horror film scary.

3/10

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (18)

D: David Blue Garcia

Netflix / Legendary / Exurbia / Bad Hombre (Fede Alvarez, Herbert W. Gaines, Kim Henkel, Ian Henkel & Pat Cassidy)

US 🇺🇸 2022

83 mins

Horror

W: Chris Thomas Devlin [based on characters created by Tobe Hooper & Kim Henkel]

DP: Ricardo Diaz

Ed: Christopher S. Capp

Mus: Colin Stetson

Elsie Fisher (Lila), Sarah Yarkin (Melody), Moe Dunford (Richter), Jacob Latimore (Dante), Mark Burnham (Leatherface), Olwen Fouere (Sally Hardesty)

A 2022 sequel to the 1974 film that ignores all the other sequels, remakes, reboots and spin-offs made between, taking a group of progressive, millennial entrepreneurs to the abandoned town of Harlow, Texas, where they plan to sell off the derelict buildings and gentrify the area to a bunch of teenagers who seem more interested in partying on a bus.

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre still holds up as one of the best horror movies of all time, and didn’t need anything added, particularly not any backstory or the necessity to give its iconic villain (Leatherface) any motives. Sometimes a maniac can just be a maniac, and horror stories have worked since the dawn of time with this premise.

This is basically a remake for the TikTok generation, plonking a bunch of idiots into a smorgasbord so a murderous madman can exact his twisted revenge. The only element that makes this a sequel is the return of the Sally character from the first movie, who wants revenge for the trauma she suffered, but her presence only results in unintentional comedy.

One small crumb of positivity is that it is competently directed, with some gory and effective death scenes. All the faults here lie solely with the screenplay, unlikeable characters and Hollywood’s obsession with remaking shit when they don’t need to. If a horror movie makes you feel more empathy for a chainsaw-wielding maniac rather than their victims, then it has failed to represent its genre.

3/10