Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) Review!!

Synopsis – After nearly 50 years of hiding, Leatherface returns to terrorize a group of idealistic young friends who accidentally disrupt his carefully shielded world in a remote Texas town.

My Take – There is saying that horror franchises never die, something that is factually true when it comes down to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre series, which always manages to come out with a new entry every few years, with new writers, directors and producers hopping on board to cash in on the popularity of its main antagonist, Leatherface, a hulking masked maniac with a penchant for chainsaws and human skin face theft, setting him apart from his peers.

Introduced first in the Tobe Hopper directed dirty, relentless, and genuinely shocking classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), the Ed Gein-inspired mass murderer, who’s at his happiest when he’s chain sawing naive youngsters in half, has been a familiar name for decades especially for fright fans, however, unlike his slasher colleagues, has never been able to see a similar set of success, probably due to the diminishing value of each entry.

Now following the recent trend of naming one’s legacy sequel after the original property, like Halloween (2018), Candyman (2021), and Scream (2022), this 9th installment, which is directed by David Blue Garcia from a screenplay by Chris Thomas Devlin, and is based on a story by Evil Dead (2013) and Don’t Breathe (2016) duo Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, also wants us to forget about the three direct sequels, the remake, the prequel to that remake, the 3D sequel to the original and the two follow up prequels, as it positions itself as a direct sequel to the 1974 film.

Armed with an aim to dish out a particularly modern brand of chainsaw vengeance, but despite that promising set up, this new Netflix franchise kick starter ends up being just another new addition to TCM‘s legacy of mediocre follow ups, all thanks to a script that bludgeons any efforts do so.

Unlike its predecessors, the film is surprisingly not at all scary, is mildly atmospheric, and suffers from the same problems seen in previous installments. With all its efforts seemingly focused on delivering just gore and mindless killings without any relevance for 81 minutes, this one is an excellent reminder why Leatherface should retire once and for all.

Set nearly 50 years after the infamous killing spree of 1973, the story follows Lila (Elsie Fisher), a survivor of a school shooting, who along with her sister Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and her entrepreneur partner, Dante (Jacob Latimore), and his girlfriend Ruth (Nell Hudson), travel to the deserted city of Harlow, Texas seeking a fresh start by re-inventing the dead town into a hipster destination for those bored of big city life.

But on arrival, they encounter a resident, a former orphanage-runner (Alice Krige), who insists that she still retains the deed for her property and will not be going anywhere. A stand-off ensues, causing the elderly woman to collapse, and being rushed to the hospital with her mysterious grown-up son (Mark Burnham) alongside. But when she dies on the journey there, all hell breaks loose, as the son turns out to be none other than Leatherface, the killer from the unsolved massacre decades ago, who now seeks vengeance on the youngsters blaming them for his mother’s death.

Meanwhile, Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouere), the only survivor of the massacre, upon receiving news Leatherface’s re-emergence heads to Harlow to end him once and for all. Cue stomach-roiling carnage, extremely dumb character decisions to man oeuvre the story and nothing else.

A lot about this film’s failings can be perhaps blamed on the project’s convoluted shoot, which saw the original directors, Ryan and Andy Tohill (The Dig), being axed one week into production in Bulgaria. However, as the final version of the film just seems to pack a lot of characters, subplots, and backstory into 81 minutes without fully realizing anything, one can only imagine what the earlier version would have looked like.

Outside of school shooting survivor Lila, the film isn’t interested in character development, or even introductions. None of the ideas about idealistic gentrifries stick around long enough to develop into anything meaningful.

The film’s social commentary, including a bit where the new kids in Harlow are offended by a prominently displayed Confederate flag, is more glancing than hard-hitting. It 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. Well except for the time, Leatherface barges onto a bus full of visiting Californians whose first instinct is pulling out their cell phones and live-streaming his entrance, leading to a hilariously gory sequence, and probably the most memorable scene of the film. The new film is more explicit in another respect, too.

In the most shameless lift from the David Gordon Green reboot plan, the film arranges a rematch between its villain and the final girl that got away, hardened by age and trauma into a vengeful survivalist. But despite Olwen Fouere‘s best efforts the film ends up treating Sally like a hindrance, a shell of a character leveraged in for the sake of waving the legacy sequel banner.

Making matters worse is that she makes some pretty dumb decisions like having Leatherface at gunpoint and not pulling the trigger because she’s shocked that he doesn’t remember her. Again, let down by the weak script, we’re meant to believe she’s pursued Leatherface for 50 years and yet it all falls flat, much like her scant screen time.

While Elsie Fisher, the break out star of Bo Burnham‘s comedy-drama film Eighth Grade (2018), is likable, her co-stars Sarah Yarkin, Jacob Latimore and Nell Hudson are under-served. In other roles, Alice Krige, Moe Dunford, Jessica Allain, Jolyon Coy, Sam Douglas, and William Hope are wasted.

Only John Larroquette, who makes a welcome return as the film’s narrator, and Mark Burnham, who plays the chainsaw-swinging villain, manage to escape with some form of dignity. On the whole, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is a lousy legacy sequel that acts as tepid follow up to Tobe Hooper‘s grisly classic.