Premise: Some influencers buy up the Texas Chainsaw Massacre town to revitalize and…well…you know what happens.
I adore the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I fully understand the desire to keep remaking it or making sequels. It’s a simple premise that can be reconfigured a lot of ways. I’m 100% fine with someone taking a stab at it every couple of years. However, I do remain unconvinced that anyone will get a sequel/reboot/requel right. The first movie is cheap and ugly. There’s no history that it’s responding to, and that’s why it works. It’s a grizzly movie that isn’t trying to prove anything. Every attempt at a sequel either wants to expand on the idea or tries to manufacture the lo-fi look. That’s hasn’t worked. The lack of explanation is what made the original work. There’s a difference between costing $50,000 to make and getting $5,000,000 to make something look like it cost $50,000.
Other than the title, which I’ll get to in a side rant, I like a lot of what this new movie is bringing to the franchise. It’s not a re-envisioning or a reboot. It’s much simpler. “What would be a fun group of victims for this installment?” It’s a movie that is very aware that it’s the 9th installment of a franchise that has never had a great sequel. I don’t think it’s trying to be a great sequel. It just doesn’t want to be the sequel everyone complains about when going through the series. In that respect, I think it’s a success. It has some gory kills. It went for nice low hanging fruit in terms of targets. A horror movie set in the 60s kills hippies, in the 70s kills disco dancers, in the 90s kills grunge people, and in the 2020s kills influencers. It’s the good kind of lazy. Best of all, the movie is short and to the point. It doesn’t spend too much time investigating who Leatherface is or how a man who must be in his 70s now is still so good at killing. He just is. Give him 81 minutes to kill people and leave me with enough time to fit in another movie after it if I want.
While I’m forgiving of a lot about the movie, I can’t say I cared much for it. None of the characters were all that interesting, even as types. There’s wasn’t a lot of creativity in terms of location scouting or how to shoot things. Very little buildup of suspense or terror. I’m starting to wonder if found footage is the only way to get the right level of griminess for a proper sequel. I really didn’t care for Elsie Fisher being the survivor of a school shooting. That’s was the wrong kind of tasteless.
Side Rant: I’m starting to think title “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is a problem. It’s a perfect title. However, it is a long title that you can’t do much with. Giving it a subtitle (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Leatherface’s Revenge) is too long and clunky. The words in the title don’t work unless they’re all together. Calling a sequel “The Oklahoma Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Texas Machete Massacre”, or “The Texas Chainsaw Slaughter” would get the point across that it’s part of the franchise, but it doesn’t sound right. I really don’t think Leatherface is evocative enough to work as its own title (the 2017 film with that title didn’t even get a US Theatrical release). So, we’re stuck giving these movies really unhelpful titles. This is the third one called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Unlike the 2003 movie, this is a sequel, not a reboot. It’s not even a launching point movie. It’s simply a Texas Chainsaw Massacre installment. This movie absolutely should have a title like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 9: Rebirth, but that sounds awful, not to mention that there’s no consistency to the titles before it.
Compare this franchise to similar ones. Halloween is short and generic. It could be any Halloween. Friday the 13th is longer yet still uncommitted. A Nightmare on Elm Street is about as wordy as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it implies that there could be multiple nightmares and invites contortions of the title. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is definite. There’s “the” massacre. The title is a mouthful and all words are needed. There’s isn’t much implied variation there. Perhaps the title has doomed all sequels. Just a thought.
[Correction: I realized after writing this that this title is "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Most of my points still stand though.]
Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend
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