Another year, another half-baked “revival” of an iconic horror franchise.
Well, I guess this is actually the second half-baked “revival” of a major horror series we’ve seen, after Scream 5 released earlier this month. Unfortunately though, Leatherface’s revival suffers even more from some of the critical mistakes we’ve seen in many of its ilk. Sure, 2022’s version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre contains some pretty cool gore, and some pretty nice practical effects overall. Unfortunately though, they’re about the only truly redeeming factor of this movie, the lone bright spots of entertainment scattered about a mess of underdeveloped characters and messages.
Listen, I can respect a “goodbad” horror movie where turning off your brain and embracing the absurdity is a necessity. Hell, many of the original films being rebooted as of late fall into that category to begin with. What made these classics work in the first place though was originality and a lack of self-seriousness. Disappointingly, Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes up short in both categories.
Before we get into the bad parts of this new reboot, let’s discuss what the creators did pretty well: the special effects. Texas Chainsaw is one of the franchises when it comes to gore, and this movie doesn’t disappoint in that regard. There are some creative kill scenes, albeit with some pretty goofy ones mixed in between (I’m typically willing to forgive that in a slasher, though). The bus scene near the end in particular is bat-shit crazy to watch, and at no point do they hold back on the gore. Unfortunately, these few bright spots do not make up for the rest of the film, which feels uninspired and formulaic.
Let’s just get this out of the way now: who the hell is Mrs. Mc, and where did Leatherface’s family go? I guess Sally would be the only communicative one who knows of them, but it’s a bit disappointing that she never even brought them up. That’s far from the only disappointing part of Sally’s character though. Why pass up on a completely open shot at Leatherface because he won’t say your name? The guy just killed, like, an entire bus load of people. And then the old “Sike, they aren’t actually dead” twist at the end, when she finally shoots Leatherface while dying on a pile of garbage. Sally’s inclusion here seems completely unnecessary, especially after the passing of her original portrayer Marilyn Burns. Unfortunately, Sally is not the only unneeded addition to this film.
This movie really tries to shoehorn a couple different social messages into the fray, and ultimately neither of them really get developed enough to feel meaningful. First, the main characters moving into this small town to build their own utopia has to be a gentrification thing, right? I thought so too, but it pretty much becomes irrelevant halfway through the movie. The only “bad” thing they do is inadvertently cause the death of an old, ill woman with a frail heart, who it turns out was also knowingly harbouring a notorious serial killer. This creepy mute man is our old friend Leatherface, who proceeds to spend the rest of the night chainsaw-massacring everyone in sight.
Then there’s the school shooting plotline, which is mentioned and alluded to via flashbacks multiple times throughout this movie. It ultimately has no relation to the plot aside from making the protagonist super-extra-traumatised. In the end, it feels like something that was thrown in at the last minute to try to garner attention. I guess the “resolution” was supposed to be Lila being able to fire a gun at the end, but oh no, she forgot it wasn’t loaded and ended up almost dying instead. Again, this is a cliché but sometimes funny bit, but using it as the payoff for such a serious plotline just doesn’t sit right.
A big part of what made these legendary franchises develop such large cult followings is that the creators knew that they were making a movie that people watched for the thrills, and that’s what they focused on. Only with time, as more and more fans rewatched and dissected these films, did we begin to explore the underlying political sentiments that are indicative of their time period. In contrast, most of these modern iterations force these messages into your face, and then never really do anything to develop or resolve them. When you cram very-serious dialogue into an otherwise very-not-serious film, it really just feels patronising, bordering on disrespectful. Characters in fiction should be influenced and motivated by the sociopolitical environment of their times. When they end up going on 5 minute expositions taken from a college lecture slide on their topics, it ruins any immersion a movie may have had.
Anyway, that’s my whole opinion on this newest Texas Chainsaw movie, and a lot of it can apply to other reboots that we’ve seen as of late. Unfortunately, in this case, the thrills and kills did not make up for the generally poor writing and plot development. Not that we need Oscar worthy performances to make a slasher enjoyable, but the plot shouldn’t actively distract you and break the immersion as it does here. Hopefully we begin to see some more originality in the slasher genre going forward, as the modern formula has really become stale.