Horror Movie Review: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Let’s be honest… if Texas Chainsaw Massacre hadn’t been picked up by Netflix, very few would have cared that a new movie was released. This is a franchise that can be called middling at best and that’s only because the first two films are so strong.

Over the years, and with more false starts than a bunch of drunk runners, this franchise has lost most of its lustre. Yet the character of ‘Leatherface’ still continues to be one of horror’s most iconic villains. Regardless of the film’s that tried to humanise him.

From his savage debut in the 1974 classic original to the comedic, but brutal turn in the 1986 sequel. These first two movies made him a star and although the diminishing quality of what would follow could have damaged him, he has proven to have longevity. We’ve seen all of his movies and you can see what we think with our definitive ranking here.

Why am I focusing so much on Leatherface as an individual rather than the franchise as whole? Simply because Leatherface is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and this film knows that. It also knows that 2018’s Halloween sequel was incredibly well-received so copies elements of that. In one hilarious case, quite literally.

A direct sequel to the original 1974 movie only (just like 2018’s Halloween), Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes from the writing duo of Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues and director, David Blue Garcia’s entry.

Attempting to wipe the slate clean and start the franchise anew is not a bad idea. We have had many horrendous sequels, origin stories and remakes so something new is certainly welcome. Unfortunately, this 9th entry in the franchise slips in the pool of blood, guts and viscera it creates to land arse-first on the chainsaw.

A bunch of millennials, obsessed with Instafame, safe spaces and cancel culture have travelled to the abandoned Texas town of Harlow. They have cut a deal with the bank to auction off the properties and gentrify it. Cue a load of asinine fodder talking in soundbites, being obnoxious and wandering around a deserted Texas town. Or at least it should be deserted but the sister pairing of Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and Lila (Elsie Fisher) find an elderly woman and her adult son still living in the town’s orphanage.

The elderly woman claims she has the papers to prove that she still owns the property but an argument ensures resulting in her having a heart attack. On route to the hospital, she dies and her son witnesses it all. This is Leatherface and he is not happy, crashing the police car and killing everyone inside. Then taking his mother’s face to wear and picking up a chainsaw to make the town full of millennials regret ever leaving their cosy coffee shops in the city.

That’s it. Leatherface returns to the town and starts butchering his way through the cast in visceral fashion. If there’s one thing this movie can boast, it’s that it’s a very violent and gory movie. It certainly lives up to the ‘massacre’ name with the bus scene being a hellacious example of great gory effects. However, it’s the only thing the movie can boast about.

This is a pretty poor story exemplified by characters that are uninteresting and unlikable. There is nothing to invest in, even with flashbacks that reveal Lila to be a school shooting survivor. Something so harrowing should be impactful but there’s nothing here. The ham-fisted messages about trauma and gun-violence hilariously switched around later. It would be funny if it wasn’t so dire, which also applies to the ‘poking of millennial tropes and clichés’. Yes, that line of dialogue on the bus we all saw in the trailer is in the final movie and it’s even worse in context.

It’s mis-step after mis-step punctuated by acts of uber-violence leading to the film’s biggest mishandling of all. The returning character of Sally Hardesty (played now by Olwen Fouéré), the lone survivor of the original massacre.

This film desperately wants her to be their version of Halloween’s Laurie Strode. A woman who has never forgot what she went through, has hunted the titular killer and, upon finding out that he has resurfaced, heads off to end him. It’s embarrassing just how much of a rip off of a character she is.

Which brings us finally to Leatherface himself, played by Mark Burnham.

There’s not much to the villain, he isn’t much of a talker and the pig-squeals are gone in favour of brooding silence and intensity. Be a hulking beast of a man who can suddenly sprint as though the devil is chasing him. It’s a role that Burnham handles perfectly fine even if this Leatherface has more in common with the later franchise films than the original.

Sure, you can unchain your brain and just enjoy the intense gore and violence of this movie. However, that’s not possible when it comes to all the other stuff and it’s that stuff that stays with you afterwards.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t the worst entry in the franchise but it’s close. That might seem harsh but it’s fair because of just how much of an opportunity this clean slate was and how much is fumbled.