Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Starring Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford
Directed by David Blue Garcia
Wanting to create a new community in the shadow of a ghost town in Texas, Melody (Sarah Yarkin), her sister Lila (Elsie Fisher), and their friends host a group of social media influencers to transform the ghost town of Harlow into a booming city filled with diversity - in the middle of Texas. When they inadvertently kick out an elderly woman (Alice Krige) and her son (Mark Burnham), they awaken a deep-seeded evil in the town in the form of Leatherface, the iconic killer who went into hiding fifty years after his last killing spree, living in solitude with his mother nestled in the ghost town. Now awakened, he dusts off his old chainsaw to extract revenge against those who kicked him and his mother out, but he's got an old friend waiting in the wings: Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouere), the only survivor from Leatherface's original carnage, who is now a hardened Texas ranger hell bent on killing Leatherface once and for all.
"TCM" (as I'll refer to it from now on, because honestly it takes too much time to type out "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" over and over again, and it'd be putting more effort than the actual filmmakers did to make this film) tried to accomplish what David Gordon Greene managed to do in 2018: re-vitalize a long-dead franchise by disregarding all the sequels that came before and make a direct sequel to the original. While it worked with "Halloween," it didn't work at all for "TCM." "Halloween" managed to reunite Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode with Michael Myers, and the result was a thrilling, terrifying, action-packed ride ("Halloween Kills..." not so much). "TCM" decided to bring back their own legacy character: Sally Hardesty, but only ICO ("In Character Only"), since the original actress who played Sally, Marilyn Burns, sadly passed away in 2014. Losing that personal connection was only the beginning, as the long-awaited reunion between Sally and Leatherface was met more with a "meh" than a "wow," serving as a highly anti-climactic moment that's a slap in the face to Tobe Hooper's iconic legendary work.
In fact, the entirety of "TCM" is a perpetual slap in the face (or, in this case, chainsaw to the face) to the original. Here, director David Blue Garcia tried to appeal to the younger generation by introducing the woke culture, which only proves that, when push comes to shove, many of them would be easy fodder for anyone wielding a chainsaw, or even a sharp piece of paper. "TCM" is more a comedy than a horror, which wasn't the director's intent, but that's how it turned out, especially during the "party" bus scene, as Leatherface enters to enact carnage while the social media influencers just filmed him with their camera phones, and a young man actually...actually...seriously, he actually...says, "try anything and you get canceled bro." Again, he actually said that...actually...Anyway, Leatherface of course takes this threat to heart and decides to turn his life around, using his chainsaw to tear down the elitist bourgeoisie and start his own hemp farm. A nice, happy ending for all involved...
Of course I'm being sarcastic, as neither Leatherface, nor we, care whether or not cancel culture exists. Typically, you're supposed to be frightened of the unstoppable killing force and feel for the victims, but this is totally the other way around. Leatherface and his mother were content being isolated and left alone, until a group of wannabe world changers kick them out of their home (gentrification at its least finest) that sparks his murderous rage. You actually hope Leatherface slices and dices through everyone - and he pretty much does - in extreme bloody goodness. In fact, that's the only good thing about this film: the over-the-top violence and gore. Blood pours like rivers. Brains get bashed in. Decapitations and body parts getting strewn all over the place. It's basically "Singing in the Rain" set to blood instead of rain.
The characters are so forgettable and generic it's not even worth mentioning, with the sad exception of Elsie Fisher. Years ago, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her breakout role in Bo Burnham's directorial debut "Eighth Grade," which was a revolutionary piece of work centering about the struggles a girl has to be accepted as she transcends from middle to high school and all the social and personal turmoil she goes through. Fisher was primped to be the next big thing, but somehow something happened and now she's here, playing the part of a hardened girl who was the survivor of a school shooting (because of course you have to include that here, even though it's more manipulative than inspirational) who is afraid of guns and seems to be the weaker of the two sisters (honestly, if they didn't say they were sisters, I would've thought they were lesbian lovers). Hopefully she can rebound from this disaster and get herself back on the right track.
For those who are a fan of gore, violence, and seeing moronic stereotypical stock characters getting their comeuppance, then "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is for you - for the other 99.9%, it's a total waste of time - then again, they did exactly what they advertised: it takes place in Texas, there's a chainsaw, and a massacre.
The Score: D-
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