"Texas Chainsaw Massacre" Review: A Brutal Revival with No Sense of Legacy
- Vega
- Feb 25, 2022
- 6 min read
Once you move past that brutality, though, there is no storytelling left to offer anything meaningful for this Leatherface tale or any future entries.
Coming hot off the heels of the successful revival of “Halloween" comes "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," another sequel meant to both revamp and continue the story of the original film. The film inferiorly played with so many similar concepts from 2018's "Halloween" that I will forego any of the comparisons. Within the horror genre there comes a certain threshold of disbelief, not in the graphical nature of its violence, but in the details of the stories it tells. Whether it is the ongoing poor decisions of the victims or the extraordinary circumstances by which the antagonist continues to escape, there comes a certain allowance that the audience must accept to enjoy the experience. That being said, this most recent entry to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise grossly defies its threshold of allowances. Among the movie's poor story are ridiculous plot decisions, unbalanced characters, and a social commentary that is delivered without substance.
Hoping to find success in reviving an old ghost town (drawing similarities to the movie's own goal of rejuvenating the story of Leatherface), four friends travel to Harlow, Texas to meet with potential investors. Young entrepreneurs Dante (Jacob Latimore) and Melody/Mel (Sarah Yarkin), along with Mel's younger sister Lila (Elsie Fisher) and Dante's girlfriend Ruth (Nell Hudson), come to investigate the town and ensure the buildings readiness for auction. Already feeling unwelcomed by the few citizens still around, the group comes across an elderly woman who lived at the old orphanage with her adopted adult son. When she is wrongly evicted to make way for the inbound investors, Ginny dies, leaving her adopted adult son, the murderous Leatherface, seeking vengeance for her. The young friends, investors, and current residents all become victims to his rage. As they struggle to survive the chainsaw-wielding maniac, Sally Hardesty, the lone survivor of Leatherface's original killing spree in the 70s, returns to the town seeking to put Leatherface down once and for all.
A closer look at the movie's characters, the driving force of the narrative, unveils non-believable castings, an inbalance of oppositional weight, and a slew of silly decisions, both in character and the narrative. It made all the sense in the world for the group of friends to be of a younger generation, however, this cast felt too young. Rather than a group of 20-somethings believed to have the means to achieve their financial goals, this group carried themselves like nothing more than impulsive teenagers. Even worse than the casting is how unlikeable these characters were made to be. Some, like Dante, are characterized in an impulsively ego-centric manner, while others like Mel are just not given enough of a positive spin for which to cheer. Lila, who is set up to the final girl early on in the film, is almost the least likeable and it felt like the writers knew that and attempted to give a throw away school shooting survivor label on her to win over audiences. These characterizations erases any balance of good versus evil and, instead, positions a story of evil vs evil, with no likeable characters. Leatherface, while committing the most unsepakable of acts, is not situated in the story as a pure antagonist and is a hero in many ways. He, too, becomes a victim of the plot's gentrification commentary, a displaced child, aggressively acting out against those responsible for taking his mother from him.
Horror characters make nonsensicle decisions all the time, but they are typically mindless ones that are easy to look over. This movie takes that trend and amps it up from nonsensicle to completely unjustified, having characters make decisions that carry more narrative weight than just exploring the strange noise in the dark or leaving a weapon behind. The most glaring example was the sudden extreme concern for the old woman to the point that one of the group travels in the van with her in a glaringly uncomfortable and inappropriate situation. Even though rooted in an unjustified and silly motivation, this decision leads to the best sequence in the entire movie, with Leatherface's gruesomely innovative death of a deputy and the return to his face-skinning ways. But, other than his returning chainsaw, that is where the return of Leatherface's legacy ends. Moving further in the film, we meet Richter (Moe Dunford), a local mechanic who has no desire for the young group to be in town. Yet, when they plan to leave, he takes their keys because of his sudden concern over Ginny's health. Another moment where the gentrification sub-plot leads to a decision that does not match a characterization and reflects weak transitions in the script.
These deficits bypass not just singular character moments, but encompass an overall weakness in writing that borders on amateur. There are very blatant pauses throughout Leatherface's attacks that allows for other characters a chance to be saved or save themselves. Yes, this is a common horror device, but when Leatherface stops himself to slowly raise the chainsaw above his head and then lower it to resume attacking again, the writers are showing their laziness. The greatest sin this movie pulled was trying to bring back Sally's character from the original film as a hero-type. There was no draw to a character that is mostly forgotten by horror fans, let alone the general audience, but she was a complete failure in all aspects. Her attempts to stop Leatherface were comical at best. Even worse, and most frustratingly, she has him cornered in his room and neither does anything to the other, which leads to Leatherface attacking Mel and Lila before Sally reappears to help. Those felt like dinstinct moments that exist to different narratives, as neither matches the persona of the murderer or the savior that they were positioned to be.
The movie's overall plot is built on the underlying themes of social media and the weight of trauma, as well as a social commentary on the dangers of gentrification. The problem is there was no believeability in what led to the start of these events. That middle of nowhere town with nothing around it was not some prime spot for sparking new businesses. The setting and production design was great and really captured a certain grittiness that captured a disturbing atmosphere. However, in trying to be socially relevant, there were big social concepts that were poorly woven into a narrative that needed nothing more than a group of people happening upon a town and finding themselves in bad luck. Speaking of not being believable, the movie made Leatherface out to be one of the less effective killers in the genre. Dante has half his face hanging off from a hatchet and Sally is held in the air by the chainsaw as it guts her, and yet both end up living at a later point to send a narrative message. This was a group of decisions that made the movie out to be spoofy and eye-rolling.
The movie's ending was surprising, but again, felt very empty and purposeless, as their was no emotional connection to make the final girl matter to the audience. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” had entertaining moments and all of the characters were unlikeable enough to find joy in their meeting the end of a chainsaw. Once you move past that brutality, though, there is no storytelling left to offer anything meaningful for this Leatherface tale or any future entries. For those who think horror movies do not have to give much else than their kills, than you are missing the depth that not only the genre, but this franchise, has. This story was missing a substance to the character that helped elevate the Leatherface story to unsettling heights: his family. Disturbed and murderous in their own right, the rest of Leatherface's family from the slaughterhouse helped shape the “massacre” into more than just a hack and slash and their absence is felt in this newest entry.
A movie being "good" and a movie being "entertaining" can be mutually exclusive elements. A good, well structured and technically sound movie can be boring and an entertaining movie can be full of shit characters and storytelling, the latter of which is where this film lies. As a viewer, I have to admit that this movie gave plenty to talk about, with every head-scratching moment prompting an uprise in conversation. There were bits and pieces of promise scattered in certain elements of the movie that if another film is greenlit and given a new writing team, Leatherface could find success close to what Michael Myers and Ghostface have experienced in the past couple of years. Unfortunately, on this film alone, Leatherface continues to be plagued by dulled franchise entries.
RATING: 🪚 🪚. 5 / 5
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