TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022)

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 Move Review

A woman attacked by a maniac in the 1970's returns forty-some years later to get revenge--no, it's not Laurie Strode. It's also not Jennifer Hills. This is Sally Hardesty, the lone survivor of the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Unfortunately for her, Leatherface has gone into hiding, so for almost fifty years, Sally has had to wait. This changes when a group of young twenty-somethings hit their parents up for money (I'm taking an educated guess here) to buy a ghost town in Texas. There, the group comes across...you guessed it...Leatherface.

In all his grey-haired glory

If you saw the 2018 Halloween movie, some of what is happening here will be familiar--much like that film, though it is a sequel, this one doesn't have a part number after the title--both Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre share original films name. Just as in Halloween, this movie follows the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie only, dismissing any remakes, sequels, or prequels that came before. Also, in both, our killers and main hero are of advanced age--senior citizen advanced. This brings me to a major issue I have with this movie--Leatherface has to be around 70 years old here, making him immediately far less imposing than when he was young. The guy has been in hiding for fifty years--are we to believe that during that time he has kept himself in prime condition to run down screaming teenagers? Apparently so, though his figure tells a different story. We can only imagine how much better this film would have been had it been set in 1983, giving Sally ten years to prepare for her revenge, and keeping Leatherface young enough to still be a believable, menacing villain. Not that much of the film centers on Sally--instead, our focus is more on the aforementioned youngsters coming into town to restore it.

Because these people are SO much more interesting

All four of these characters are immediately unlikable, and nothing is done throughout to change this. A few other characters are introduced--the all-knowing old guy at the gas station, a stereotypical Texas redneck, a couple cops--and they are only slightly less irritating than the main four. In all likelihood, you will find yourself wishing for the death of every single character you see, including Leatherface, just so they may stop making these films. The gun-toting redneck is the would-be hero, but alas, Dollar Store Thor is no match for the masked madman. 

"Bring it on, Tex"

The story is thin. The action is often predictable--Leatherface will have somebody cornered, only to have somebody else save that character--this happens so often you actually expect it every time you see the masked one. The acting is atrocious from top to bottom. If you're curious, Olwen Fouéré plays Sally (Marilyn Burns, who played Sally in the original film, died in 2014), and she is almost as invincible as Leatherface himself.

"It's just a flesh wound!"

Not all is bad here, however. The gorehounds will absolutely love this one--there is a ton of bloodshed and extremely graphic violence, and the effects are done exceptionally well. Some of the death scenes are so brutal they look almost too real. An entire bus full of annoying people arrive in the town--you know this is done to increase the body count, and my goodness, what a body count! Leatherface with a chainsaw in hand and on a bus filled with people you want to see killed is just as awesome as you are imagining. Some of the other scenes in the movie are equally impressive, including the field of dead sunflowers, which make for a beautiful but unsettling image. The final scene adds another satisfying moment, sending the viewer away with a bit of a shocker (stay tuned for the post-credits scene as well). Upon its release in 1974, the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie shocked audiences and helped change the horror film landscape--the 2022 sequel fails to capture any of the magic that made the original a classic, and is destined to spend eternity in the lake of mediocrity, swimming with most of the rest of the TCM films.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 Move Trailer