TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022) 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is following the ongoing trend of resurrecting and “reboot-queling” old franchise films like Scream (2022) and Halloween (2018). Nixing the sequels to the 1974 classic that have come so far, and setting it almost 50 years after the events of the original. Texas Chainsaw Massacre brings in a new cast of young adults to be terrified by a much older Leatherface this time around. 

 

The issues this film struggles with are immediately apparent from the start. The opening 25 minutes tries to do too much, from reintroducing you to events from 1974, introducing the characters, giving them a reason to go to Harlow, Texas, and more; I won't go into the details for the sake of being spoiler-free. Along with all that, the film decides to throw seemingly every modern political hot button topic in at you for no reason really at all, considering almost all of it never has an impact or factor on the storyline, nor does it add any dimension to the characters aside from one: Lila (Elsie Fisher). There are characters in this film that are walking cliches and stereotypes with nothing written in to flesh them out into anything but that. The way they bring in Sally (Olwen Fouéré), the final girl from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) lacks almost any detail to a point of thoughtlessness, only giving us enough just to show that she is indeed in the film. Something that could have been done better as we saw with Jamie Lee Curtis’ return in Halloween (2018).

 

As was mentioned, the first 25 minutes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre will have you eyeroll, cringe, and most likely be frustrated. After the film throws all of its issues at you in the first part of the movie, it then decides to just get to why you're watching the movie in the first place. Leatherface gruesomely killing and terrorizing people. This is when the film finally finds its footing. As Lila (Fisher) becomes more than one-dimensional, Leatherface starts on his expected rampage. The kills are gruesome, violent, and for the most part, creatively well done. Giving a kind of jolt to the movie that was at first running head on into pointless cash grab territory before suddenly became a fun time, for me at least. 

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, ironically similar to an actual chainsaw, takes a couple pulls on the ripcord before it starts up. Once it's running, the film becomes a lot more entertaining to watch.