Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Year:  2022

Director:  David Blue Garcia

Screenplay:  Chris Thomas Devlin, story by Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, based on characters created by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper

Starring:  Sarah Yarkin, Elise Fisher, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Nell Hudson, Jessica Allain, Olwen Fouéré, Jacob Latimore, Alice Krige

Running Time:  81 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Young entrepreneurs Melody (Yarkin) and Dante (Latimore), along with Melody's sister Lila (Fisher) and Dante's girlfriend Ruth (Hudson) travel to the remote Texas town of Harlow, which they plan to auction off piece by piece to create an exclusive, gentrified new development.  However, the town still has some remaining occupants - local mechanic Richter (Dunford), who is reluctantly working for the group, elderly orphanage proprietor Mrs. Mc (Krige) who refuses to leave her home, and, most of all, a masked, chainsaw-wielding murderer known as Leatherface (Burnham).  The group's only chance of survival rests with Sally Hardesty (Fouéré), the only survivor of Leatherface's killing spree some fifty years earlier, and is now obsessed with revenge.

As incredible as it may sound, this is the ninth film in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise.  It follows on from the 1974 original, ignoring the sequels as is they had never happened.  The character of Sally Hardesty, the only survivor of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, reappears, this time played by Irish actor Olwen Fouéré, Marilyn Burns, who played the part in the original film, having died in 2014, and John Larroquette reprises his role as narrator.  Despite being short, the film drags towards the beginning, even though we never know much about the characters, except that Lila is traumatised after a school shooting, during which she was injured, and Dante has an internet cookery show.  Despite the provocative title and being banned in Britain for 25 years, the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was scary, but not gory, hence it's trouble with the British censors, they thought the film was too intense, but they didn't know what to cut.  This Texas Chainsaw Massacre, however, is almost drenched in blood, when it does kick into gear, the slaughter barely stops, including a scene where Leatherface carves his way through a tour bus full of people.  There aren't many surprises here.  You'll quickly guess what is going to happen, and you'll probably be able to quickly work out who will survive and who won't.  The cast are good, and do the best they can with limited material, and the action is pretty well staged, and well photographed, with Bulgaria standing in for Texas.  Probably the best scene in the film is when Leatherface starts to attack people on the bus, while everyone is live-streaming him at first and we see one of the phones with with viewers "hearting" the carnage and comments such as "OMG THATS SO FAKE".  The problem is that there is some lazy storytelling, characters suffer fatal injuries but survive long enough to provide help or information when our heroes happen to pass by, before immediately expiring; Leatherface, who must be at least approaching 70, given the timescale of the films, and has a bad leg, at times lumbers around like the elderly, injured man he would be, but at other times seems as sprightly as an Olympic gymnast; and there are plot holes, and, most crucially, there isn't enough backstory to the characters for us to really care about them.  It's not the worst film, or even the worst Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, but it really isn't good.  If you are in the right frame of mind for it, then it might be fun.  I'm sure it will find it's rightful place at parties come Halloween, and it would probably be good during the early hours at an all night horror movie marathon, because it's loud, lightweight and gory.  

Elise Fisher, Sarah Yarkin, Nell Hudson and Jacob Latimore in Texas Chainsaw Massacre