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  

Sleepwalkers

Year of Release:  1992

Director:  Mick Garris

Screenplay:  Stephen King

Starring:  Brian Krause, Alice Krige, Mädchen Amick

Running Time:  91 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Teenage Charles Brady (Krause) and his mother Mary (Krige) move into the small town of Travis, Indiana, where Charles quickly attracts the attention of local girl Tanya (Amick).  However, Charles and Mary share a disturbing secret:  They are "Sleepwalkers", nomadic, shapeshifting vampiric creatures who feed off the life-force of virgins, and whose only weakness is the scratch of a cat.  Tanya is their latest target.

Full disclosure, I am a big Stephen King fan.  I have read most of his books, and seen most of the film adaptations, and this film was promoted as the first film that King had written exclusively for the screen.  There is the seed of what could have been a dark, scary, sexy horror film, but it quickly falls apart.  The Sleepwalkers are an interesting idea for a monster, and the incestuous relationship between Charles and Mary is disturbing even for a horror film, but it quickly falls apart into a ridiculous, campy mess.   There is very little suspense here, we know what the Sleepwalkers are right before the film even begins, with a short text prologue, and know within the first couple of minutes that Charles and Mary are Sleepwalkers.  They also are not particularly good at keeping themselves hidden.  Charles basically tells Tanya everything she needs to know about Sleepwalkers, including how to defeat them, in a helpful short story he reads to the class, and, after killing a predatory teacher, Charles almost immediately goes straight out and has a car race with the first cop he finds, during the course of which he shows the cop his monstrous true face.  It also turns out that the Sleepwalkers shapeshifting powers, extend to their cars, which they can make invisible (however heroic cat Clovis can see through the disguise  in red-tinted "cat-vision"), and even change them into completely new cars, which would probably save them a fortune when they fancy an upgrade.    Brian Krause is kind of bland as Charles, Alice Krige gives the best performance as Mary half-crazed with hunger and love for her son, Mädchen Amick, who was very good in Twin Peaks (1989-1991), at times seems to act as if she is in a broad comedy.  Ron Perlman pops up briefly as an obnoxious state trooper.  One of the fun things for horror fans with this film is the opportunity to play "spot the director" because it is littered with cameos including King himself, Clive Barker, Tobe Hooper, John Landis and Joe Dante, there is even an uncredited appearance by Mark Hamill.  Not much happens for much of the film, the murder of the teacher has absolutely no relevance to anything that happens later and just seems to be in there to liven up a dull midsection of the film.  I got the feeling that Stephen King seemed to be getting bored with his own script as the second half just falls apart with explosions, rubbery monsters and wisecracks.  In one scene towards the end, Mary kills a cop with a corn of the cob and makes a Schwarzenegger style wisecrack that seems completely out of character.  A word of warning, while cats are the heroes here, the Sleepwalkers kill many cats, albeit offscreen.  In fact the premise of a heroic cat battling a monster that is trying to steal a girl's life-force is very similar to a plot point in the film Cat's Eye (1985), which was also written by King.  Mick Garris, a veteran of horror TV in the 1980s, does his best to inject some life into the proceedings.  The were-cat monsters that are the Sleepwalkers true form are pretty good, but the film's use of CGI really dates it, which is of course not the fault of the filmmakers.  Bad or outdated practical or model effects can have a goofy to old-fashioned charm, but bad or outdated CGI just looks bad.  You can have fun with it if you are in the mood for a cheesy '90s horror film, or if you feel that your life isn't complete until you have seen and read everything with Stephen King's name on it, but otherwise it is best avoided.   

Brian Krause in Sleepwalkers