1 of 5 | Leatherface (Mark Burnham) returns in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Photo courtesy of Netflix
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ushered in the lucrative wave of slasher movies, but the Chainsaw franchise itself never reaped the rewards of Halloween, Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street. Netflix's latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre, now streaming, is another entry that misses the point of the franchise.
Dante (Jacob Latimore) and his friends Melody (Sarah Yarkin), Ruth (Nell Hudson) and Melody's sister Lila (Elsie Fisher) plan to reopen the ghost town of Harlow, Texas. As they prepare for an auction of the buildings to potential new businesses, Leatherface (Mark Burnham) returns to chop up business associates and friends with a chainsaw.
Chris Thomas Devlin's screenplay (story credited to Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues) pays lip service to setting a new Leatherface rampage amid modern social themes. At best, it bites off more than it can chew, but more likely it's a cynical exploitation of social woes.
Dante cut some corners to start the auction on time, so there is a hint that he and his friends now reap what they've sown, with extreme consequences. Lila is the survivor of a school shooting, but the film provides no insights into that tragic modern phenomenon other than that Lila now has to survive another massacre.
The original Texas Chain Saw also was inspired by a real life crime, that of Ed Gein. Gein wasn't as current as school shootings still are, and the new Chainsaw is only interested in nonstop carnage after Act 1.
The return of Leatherface raises a lot of questions the film doesn't answer. Where has he been? Why has he been waiting? Why now? Of course, victims in a crisis don't have time to ask those questions, but the audience does.
Leatherface may be the iconic killer of the franchise, but he's not the only factor that makes a good Texas Chainsaw movie. Leatherface always has a whole family of cannibals and creepy locals to help him terrorize tourists.
Ignoring the family is Texas Chainsaw Massacre's biggest mistake. As relentless as Leatherface's new kills are, a Chainsaw movie with only Leatherface gets old fast.
Because director David Blue Garcia can show all the gore he wants, he doesn't have to create disturbing imagery like Tobe Hooper did in the original. A woman getting hung on a meat hook or forced to have dinner with a cannibal family was far more unsettling than seeing a series of graphic dismemberments.
The 2022 film adds scatological grossness to the proceedings. So this Texas Chainsaw Massacre is literally just wallowing in slop.
Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouere) also has been waiting since 1974 to face Leatherface again. Bringing back the survivor of the 1974 film lacks the magnitude of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) returning to Halloween for several reasons.
One, they had to recast the role since original actor Marilyn Burns died 2014. Even if Burns were alive to reprise her role, she did not become a movie star to the degree Curtis did, so it would not have been as big a deal.
There's also been no franchise continuity to Texas Chainsaw. Halloween may have fudged the timeline a few times, but Curtis was in half the sequels. Even if the new films ignored everything after the original, Laurie Strode was integral to the franchise.
With credits running at 74 minutes (plus a brief post credits tag), Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn't a major investment of time. But, the early entries in the franchise have such fun with the wonderful weirdness of the family that it's a bummer to see it devolve into an excessive chainsaw fest.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001 and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
