MICHAEL FOSTER-SANDERS
senior producer
michael.foster-sanders@my.tccd.edu

Let’s keep it realistic for this review. 

The majority of legendary horror icon film franchises are horrible. As memorable as the characters are, it is a damn shame that lackluster sequels, reboots and requels diminish these iconic characters’ terror factor straight to comedic fodder. 

Speaking of lackluster films, Leatherface is back, gracing Netflix with the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2022). After the abysmal origin story of 2017’s “Leatherface,” this one can only bring the franchise up from the hell that it dwells in, right? Wrong.

It leaves the franchise stuck in purgatory with some great ideas that don’t get fleshed out, leaving it to be rebooted again.

It starts with a group of hipsters taking a road trip to a fictional ghost town in Texas. On the way there, they stop at a gas station and see that Leatherface is a pretty big thing, with the original murders of the Sawyer family never being solved. While getting gas, the tone of the movie is set with the hipsters judging a local for openly carrying a gun and killing the environment with his diesel Dodge Ram. One of the main characters is a victim of a school shooting and has PTSD throughout the film.

Social commentary is supposed to be a big part of this film, but the way it’s safely played, or used when it isn’t needed, hurts this movie to the core. Don’t toe the line in what you want to convey.

As the hipsters pull into town, the local they previously had an issue with is the handyman they hired to show them around this derelict town, and it is a great egg on their face moment for the movie.

While surveying the town, the Token Black Guy notices a Confederate flag in one of the houses and has a complete meltdown thinking about what the investors will think if they see the flag.

Pausing the review for a second to talk about real life. A person of color should know what they might encounter going into some parts of Texas with racism and prejudice, so for this person of color to be appalled, it isn’t realistic at all.

Token Black Guy barges into the house and realizes someone is still staying there. The old lady staying in the home tells the group she’s been there forever and never sold her home with the purchase of the town. Token Black Guy gets into an argument with the homeowner about the flag being racist, but while the lady is explaining that it’s to honor her grandfather, she also calls him a negro, enraging him so much that he calls the sheriffs, demanding they evict her from her home. 

The homeowner goes into cardiac arrest and a large man emerges from upstairs to go with the woman to emergency care. While being transported, the woman dies, and the audience finds out that the man is Leatherface — as if the audience didn’t figure that out — and the murder spree begins.

This is a dumb movie, even by horror movie slasher standards. The choices some of these characters choose in a fight or flight situation are baffling. The highlight of the film is the bus massacre the trailer gave away. While it is strangely cool and gory, it’s also unrealistic.  There is a bus full of people and only one chainsaw. They should’ve been able to overpower Leatherface, I mean come on. 

The subplot with the original survivors from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974) coming back for revenge feels super tacked on, especially with “Halloween” (2018) doing the victim-turned hunter thing 100 times better. The nostalgia does nothing for this mess of a movie.

Watch the trailer and skip the movie.