Horror Movie Reviews #2

The original 1974 ‘The Texas chainsaw massacre’ is one of my all time favourite films. The sequel to it, whilst I didn’t think it worked very well as a sequel as it was very stylistically and tonally different, I really enjoyed, and choptop is one of my favourite horror characters. The sequels that would follow these first two though is where I began to become uninterested. Infact, the fourth instalment quite practically feels like an insult to the original. Then there was reboot after reboot, I finished the franchise feeling quite bored, and longing for the original film that I loved so much. 

So when the trailer for this 2022 version was released, I didn’t have high expectations. And I suppose it’s fair to say my expectations were met. I would not classify this film as a bad film. The cinematography and gore are great and at times it does have a very unsettling feel. But it was hard for me to focus on these things when the storyline made so little sense. 

(Spoilers start here)

The most obvious thing was the fact the Sawyer family didn’t exist. Now, this isn’t new for Texas Chainsaw reboots however, considering the fact there was the returning character of sally from the first film, I thought that surely the Sawyers would be in it somehow? Of course the film takes place decades after the first so a lot of the sawyers would likely be dead but leatherface is still alive meaning that some of his family must still be living? They could have at the very least been mentioned or seen in a photograph but it seemed this movie ignored them completely. And that was clear from the beginning when it was explained Leatherface was never found by Sally because of the mask covering his face….despite the fact Leatherface was only one of Sally’s many tormentors, and the rest of them were mask-less! I could have accepted the movie like this if Sally was not in it, but with her in this film the storyline makes very little sense. 

Onto the characters, I didn’t have many feelings towards them. Good or bad. This movie was only an hour and 20 minutes, so very little character development could happen. The very little character development they tried to shove in was with the character Lila who was shown briefly to have been involved in a school shooting. This added virtually nothing to the plot other than a line where she says ‘death follows me’. It felt lazy and forced. Melody was a character I somewhat enjoyed. She was level headed and seemed smart enough to be the final girl, but of course was killed by a presumed dead leatherface in the last seconds of the film, an ending that a lot of viewers seemed to dislike. Personally I was impartial to the ending, I didn’t think it was awful, I was more confused as to why the main character seemed to shift from Melody to Lila. The rest of the characters were forgetful, including Sally, who in my opinion didn’t need to be in this movie. The film would have made far more sense if she wasn’t. 

As far as gore goes that was the best part of this film. Gore is one of my favourite things in horror and this movie did not disappoint with it. Truthfully though it was one of the only things I enjoyed about this movie. The cinematography was enjoyable at times but otherwise the gore is what will make me give this 2.5/5 stars rather than 1.5/5. 

This film was not bad, but the confusing timeline and plot along with the forgettable characters and of course the very forced attempt at ‘gen Z humour’ made me unable to focus on the good parts. Personally I dislike this film, but it’s definitely not the worst of the franchise.