Texas Chainsaw Massacre Is A Trainwreck & As Bad You Think {Review}

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a masterpiece of horror, one of the brightest lights in the genre, and is one of the standards all other spooky films all others should hold themselves up against. That is, of course, true of the original 1974 film. None of these things are true about the new movie of the same title debuting on Netflix today. In that film, made in Bulgaria in secret in 2020, the original directors were fired over creative differences, and for most of 2021, nobody had any clue how we would see this film. Netflix stepped up and snatched it up to release, though after viewing the film, one wonders if they should have.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre Is Just Terrible

It has been several decades since Leatherface went on his rampage, and he has been laying low since. Final girl Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré), is still looking for him, ready to make him pay for what he did to her group of friends back in 1974. But that story only enters the film when it is convenient, as we spend most of our time with a group of influencers looking to gentrify an abandoned Texas town, even though we are 90% certain they don’t own any of the land and buildings they are auctioning off to other influencers they have bused into town. Turns out, this is where Leatherface is! What a coincidence!

This Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn’t even try to hide the fact that its entire set-up is dumb. Every single one of the influences is insufferable except Melody, played by Sarah Yarkin. She at least seems like she wants to be there and gives this material her all, though it doesn’t deserve it. Subplots are cast aside; Sally is basically an afterthought that is relegated to the sidelines until the last 20 minutes of the film. Her entire storyline is basically the same as Laurie Strode’s from Halloween 2018, right down to a few shots they lifted straight from that film. It’s laughable.

That is until you realize you are watching it and wasting your time. Leatherface, played by Mark Burnham this go around, is menacing and does murder people in vicious and bloodthirsty ways at points. Still, all the scariness is taken away pretty early on during a ridiculous scene when he pops up in a sunflower field that is only missing Benny Hill music. The only genuine reaction this film garners is the very end, and even that you can see coming from a mile away.

This is the ninth Texas Chainsaw Massacre film and depending on how you feel about part 2, eight too many. We learned the hard way from this series, especially over the years, that some franchises should have been paused at the start, and this new film is not going to change anyone’s mind about that. Laughably bad and entirely skippable for fans and newbies alike. Just go watch the original again and pretend this never happened.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

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Review by Jeremy Konrad

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1/10

Laughably bad and entirely skippable for fans and newbies alike, the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre proves that the franchise should have stopped a long time ago.