Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) Review (Film, 2022)
content warning: foul language, racism, gore, blood, gun violence, violence against children, violence against women, flashing lights
Editorial note: one of the characters’ backstories deals with a school shooting, including repeated flashbacks. This is a major part of the story. Be safe.
50 years ago, a group of young people were brutalized by a mysterious masked killer with a chainsaw. This has gone down in history as the most violent murders ever committed in Texas. Worse still, the killer was never found. Now, the town of Harlow, TX is all but abandoned, allowing a group of young entrepreneurs the opportunity to build their own utopia from the ground up.
Though this is not a Tobe Hooper film, it very much exists within the cinematic world he created. So many of his films are about a culture clash between different generations, a conflict of tradition vs progression in the United States. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, especially, is the story of a group of young people finding themselves at odds with a very different set of beliefs and traditions when visiting Harlow.
The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, here labeled Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), is a horror film about gentrification. A group of young people bought out all the property in Harlow, TX. They plan on turning it into their own utopic society in the middle of Texas. By the end of the week, all the old storefronts and homes will be auctioned off to people who never even heard of Harlow before. The town may be abandoned, but it is not forgotten, and the people from around there—the police, the contractors, the business owners, and the survivors—are still very protective of what the town once was.
All of this happens before we get to see Leatherface in action. His presence is confirmed early on with new voiceover narration from original narrator John Larroquette. It doesn’t take long for him to appear, but the story establishes its own unique voice before the first attack.
Director David Blue Garcia and cinematographer Ricardo Diaz pay tribute to the style of the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in many aspects. The shots of the Texas countryside have that hazy, painterly quality to them that adds such a shocking beauty to the violence of the story. The sunflowers are on full display during the first attack and the colors even seemed keyed to match the original cinematography. The houses features aren’t the original houses of the film, but they have that same layered chaos that made the Sawyer and Hardesty homes reflect the reality of their different lives. Even the actors are coached to play up that cultural divide. You know on first sight who is from Harlow and who isn’t.
What’s entirely different is the approach to violence. This is the most violent film in the entire franchise so far, which counts The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, and Leatherface. What the original film accomplished with clever editing and closeups is replaced with high definition shots of brutal violence more often seen in the Friday the 13th films than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise. This is the kind of violence that was intentionally darkened to reflections of buttons and lights peeking through windows in the new Halloween films. It is the actual visualization of the violent acts people believe they saw in the original film.
This is an intentional decision in every level of the production, from Garcia’s direction to the screenplay by Chris Thomas Devlin (with story by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues). Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) is swinging big on its central discussion of the destructive force of gentrification. The entrepreneurs taking over Harlow, the people still living around Harlow, the police, and Leatherface himself all take aggressive action to take what they want. Gentrification is a predatory process with real consequences to the people who lose their homes, neighborhoods, and towns; the locals fight to maintain control anyway they can; the police are eager to take action to protect Harlow if anyone crosses the line; and Leatherface will defend his home from all intruders just like he was taught. This is a horror film where a phone call to the police can be as terrifying as a chase sequence with a masked man swinging a chainsaw. Violence is violence is violence in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022).
Without giving much away, Sally Hardesty does return as a character for the first time in any of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre films. The second film reveals she told her story and then left public life. The new film reveals what she’s been doing instead. Her role in the film is important, but she is not the focus the way Laurie Strode is in the new Halloween films. She’s not even as lingering an influence over the story as Sidney Prescott, Gail Weathers, and Dewey Cox in Scream (2022). Olwen Fouéré does a great job creating her own version of Sally that feels honest to the original film and believable in this far more violent world.
Admittedly, the film does go off the rails in the third act. One thing that, historically, has not gone great with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as a franchise is trying to turn Leatherface into a slasher icon. He is not Freddy Kreuger or Michael Myers. The first two films established our beloved Bubba as a confused, abused, and manipulated victim of a toxic family. If he didn’t swing the chainsaw, he would be punished. He’s happiest when he’s playing dress up and trying to befriend people he makes a connection with. That obviously doesn’t excuse his actions as a serial killer, but it creates a dynamic in horror that is uniquely true to his identity.
Every time the sequels and spinoffs try to make Leatherface a remorseless, unstoppable killing machine, they feel off. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) almost avoids this with a solid, bittersweet take on his backstory, but goes a little too theatrical in its action sequences to really hit as hard as it should. Leatherface needs his family to really shine. This isn’t quite on the level of Phantasm II being a knock-off Aliens or Predator, but it’s Leatherface in the post-Saw era for better or worse.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) is a brutal slasher film. It uses the foundation of one of the most acclaimed horror films of all time to comment on social issues that are a natural extension of the original themes. There is an attempt here to do more with violent horror, which itself is in the spirit of the original film. These elements may not hit for everyone, but the attempt is worth celebrating.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) is streaming on Netflix.
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