So...there's a reason I picked this one and not Netflix's Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel boot, namely it's...a movie.
Yeah, that's the nicest AND meanest thing I can say about the new one...it's...there. Half my friends said it was one of the worst horror movies they ever saw, half said it was the most fun they had with a TCM sequel, but to me it's like the mountain was for Mohammad: It was there. Thus, it lead to the same situation with The Birds 2: Lands End, namely another movie that I HAVE to review. Only difference is it's done more out of apathy and less “Ugh, do I have to.”
However, like a “Do I have to” movie, a movie where the attitude is “Meh” doesn't exactly result in creative writing. You can get more mileage out of saying a bad comedy like Our Family Wedding isn't funny vs. a movie where you're either indifferent or bored out of your skull. But, if I'm gonna review a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel, I wanna review one that's actually special to me as it was the one that got me into the franchise in the first place. Yep, I'm reviewing the one that introduced me to Leatherface.
Too bad that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.
Yep, the one that got me into the franchise was the one that pushed Leatherface farther into showing his feminine side on the grounds of this...
Ok, ok, that's only part of the reason. The movie was written and directed by the original movie's co-writer, Kim Henkel and his idea was that, because Leatherface had no identity of his own, he took the persona of whoever's skin he was wearing. That's fine and good...except the original movie wrote him with the idea that, because of no identity, Leatherface took the role of who he THOUGHT would fit whatever job he had to do/skin he had to wear. That's the reason that when he's slaughtering people for food, he's in the skin of a male butcher, but when he's cleaning house and bringing out food, he has a woman's skin for maid work.
In away, that's more scary as he doesn't even have a baseline for his own identity thanks to how his family raised him. Throw in some moments where he's scared of his own family, and you have a somewhat sympathetic villain that has remained an icon for decades. However, there's one other factor...namely the first movie was lightning in a bottle.
Conditions were PERFECT for the original movie: A low to near no budget, one of the hottest summers on record for the entire state of Texas, filming conditions so bad that one of the cast members, who served in Vietnam, said it was worse than when he served in Vietnam, and everything coming together resulting in every look of grim, dirt, sweat, blood, and tears coming together naturally...because they did come together naturally. Not even kidding, filming got so frustrated that Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, got mad that he actually cut the finger of Marlyn Burns on a prop. Even the clothing's grime was natural because that's all they had to wear on set during, as I said before, one of the hottest heatwaves on record.
While I think most cast members would be thankful for what I'm about to say...and I wouldn't blame them...you can never catch a situation like that for a horror movie ever again. It's like horror movies set in New York now Vs. horror movies set in New York under Ed Kotch, there's an amount of grime and atmosphere that ads more missing.
But, Tobe Hooper would try again thanks to Cannon Films. Hooper was signed for a three picture deal under the following rule: Make the two you wanna make, give us Texas Chainsaw Massacare 2. The end result compared to the original was...
...uh...more Gremlins 2 than Gremlins, let's just say. Then came Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, where by all accounts (Haven't seen it), the trailer was more memorable than the movie...
...for obvious reasons. And that leads us to here, The Next Generation, the last sequel in the original timeline before Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes started their reboot series, then came the sequel boot to the original series, then it's sequel, then the current sequel boot to the original on Netflix. Oh, and yes, this is the one where the OTHER infamous thing about this is that it started Mathew McConengheh and Rene Zellwegger...and their agent at the time tried to get this stopped because it was thought to be embarrassing.
So...the agent was ok with one in this...
And the other in this...
...but Leatherface in drag was too much. Why, yes, I found this on the air when HBO catered to the insane insomniac, why?
So, the movie opens with text and narration like the original, with the narrator saying that while the events of 1973 happened...
...kinda...more on that later...
...the events of TCM 2 and Leatherface: TCM 3 were just “Two minor, yet apparently related incidents.” So, yes, unlike the new one, the other two movies kinda sorta maybe 100% probably uncertainly definitely not somewhat happened. Glad we cleared that up. After the credits that mention the two actors that wish this wasn't on their resume, and a title card change thanks to marketing (Originally, this was called The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre until it bombed at the box office), we jump to a teenager, Jenny (Renee Zellweger), putting on make up and getting her prom dress on while we hear a family dispute in the background.
Yeah...I'll touch on that later...and yeah...it's gonna hurt...
We don't have time to explore 100% what's going on, we want you to feel like you're watching a TCM movie, so we jump right into the shots for prom just so we can have the flashbulb sound effect for pander---I mean “a homage.” We then jump to prom where we see things like a guy peeing in the parking lot, a drunk teacher welcoming kids and saying he hates them, and a teacher trying to be also the local gossip...for high school couples complete with a classmate of somebody freaking out over it.
Between this and the Netflix movie, I'm starting to wonder if the people who work on one of these movies are just mad at teenagers and this is stress relief.
It turns out Heather (Lisa Marie Newmyer) is looking for her boyfriend, even asking Jenny and her boyfriend, Sean (John Harrison) if they saw him. Sure enough, she finds her boyfriend, Barry (Tyler Cone) making out with somebody not her. So, her reasonable solution? Steal a car that's not her's! Yes, possession is 9/10th's of the law, but he broke her heart! He manages to get in and tries to bullshit that if guys don't make out, they get cancer...only to get called out on it by Jenny and Sean, who were making out in the backseat when Heather decided to start her life of crime!
They had to say something, do you not know how important make out time is!? Crime is seriously killing the mood!
Of course, this leads to our braindonors to get lost...complete with Heather saying it'd be awesome if they all died and somebody wrote a song about it...
Ok, for the record, if somebody writes a country song about me, I'll not only haunt you for eternity, but rig your bank account to invest in NFTs.
...leading to them taking a detour and crashing into some rando who came out in the fog. But don't worry, he's fi---
*THUD*
...he is currently a heap of meat bag KO'd on the road. This causes our brain trust to come to the conclusion that one of 'em, Sean, staying behind to keep an eye on the meat bag while the rest go and find help, a plan that can't possibli go wrong. After an ADR asks if anybody's gonna come with Jenny, Barry and Heather get a flashlight and follow and find an insurance office owned by a woman named Darla (Tonie Perensky), who acts like a moth in headlights when she sees the teens in their prom get up.
I guess prom night means insurance rates...?
She calls for a tow from somebody she knows, Vilmer, and then makes a note on how nice and firm her fake boobs are.
...what!? The movie said it, not me!
Yes, because you always think of things like breast implants when you think TCM, right? Yeah, thanks, but no thanks, I'll save it for when I complain about the Rob Zombie horror movie. Though she's right about them not being bad, though...
How do I know this? She flashes rowdy neighbors driving by in front of the kids. That'll show 'em!
We jump back to the scene and see Vilmer (Matthew McConaughey at his most pre-fame McConaughey) pull up in his Illuminati Wrecking truck...
That twitch in the back of your neck reading that followed by the urge of hitting your head on something? Normal reaction.
...as he goes to the crash victim and says the boy's dead. Well, considering I can't even find a Wikipedia spot for his character, maybe his career is, but he---
*CRACK*
NOW he's dead as Vilmer snaps his neck and starts to play around with his next pray, Sean. He even stops to shoot the breeze with the guy as Sean asks what he can do to stop this. One with an IQ above “Cow tipping should be an Olympic sport” would think to run into an area of the woods that's nothing but trees...but Sean has an IQ that says he thinks cow tipping should be an Olympic sport, as he winds up behind the truck and thus gets crushed by Vilmer.
I'd say he went into the light...except his IMDB page says it was Guiding Light, soooooooooo...
After Heather and Barry get separated from Jenny, Heather goes back on the whole “What if we die” thing...boy, first time I see a 90's goth in pink...and both Barry and Heather talk about how it's perfectly ok to live life by the Pina Colada song where you just grin and bare it...complete with implications of Jenny's new dad liking his new daughter's body....
*SIGH*
You know what all the original needed to build up the tension? The mystery of the grandfather's grave and the characters natural reactions to the long drive in the summer heat. It made them people, it made us worry about them, it made us root for the final girl at the end. Here? We have idiots and have to think about child molestation...and yes, that's gonna be a factor into something later that it really really REALLY shouldn't.
The two eventually stumble into the Sawye---
Yeah, I'm gonna one-two-skip a few with this because of how stupid it is...and why I made the remark that the other two movies kinda sorta maybe ok 100% probably didn't definitely really happened...
In this movie, Leatherface's family are no longer the Sawyer family...they're the SLAUGHTER family.
Yes, this is supposed to be the same family from the original movie, despite the name change and few other things that'll pop up. I don't know why the Slaughter change, but this is one of the many reasons fans, myself included, prefer to think The Next Generation happens in an alternate universe, hence why I said the disclaimer at the start said the other movies “Kinda sorta didn't 100% definitely happened.”
On top of the title being originally The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that is.
While Barry stumbles on to some dude with a shotgun, W.E. Slaughter (Joe Stevens), we finally see Leatherface (Robert Jacks) and...yeah...he looks like one of those Mankind costumes Party City asylumed to avoid copyright but look close enough to be one...with good reason as this won't be his main one. More on that later.
After Leatherface...who this movie will call Leather...yeah, all I can think of is because it hip for the kids...
Hey, my generation came from the era where everything was Turbo, Super, Max, or EXTREAM, brains weren't our strong points.
...Barry outsmarts W.E. and locks him outside of the house while Barry searches for Heather...until he finds a bathroom as we have the pee scene. Truly, this makes the movie. He then sees a dead body in the tub, runs, only to find Leather and a blow to the skull. After that, Leather celebrates by putting Heather on a meathook.
It's the simple things, really.
We go back to Jenny and see Vilmer caught up with her and forces her into the tow truck when she keeps asking where her boyfriend is. This leads to him talking about riding with strangers and...yeah, basically, if you saw the “I'm the big bad wolf” scene in Cape Fear, half the creep factor and up the ham. Eventually, he forces her to look behind his window and sees on the tow truck hook both the bodies of the driver and her boyfriend, dangling.
Insert joke about Repo: The Genetic Opera here.
She actually shows she's smart enough to run into the woods...only not to be THAT smart, as Jenny runs in the open part for awhile until she figures out to run in the part with all the trees so the truck doesn't go through, causing Vilmer to drive away since...well...giant ass tow trucks don't do that well in the woods. However, it turns out Leatherface learned SOMETHING from his time at New Line as he teleports like Jason Vorhees right into the woods and starts going nuts with the chainsaw. Naturally, this causes her to run into the Slaughter house...
Yes. That hurt to type.
...as she tries to get away. Of course, she fails (Otherwise, it'd be a short movie...damn it...) and winds up in the greenhouse on the property...and the chase to start all over again.
Forget calling The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie originally The Chase Movie, it'd fit this.
She winds up running back to the office where Darla tries to comfort her...only for W.E. to pop up and reveal that she is with the Slaughter family. Jenny resists, of course, leading W.E. to get out the cattle prod from...nowhere.
Knowing this family, 3 guesses.
And zaps her...then beats her with it...
Chop Top picking at the metal plate this ain't.
...and stuffs her in the trunk while Darla tells him to tell the family she's gonna get pizzas for everybody while Jenny is in the trunk. Hey, the family just murdered some teenagers, you can get hungry doing that. She manages to cause some form of trouble in time for the cops to show up as they're at the drive thru...but because one of the cops is a dude, he falls for it and she drives off. Remember, all it takes to cover up your would be murder is a great pair of legs.
She gets halfway to the Slaughter house...
UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...
...when she sees...Heather in the middle of the road!? How!? Leatherface hunt her by a meat hook! She doesn't even have a hole in her back! I know this was only $600,000, but I've seen better done for less!
Seriously, the original Night of the Living Dead was $125,000!
Darla drives back to the house and tells W.E. that Heather is...somehow...still on the road as Leatherface, scared of his family, brings Jenny in. Ok, they got that part right, Leather being afraid of his family. It's one of the reasons he's viewed as a tragic villain, there's hints in most of the franchise that his family abuses him just as much as their victims, but at the same time he loves them and tries to protect them, the inner conflict is what drives his insanity.
That said, yes, they tried to do something different with the Netflix TCM and, while he is sympathetic in some spots, killing out of revenge for somebody who actually loves him makes him more like Jason Vorhees than Leatherface. And, yeah, they also tried something different with the Dunes TCM, making him as evil as the rest of his family and that was a BIG stumble. Being torn between fear and love for his family made Leatherface unpredictable, you never knew when or how he was going to strike/act so you, no matter how many times you see one of the movies, were still afraid of what he'd do next. Making him evil makes him too generic.
Then there's the route 3D took, anti-hero. Leatherface and hero, even in anti-hero form, do NOT go together. Yes, technically it's because the bad guys in the movie were the ones going after the main character, his cousin, but keep in mind it's one of those sequel-boots that took place right after the first movie, so you gotta root for the guy who killed a bunch of innocent kids because his family said so...only because the sequel-boots's bad guys went after the movie's heroine, who's his cousin.
Is it any wonder many in the horror world think the original and the second movie are the only ones to get him right? I'd say something about both because Tobe Hooper worked on 'em...except this movie has one of the original's co-writers/co-creators at the helm, so...again...lightning in a bottle.
After around of torturing both Heather and Jenny doesn't work in the family's favor, Darla tries to comfort Jenny, complete with...Jenny asking Darla for help...I'd say it's one of the movie's stupider moments, desperate or not...but then the stupidest part of the movie drops.
No, no, not Leatherface in drag, that doesn't happen yet...the reveal from Darla that the Illuminati have been behind everything since the original TCM. And I'm gonna one-two-skip-a-few again because it's later revealed to be 100% true. Yes, the Illuminati are behind everything, at least this universe's version of it, in the entire franchise.
Ok, so...haunted civil war fields in Gettysburg...so many Japanese urban legends tied to horror that you can make 2 or 3 movies out of each one...stories involving damned souls still haunting the Tower of London...scaring teenagers in a Podunk redneck white trash that ever white trashed part of Texas...
Sure, why not? Same league!
Jenny matches to snatch the shotgun from the family and threatens to shoot 'em if they tried something...causing Vilmer to...slice his chest in response...ok, so important safety tip, don't threaten the psycho. Well, it turns out the actual reason for the confidence is that he planted the gun close enough to give Jenny confidence to do something to make the insane game more...uh...insane.
More abuse supplied by Vilmer to the family members...
The fact that this looks like stuff you'd find on YouTube's Am I The Jerk or any Reddit forum about insane relatives should tell ya how well this aged.
...until Jenny, after seeing the gun wasn't indeed loaded, finds and out and jacks a car...then crashes into a tree on the property after the hood popped open. And now we come to the most infamous moment of the entire movie...Leatherface's crossdressing.
Ok, let's get this out of the way...yes, the original movie had Leatherface dress as a woman as he was cleaning the house. But here's the thing, that, as well as when he was in his butcher outfit, was more of a role, not a personality. The original concept of Leatherface was “How do I HOO-man” as his outfits in the first movie were more the ideals/stereotypes of the roles he thought of what he knew average people did. Preparing the victims on the meathooks, hitting them with the hammer, and preparing them for dinner? That's a butcher's job. Making sure the house was clean? That's a maid's job and a maid was typically a woman.
He never had a personality based on the gender of his outfits, his outfits were just what he thought he needed to put on.
But here? The minute he gets into his literal woman's skin? He starts acting like a woman and the reason isn't for what I mentioned, it's for yucks. The first TCM was made to horrify and shock. The second was made under “We already did this, let's just have fun.” The third was back to the roots, as well as the remakes and...
Well, Chainsaw 3D made him an anti-hero, so not sure how to put that other than crap.
The Next Generation was made under “LOOK HOW FAR WE'RE GOING WITH THESE INSANE PEOPLE! AND LOOK HOW WE'RE MAKING THE KILLER THAT MADE OUR FRANCHISE, ARE SHOCKED OR LAUGHING!? WE'LL TAKE BOTH!”
And, yes, worse has been done before, during, and since.
We eventually get to it's version of the family dinner scene and...well, when your focused more on shocking over the top vs. shocking via atmosphere, there's really no comparison. Even the Platinum Dunes remake got how we're supposed to feel during this moment right when it got to it, here it's just too over the top and the result is we're not scared, we're just wondering what the Hell we're watching...but not in the way we're supposed to be in a TCM franchise.
And, yes, this includes 3 bodies that look like they're dead because first movie.
It turns out Leatherface is ready for a more youthful skinsuit and Jenny was selected. Not sure how a new skin helps the Illuminati out, but this causes her to finally stand up to Vilmer, who...hits his family in response...which causes the old man to...get up with the knife and leave. All of this causes Vilmer to try to burn Heather alive, only for Darla to put her out as somebody honks their horn to let 'em know they pulled up, revealing that, as I said earlier, the whole Illuminati thing to be 100% on the money.
The agent, Rothman (James Gale) shows up to tell the family they've gone too far and it's messing up their plans. And unless the town they're in is the Hellmouth, the spot in Riverdale where it caused magic and superpowers to be cannon on the TV show, the American entrance to the Abyss from Made in Abyss, it is never revealed why fear needs to be shown in a little barley on the map area of Texas.
Maybe that's how they make a Buc-ee's.
Said agent then licks Jenny's face then leaves, a job well done. Well...more “We're from the Government, we're here to help” than well done because Vilmer goes right into cutting himself over...whatever that was, as Leatherface goes for the chainsaw. You gotta love it when it feels like 90% of the movie is missing when you know 90% of the movie wasn't ever meant to be in it.
Jenny takes Vilmer's remote to malfunction his leg, only for Vilmer to get the spare as the two have a remote duel...
Dueling chainsaws this is not.
...which she wins and runs with Leatherface on her trail. And now comes the part where I wanna wrap this up more than this movie does. At first, it looks like it's gonna just rip off the first movie, as Jenny runs into an RV with Leatherface right behind her as the couple take her in and drive her away...until Vilmer's tow truck shows up with Leatherface on the side, causing them to knock the RV over, causing Jenny to run again. While all this is going on, a plane is flying overhead, notices the whole thing, as the pilot swoops down and takes a chunk out of Vilmer's skull.
The implication? Well, the Illuminati figured Vilmer never got the whole “Scare, no kill” message and went back for Jenny, leaving Leatherface to dance in his finest women skin and evening wear because first movie. It turns out this whole thing was done because the group wanted a “Spiritual experience” out of the whole thing.
Again, never explained why this barley on the map area of Texas was needed.
Again, I think it was really to build a Buc-ee's.
They drop her off at the hospital, Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns, credited Anonymous for...reasons...) passes by because the director wanted a passing of the torch between the two victims even though no words were said...
No, really, there is no joke in that sentence.
...and the movie ends with Leatherface dancing in the road because, again, first movie.
Which what I wish I was watching right now.
I will say this, especially compared to the new one on Netflix, it's not boring. It is crazy, it is out of control, you actually do wonder how far it's gonna go if you never saw it before, and the family and the atmosphere is completely insane and you are wondering how Jenny'll get out of it.
But it's not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the original was lightning in a bottle.
Not only did the original come up at the right time, the filming was at the PERFECT time. The heat, the dirt, the grime, the literal blood, sweat, and tears that was put into it, it all came together at the ONLY time you could for a story like it. The unbearable Texas heat, the worst than 'Naim conditions (Seriously, one cast member who served over there said that), the frustrations that actually caused Gunther Hanson as Leatherface to cut one of his co-stars by accident, the grungy look of the film, EVERYTHING came together for a once in a lifetime horror experience.
Which is why all the sequels and remakes after were more focused on how far they could take the insanity and/or camp levels since that kind of atmosphere can never be captured again.
The Next Generation overcompensates for it big time. You're never scared or THAT disturbed, outside of the abuse, over what you see, it's not so much you covering your eyes save for one spot in between your fingers, it's you tapping your best bud on the shoulder going “DUDE, DUDE, DID YOU SEE THAT!?” while laughing. Nobody was likable outside of our heroine (A problem later repeated with Chainsaw 3D), and the main “Look what we did” attraction was done for yucks, taking one of the aspects that made original Leatherface scary, (No base personality) and made it go *POOF*.
At the very least, he picked a nice outfit to rip off the first movie's end in.
FINAL VERDICT: For an over the top mess, said mess doing this because they knew the first was lightning in a bottle, feeling like the movie was unfinished despite it was, and just not being scary, this movie gets a MEGA DESTRUCTION B-MOVIE BOMB! If you want over the top fun with Leatherface, go with the second movie. If you want the lightning in a bottle, go with the first. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm in a bit of a conundrum, as I planned to review the Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers movie...only to turn out to actually like it. So, instead, I'm gonna turn to cross-generational childhoods as I start Boomer Summer Bummer with that time a guy went rabbit hunting...
