Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

 Dante and Melody have a dream. Harlow, Texas, with all its buildings in basically a ghost town to be auctioned off and refurbished as an ideological haven for young people to get out of the city and build as something they can be proud of. A sort of utopia born out of poverty and economic collapse where all most of the residents are no longer there. Dante's mistake was believing Leatherface's mother (played by the great Alice Krige, who looks emaciated and weathered by age and ill health) was living in a home bought by them. Big mistake. A contractor named Richter hired to renovate the buildings takes the keys to all vehicles, telling Dante to prove to him that they had the deed to Krige's Mother's house. Dante searches through his files and doesn't find the deed. Melody obviously freaks out because she assumed everything was in order. Well, Melody finds the deed in a lockbox and Leatherface returns from a field where a van carrying his dying mother (who "croaks" while in his arms despite his efforts to resuscitate her) crashed into a harvester, the wreck caused by the hulking brute who snaps a cop's arm and uses the protruding bone to kill the poor guy through a neck stab! That cop's gun fires off a bullet that goes into the driving sheriff's throat causing him to careen off the road into the harvester. Well, Dante's fiance, Ruth, rides with the sheriff, tries to remain quiet, hopefully waiting for Leatherface to leave, not anticipating a knife slice through her stomach.

The film's Netflix trailer for the film set off some buzz because a group of twenty-somethings looking to transplant themselves to this town out of the city are on a bus, eventually pulling out their phones to snap a pic of Leatherface. Briefly the chainsaw is show lifting an unfortunate victim off the ground by Leatherface, proposing quite a gorefest.

There have been different incarnations of Leatherface. Different interpretations of the mentally ill Sawyer man-child unable to fully understand or rationalize why visitors (to him, invaders) intrude upon his home have been offered by plenty of intimidating giants over the years. Why the first film had such impact with me was the overpowering erosion of sanity and overwhelming presence of decay. The scorched earth, wreckage of poverty, economic destruction, and absence of normality bred the Sawyers. The hippies just passing through and needing gas just couldn't anticipate what truly awaited them. The rest was Hooper's documenting the horrible conditions of this hot day in Texas with a family no visitor could ever want to cross. 

So in this 2022 follow up to the original replaces the hippies of the 70s with the idealists of the 2020s, once again intruding upon the abode of Leatherface and his mom. He holds them responsible for her death and Harlow is the battleground where he'll draw his chainsaw very much like soldiers pull their mighty sword from the sheath. Until everyone is dead Leatherface's mission won't be complete. They all took his mother from him...that cannot be tolerated. That is basically what I got out of the film. Leatherface has no personality, very different from what Gunnar Hansen brought to the character. In the 2022 film, Leatherface is but a pissed off monster brutalizing and obliterating everyone in his path. Now, reviews are mixed. Some love them some carnage and this 2022 film gives you all the chainsaw massacre you could ask for. A whole bus full of young people recording Leatherface with his chainsaw in the bus, one of them telling him, "You're cancelled, bro," that is certainly going to polarize a lot of people. After this, Leatherface just mows through those kids with his chainsaw, with the blood spraying and gushing as bodies his the floor. A mixture of CGI (the decapitation at the end is done in a way as the victim's sister is in her car looking at Melody from the sunroof, but it is still quite obvious; some of the chainsaw massacre and blood) and makeup grue sort of left me a bit mixed. A lot of folks dug the gore, though. Leatherface lifting up the skinned-off mask from mother and eventually wearing her on his face might be shocking (perhaps even poignant) to some. Melody's sister, Lila, who survived a school shooting and remains haunted by it, combats Leatherface, actually surviving a near drowning when they both fall into a floor full of water in the theater. Lila, packing a gun, calls Leatherface, "Leather-fuck". Sisters uniting to shoot Leatherface, watching him collapse into the water, I figured that would definitely encourage wrath and fury.

But those involved in the making of the film course correct as Leatherface emerges to drag Melody out of the car to chainsaw her head off with Lila horrified as the car drives away without someone behind the wheel...I thought that visual was just weird. Leatherface swinging his chainsaw with Melody's head pops some fans, but I just didn't feel the same. I guess I'm just a bummer. I didn't go into this wanting to be a fuddy-duddy. 

I was completely clueless as to the point of Sally Hardesty returning. And the decision to include Leatherface's mother in the film also left me confused. Where was she in the first film? I see the motivation behind setting Leatherface off by using the death of his mother to do that, but she was never in the first film. And Sally doesn't really even make much of an impact. She could have driven those girls to safety but instead leaves them in her truck to face off with Leatherface. But when she does confront him, Sally has him at gunpoint, lets him pick up his chainsaw, and walk out of the room without shooting him! What the fuck, man?! Sally, you have Leatherface in the room and here is your chance to shoot him...and you let him walk out of the fucking room!

Besides Lila, these are such disposable characters. Maybe Melody has some real development (and a conscience) but you see Dante preparing to build a place for folks his age then realize they forced out an old, dying woman because she triggered you over a Confederate flag she only kept because it was her granddaddy's. Leatherface's mother even talks to Melody and Dante kindly, not aggressively or negatively. That was all off to me. I constantly ran into that sort of thing with the story this film put together.

To me, Leatherface might be in his 70s, but he's spry and damned Herculean in size and strength. I guess they might as well have let him just savage folks.

I'm just constantly reminded that the first film is this dragon everyone chases. The rush many get from it when they watch it for the first time, that high just can't be manufactured. It's power just can't be duplicated no matter how much Leatherface slices apart and eviscerates one body after another. That is enough for some folks. This is a carnage movie. Maybe that is all some folks need. I have noticed a bunch of folks on Letterboxd feel similar to me...this just doesn't cut it. Others dig it. To each their own. 2/5

***Okay, so I correct myself. The mother adopted Leatherface, he hid his chainsaw behind a wall. He was in an orphanage after the first film and taken care of by Krige.***