Content Warning: Mentions of horror movie violence and gore.
Hey readers! Elaina here with this week's Film Forecast. This week we’re going to be talking about David Blue Garcia’s 2022 film "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
48 years after Tobe Hooper’s original "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," Leatherface, the notorious chainsaw killer, is back – but this time, he isn’t the scariest part of the film.
This is by far one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. With a runtime of 1 hour and 21 minutes, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” makes you feel as if you lost an entire year of your life. Full of plot holes, overused political tropes, bad acting and poor dialogue, the film stands by its 31% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film opens with a group of friends traveling to a small town in Texas to start their new business. The group arrives at their newly owned town and finds a woman illegally occupying their property. This woman is none other than Leatherface’s long-time roommate.
Leatherface is awoken by the disturbance of his roommate’s removal by the police and is ready to seek vengeance on anyone who gets in his way. How the man is still alive after all these years? I couldn’t tell you.
“Texas Chainsaw Massacre” does not hold back on the gore. Every second after Leatherface’s return is full of blood spatter and carnage. While gore is essential for a lot of horror movie fans and can often save a slasher film from a weak plot, it achieves neither in this movie.
The plot itself is unbelievably boring and disconnected. Strong writing can mold many seemingly unrelated subplots into a cohesive ending. This film, however, takes that trope and spits on it.
The film uses different background stories and subplots to preach disconnected political messages to the audience. The overuse of these tropes in an attempt to create a modern twist on horror instead achieves an unwarranted push of political traumas on both the audience and characters without presenting the issues in a serious or graceful manner.
In addition to the trivialization of political messages and the detached plot, the acting and dialogue create one of the most cringeworthy viewings I’ve ever experienced. The acting was questionable at best and cataclysmic at worst.
This was partially due to the dialogue choices made by the writers, but it couldn’t be saved by the exaggerated performances of each cast member. The performances were inauthentic and distracting, and the actors had zero chemistry with one another, which left me wondering if they even knew their roles in the film.
I was excited for this movie when I saw “Eighth Grade’s” Elsie Fisher listed on the cast, but her dull actions and over-dramatic delivery of dialogue decimated my expectations for the film — if you could call it that.
While the excitement for another summer horror film made me hopeful that this sequel would be a classic slasher, my hopes were slashed (pun intended) as soon as I pressed play. The gore might have been gnarly and visceral, but that alone can’t save this movie.
This week's film forecast calls for a stormy rating of one star.
“Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is currently streaming on Netflix. Content warning: this movie shows severe blood and gore and deals with political issues including gun violence.
Elaina Johnson (she/her) is a fourth-year political science major who has previously copy edited and been editor-in-chief for The Front. This quarter she is the opinions and outreach editor. She hopes to make engaging stories this quarter and reconnect with the community through various outreach. In her free time outside of The Front, she can be found watching movies, writing chaotic Letterboxd reviews and drinking oat milk chai. She can be reached at elainajohnson.thefront@gmail.com.
