Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Netflix slasher joins an unfortunate trend in horror: “legacy sequels” that fail to capture what made the classics so special.

Of course, the franchise’s legacy will remain basically unchanged by this latest flop; soon enough, surely, some other attempt will spring up to bring back Leatherface. But each effort only adds to the original’s mystique: As simple as its thrills might seem, they can’t be replicated. They’re Austin transplants traveling to a small town in Texas to claim a derelict property as part of some gentrification scheme. Leatherface, played by Mark Burnham here, is supposed to be the same character as in the first film, only decades older. While Green’s film largely succeeded on all those fronts, becoming a smash hit, Garcia’s feels unnecessary and anonymous, leaning on crass visual shocks while failing to match the unsparing brutality of its lodestar. If it makes the kind of unforgettable impact that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre did, the follow-ups will never end. Of course, if a horror film is even a mild success, it cannot be left to stand alone; eventually a sequel will follow, even if it’s direct-to-video schlock.

Once again, there's a sequel that skips all the previous films and remakes but the first movie, and it's designed to center the story of a survivor. In this ...

Worst of all is how forgettable Sally’s arc becomes, a half-assed version of the Laurie Strode vengeance narrative from Green’s “Halloween” movie. The idea of city folk who don’t understand what waits for them when they leave the safety of their home is common in horror and was partially defined by Hooper’s film, but this one adds nothing new. It’s clear as day that the producers of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” saw David Gordon Green’s 2018 reboot of “Halloween” and thought they could accomplish the same kind of comeback for Leatherface. Once again, there’s a sequel that skips all the previous films and remakes but the first movie, and it’s designed to center the story of a survivor. It turns out that she’s the Norma Bates of this situation, and when she’s forced from her home, her son Leatherface ( Mark Burnham) goes on a rampage. (I’m not kidding.) Melody ( Sarah Yarkin), her sister Lila ( Elsie Fisher), and their friend Dante ( Jacob Latimore) have come to the middle of nowhere in Harlow, Texas to renovate the small town. Everything about David Blue Garcia’s film is “sorta just barely” (other than the gore, which is impressive). It’s one of those projects that’s clearly been through the wringer in terms of production—there were stories of a replaced directing team and horrible test screenings—and yet it feels like it was doomed from the beginning.

Leatherface returns to terrorize a fresh batch of innocents in this poorly plotted, efficiently executed Netflix blood bath.

Netflix's legacy sequel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, ends with this character unexpectedly surviving at the end. How did they manage to do that?

The reason for the same can simply be chalked up to plot contrivance, as well as the need for him to survive for the sequel. After being dormant for 50 years, Leatherface kills again, and not out of obedience to a cannibalistic family but rather out of a need to avenge his dead caregiver. Netflix’s legacy sequel to Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre brings millennials into the mix, who bear the brunt of Leatherface’s killing rampage after they arrive in Harlow to revamp the place.

What does the Texas Chainsaw Massacre ending have to do with the franchise's original film?

The two sisters run to Dante’s smart car and turn it on autopilot before opening the sunroof and letting out a sigh of relief. Though somewhat more run-down, the house bears a striking resemblance to the one in which Sally’s group of friends met their collective fate in the 1974 film. Much like Sally in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, she is out of Leatherface’s reach and will soon be safe. The killer falls into a pool of still water and seems to be gone for good. However, Melody crashes the car in Richter’s shop and is nearly killed by Leatherface. She’s saved by Lila, who tries to shoot the killer with one of Richter’s guns, but unfortunately fails. This is already a subtle reference to the original Chainsaw Massacre, since Leatherface made sounds reminiscent of a pig squealing and the Sawyer family owned a slaughterhouse. After all, Sally is much more interested in payback than she is in getting anyone out of Harlow, and she even suggests using the sisters as bait. Inside the movie theater, Lila manages to hit Leatherface a couple of times, but to no avail. The plot follows a pair of young entrepreneurs — Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and Dante (Jacob Latimore) — who are moving to the ghost town of Harlow, Texas, in the hope of escaping big city violence and making money out of the sales of the abandoned properties. Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is considered one of the greatest horror movies of all time and a classic of the slasher subgenre. When she enters her pickup truck to drive to Harlow, she opens the visor and takes out a picture of her teenage group of friends — the same Polaroid taken by Edwin Neal’s hitchhiker, that mysteriously survived being burned. Her warning eventually reaches Sally, who gears up to leave her secluded home and take her revenge on the man that terrorized her all those years ago.

David Blue Garcia, who came up as a cinematographer, talks the pressures of following in the footsteps of an iconic property, reflects on one of its ...

And of course, there’s that teaser at the end of the film, so there’s definitely a future to explore.” When asked about the already social media famous shot of Leatherface popping up in a field of sunflowers, Garcia said it was “happenstance,” the result of location scouting with Burnham in his Leatherface getup. Sometimes I would have to clear the set so that they could go in and air it out and sterilize it for safety reasons.” But much of their story runs parallel to the hippie teenagers in the original, searching for roots and home in an America that was becoming increasingly divided by the Vietnam War, only to become trespassers themselves and find themselves in the midst of a different, though no less brutal horror. I think in the end it was worth it.” Garcia admits that he was pleasantly surprised by how malleable Bulgaria proved to be in terms of its ability to bring his home state to life, though he says, “a real Texan will, of course, notice the details that were off.” There is a cycle of violence at play Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one that ties Hooper’s film to Garcia’s together. Sally, now a local sheriff who has waited fifty years to take her revenge on Leatherface, has no compunctions about bearing arms once the trail of body parts start. Garcia managed to muster the courage to turn the television back on and the film carved an impression into him. Garcia admits that despite having seen all the Texas Chainsaw films at one point or another, he doesn’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the franchise. Interestingly enough, Garcia didn’t shoot Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Texas. Instead, the film was shot in Bulgaria, the second entry in the franchise to do so following 2017’s Leatherface, a prequel to Hooper’s original. “My first encounter with the movie was on cable.