The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) Review: Leatherface Returns For Another Dud

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a horror movie directed by David Blue Garcia and stars Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, and Jacob Latimore, alongside other cast members. The movie has a runtime of 81 minutes.

Netflix describes the movie as:

In this sequel, influencers looking to breathe new life into a Texas ghost town encounter Leatherface, an infamous killer who wears a mask of human skin.

– The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 review does not contain spoilers –

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre starts off with the promise of a cult in the making and Leatherface probably doing God’s work and putting an end to another catastrophe before it begins. Ok, maybe that’s not the right way to say it, Leatherface is, after all, a murderer. But, the promise of an idealistic society gets me on-edge, as it probably should.

Either way, these four newbies are annoying as all heck. Their holier than thou attitude is annoying but that gets done and dusted in a matter of minutes since the bloodbath starts at 19 minutes. I must say that that’s the best part of it, the notion that I don’t have to sit and watch these self-righteous kids blabber on about this and that.

The movie misses out on the horrors of the original. Sure, that one probably was one of the kind at the time and by now we’ve had a thousand remakes, reboots, and sequels. However, there’s nothing about this one that makes me feel horrified for the characters. You don’t root for them to survive because of the impossible ways that they do. The tropes are high, as they are with lots of movies. But the execution of those tropes is overdone to a fault. You know what’s going to happen and the movie doesn’t try to do anything remotely different either.

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Now, I would’ve understood if the movie was solely based on the nostalgia of the first film. I totally get it – that’s something to do. But this movie doesn’t even do a good job at that. Although it introduces Olwen Fouéré (previously played by Marilyn Burns) back into the storyline, it never really creates a direct connection with the first movie. A few mentions of the deaths from the first movie later, we jump right into this one. Thus, when Sally comes into the pictures, guns ablaze, you don’t really care. Plus, her addition almost seems a bit… unnecessary and cheap.

I have said this before and I’ll say it again – remaking and sequeling already established and good horror movies is not the way to go. The audience isn’t an idiot that cannot differentiate good from the bad. And this movie is a blatant attempt at milking the already established name of a movie deeply loved by all.

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Now, this The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 an entertaining movie, at least? Well, as I mentioned previously, the kids are annoying as shit, so it’s a little difficult to sit through. Plus, everyone makes the worst possible decision at all times. I wonder how people’s flight or fight responses don’t click on during moments such as these? Anyway, the saving grace is the kills. They are awesome so have fun with them. Practical effects are honestly great and the movie’s deaths are just horrendously gnarly. I love it.

But, man, that school shooting point added to this movie for literally no reason is just in such bad taste and extremely cringy to watch.

Summing up: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 is a gnarly movie but is otherwise uninteresting and, in some ways, boring. The cash grab attempt, specifically, is quite blatant. But hey, at least you get mangled heads and arms and whatnot. I give it points for that.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is streaming on Netflix.

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