Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 review

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre gets rebooted for the third time of the 21st century, this time bypassing a theatre release and instead going directly to Netflix. 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a direct sequel to the 1974 original and is set nearly 50 years after the first. The film doesn’t do a good job of carrying the franchise’s legacy and unfortunately, ends up failing in nearly every aspect. My biggest criticism of the current incarnation is that it adopts several dumb horror tropes stereotypical of horror films that modern writers have started to move away from. The white girl inexplicably falling and forgetting how to walk is one of the few major tropes that Texas Chainsaw Massacre gratefully didn’t utilize. It’s disappointing because over the last 7-8 years, horror writers and filmmakers have done a good job of making their films smarter and avoiding these tropes historic to the genre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is debatably one of the 10 most iconic horror franchises, so it’s a step backwards that a reboot in 2022 relies on character stupidity to advance its plot.

The film struggles – and fails – because it’s reliant on the poor decision-making of its characters to propel the story. In real life, most people overestimate what they would actually do in a high-pressure crisis. Even highly trained individuals, such as cops or soldiers are prone to panic when shit gets real, so it’s forgivable for regular smegular citizens to fall short during an anxiety laden situation. However, the characters in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 made some really awful decisions. These are the kind of bad choices that horror movies have become synonymous with and that writers have thankfully started to distance themselves away from. This is poor storytelling.

The film modernizes the franchise by introducing polarizing current events such as gentrification, school-shootings, rural small-town decline, and Influencer Culture. None of these topics become central to the film and instead, they seem as if they were force-fed to make the film fit in 2022 and to enhance its appeal to Gen Z. There were definitely opportunities where the film could have commentated on these issues to make it relevant to the plot, but the film failed to do so leaving the film hungry for something deeper.

The film does thrive in its depiction of blood and violence. This is the bloodiest entry of the franchise. The writers and director take a page out of Halloween Kills’s playbook and make Leatherface more brutal, sadistic, and innovative in his kills. Another aspect that Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 imitates, is bringing back the final girl from the original. The rebooted Halloween does this with Laurie Strode, as does Scream 5 with Sidney Prescott. 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre brings back Sally Hardesty, the lone survivor from Leatherface’s initial tirade. Unlike Laurie Strodes’s and Sidney Prescott’s, Hardesty’s showdown falls flat and is bogged down with shitty decisions by the character. This ultimately sabotages any climatic finale between her and Leatherface.

2022’s reboot failed to progress the franchise. This story simply didn’t justify a reboot. Texas Chainsaw Massacre fails to warrant any excitement, or justification, for future films, which is a disappointment. The lead and final girls were a bit different than what we commonly see in horror films. The two sisters have an almost parent-child dynamic which would have been fascinating to explore but the film fails to do so. Some of the other characters get killed off to quickly before we can learn anything about them. These, combined with a flimsy story and several head-scratching decisions by multiple characters make this a difficult movie to get behind. If this is the state of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then it might be best to leave Leatherface in Harlow.

------4.0/10