Oh, is this something we’ve been needing? A Netflix addition to one of the most legendary horror movies, so legendary they made nine movies out of it just to see if they can ring a little more money out of it. Three of these movies are titled “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” without a number attached to indicate it’s a sequel/prequel/etc. This isn’t a reboot, it’s just another sequel. Can they do that?? Just re-use a title verbatim like that? If so, can we make them stop??
This installment takes place 50 years after the original incidents, in a movie released 48 years after the original AND the type-A personality in me (and it’s huge) wants to know: Could they have just waited 2 years to make this movie? Make the fictional and actual timelines synch up? How neat and tidy would THAT be? That might almost make this flick worth watching.
…but I digress.
A Tesla full of woke restaurant wannabe-moguls travel to Nothingistan, Texas to open a new restaurant or something. The locals all knew they were coming, but don’t seem overly excited about their presence. Downright suspicious I’d say! The town is a deserted crappolopolis, but these four are going to breathe life into this fossil of a town by opening a restaurant. That’s their plan. They are super important because they’re young and ambitious. They’re going to attract other young ambitious youngish young-youngs to open art galleries and host podcasts and be just like totally influency!
Just what a Texas ghost town needs to thrive, self-centered under-25’ers whose greatest contribution to society is their own vanity.
They managed to buy half the town, with money earned by being pretty on the internet, and hope to sell it to other self-important internet pretty people who will all move in and build an exurban utopia free from the constraints and influences of people different from them.
One of the buildings has the original occupant still living in it, an old woman who spent her whole life running the local orphanage. Well THAT just will not do! We have a bus full of mustaches and mullets coming to make a new utopia of love and acceptance for all… so we need to drag this old hick bitch outa here! They evict the woman, and the old woman immediately dies. I guess that’s what evictions do. Oh well, sure it’s tragic but we can’t have old dirty people without advanced degrees in our utopia.
Fun fact, she dies in the lap of her son, and her son is Leatherface, and he’s gonna come to their idyllic new gentrified society to open up an artisanal murder-everybody boutique!
There is some face cleaving and some head smashing and some stab-your-neck-with-your-own-arm-boning, some head-poopin’ (no, I didn’t misspell “popping” I meant what I said and I said POOP!) and a decapitation or two, and THEN L.F. cancels an entire bus full of TikTok’ing house-flippers! Easily the best scene of the movie. So messy, so gratifying, just sawing his way through a bus full of gentrifying hipster douchebags and throwing the parts over his shoulder as he goes. You can just stop the movie here, if you’d like, it’s not going to get any better after this. NO movie could get any better.
From here we are introduced to the “final girl” character from the original movie, a character who ALSO doesn’t look like a 75-year-old lady (50 years after the original events, right? These characters are all senior citizens now). She’s a Texas Ranger these days, and wants revenge but FIRST I’m wondering, are all Texas cops, or state cops considered “Rangers” or is that just a special branch, like SWAT? If so, what dictates whether you call state, local or Texas Rangers? Also, do they all know karate, like Chuck Norris? I could Google it but would rather just sit here and wonder out loud, on the internet.
So, Old Lady Final Girl to the rescue, to have that last vengeful duel with Leatherface… oh no, not really. She’s dead before I even finish typing this sentence. What was the point of even bringing her into this story in the first place?? “Here’s this lady, a 75-year-old karate cop with an axe to grind (no not Axe Cop, that’s something else) and here’s her backstory and she winds up for the duel of the ages but she’s dead now and we’ll be moving on.
At this point we have no lead-ass-kicker anymore, and only two non-ass-kickers left, so what happens? Why it’s a rapid-fire string of Deus Ex Machina, if you really want to know. Oh no killer’s gonna get you, it’s all over now and you get ready to die but no! There’s a gunshot from behind him! Yay but he runs and gets away and you follow him and you’re about to get him but you run outa bullets, oh noes, him gonna kill you now, but wait, another gunshot from behind him! But zoem noeses! Your gun breaks and he’s gonna kill you up good, except wow! Another shot from behind him! That was so unexpected!
NO! NO IT WASN’T! STOP THAT!
Yes I’m totally spoilering you but if you are planning to watch this movie to be mystified by its incredible plot then pick another movie! You’re watching this movie for one and only one reason – to watch Leatherface saw up a bussload of hipsters!
Mido slept through most of it. She doesn’t care about whether hipsters get sliced up or not, all humans are scum to her.
NEXT WEEK!! OCTOBER!!
OkGoreberfest will be enjoying its namesake month with a full October of horror movies! Don’t miss it!