Crammed with more social commentary than its lean 83-minute frame can frankly carry, the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre—out on Netflix—outstays its welcome before a single person has been killed. Directed by David Blue Garcia, the film squeezes in mentions of a high school shooting, the controversial Stand Your Ground law and Confederate flags with the intensity of a Marvel movie name-dropping characters from its own shared universe.
What made the original film such a classic was the fact that all the intellectualisation around it happened in the aftermath of its release in 1974. It was, first and foremost, a slick slasher movie about a murderous madman. The analysis about the Vietnam war and vegetarianism came much later.
The new movie, however, never stops being about something. Even though, on the surface, nothing much happens besides a handful of insufferable kids being sawed to death in a Texas ghost town. The movie follows the same basic structure as Tobe Hooper’s original, and serves as a direct sequel to that film, ignoring the over half-a-dozen movies that the franchise has churned out in the meantime.
But instead of a ramshackle Ford van—a symbol of the Flower Power era—the kids in this movie drive around in a fancy Tesla, which almost comes across as the film’s way of scoffing at them. This, by the way, is a major problem. At no point is it clear if the movie is a takedown of vest-wearing, MAGA-minded rednecks, or if it’s actually satirising the brunch-loving, environmentally conscious millennial protagonists.
So, when one of the kids declares in the film’s opening few minutes that they’ve come to the town of Harlow with the intention of ‘building a better world’, the movie doesn’t cut out of the scene. It allows the gun-toting Texan whom they’ve already insulted to fire a comeback. “Sounds like a cult,” he drawls, as if we’re meant to agree with him. Around the same time, when another character—this one’s Black—spots a Confederate flag limply attached to the side of a century-old building, he demands that it be taken down. Once again, the movie makes room for the same native Texan to make the kids feel bad about it, almost as if it’s wagging a finger at them for disrespecting local culture.
But don’t get me wrong, perhaps I’m just giving the movie the benefit of the doubt. For all we know, it could actually be on the side of the Trumptards. But could you imagine how much worse that would make it? It’s quite unbearable as it is, even at less than an hour-and-a-half long; 74 minutes, in fact, without credits.
Self-awareness, however, is hardly something you would expect from a movie that is, essentially, the fifth reboot of a franchise that stopped being relevant after the first film. In fact, it’s the third time that the series has been rebooted in the last decade alone.
The only reason this one was mildly interesting in the first place was the involvement of Eighth Grade breakout Elsie Fisher, who gets to do little else besides slouch around, and the filmmaking duo Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues, who previously worked on the Evil Dead reboot, but more impressively, are behind the two Don’t Breathe movies. They should’ve known better.
Completely devoid of atmosphere, unimaginatively shot on a studio backlot, and filled with wall-to-wall kill sequences of diminishing creativity, the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a mind-numbing mess.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Director – David Blue Garcia
Cast – Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Jacob Latimore, Moe Dunford, Olwen Fouéré, Alice Krige, Jessica Allain
Rating – 1/5