Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) | Film Review

I love the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, particularly the older ones when the concept was still new. When I found out that another movie was being released, I was sceptical (I didn't love the last film, 'Leatherface'), but ultimately, I was excited to see the most recent take.

After 50 years, Leatherface returns to terrorise a group of friends trying to bring life to an abandoned Texas town.

This definitely wasn't the best of the franchise.

For a start, I couldn't really tell when the film was supposed to be set. Even though it is advertised as being modern, the characters look and feel really old-fashioned, as did the world around them. If some of the language had been changed, the film could have been set 50 years ago with not much being changed.

There is a lot of time where nothing is happening. But because the film is so short (80 minutes), it doesn't make sense for nothing to be happening for periods of time.

This film felt really disconnected from the previous Texas Chainsaw movies, particularly Leatherface himself. He felt like a completely different villain this time around, which made the film less fun to watch. 

Having said that, there was an interesting connection to the original movie, but it wasn't strong enough for me to enjoy it in the same way that I've enjoyed the previous movies.

One of my biggest gripes with the film was inconsistency in terms of the creation of the characters. I would have preferred either all of the characters to have backstories, or to focus the story entirely on Leatherface. It didn't make sense to give one character an interesting backstory, while there's another character that didn't even have a name.

And then there's the ending, which was either so bad it was funny, or so funny that it was bad. I laughed, but was I supposed to?

Overall, this isn't a great addition to the franchise. The franchise didn't need multiple additions in the first place, but if there are going to be modern updates, I hope the next sticks closer to the original movies.

3/10