Every “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (TCM) movie is terrible. Spanning from the original to the 2022 Netflix release and taking a tiny reprieve for “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” (1986), which is arguably watchable, the series has always been awful. I state this to be clear that I came into “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2022) from a place of unrelenting anger and cynicism. My review may thus be overly harsh. 

This “Halloween Kills” lookalike follows a group of young people, 40 years after the original massacre took place, as they attempt to gentrify a rundown Texan town. That is genuinely the plot. Five Gen Z/Millennials buy an entire town in order to sell it to influencer chefs but then Leatherface kills them all. Any further facade of plot or character was utterly contrived and despicably underwritten. But that is not what matters in this criticism. No “TCM” movie has ever claimed to be driven by anything other than violence and mindless entertainment. Audiences who, for some ungodly reason, enjoy this series, do not enjoy it for its thoughtful character studies and low concept structure. They enjoy watching the big man with a spooky gross face chainsaw a screaming half-naked woman whose name was maybe said once.

Despite my biases, I am a slasher fan, so I do understand what makes these movies entertaining. The key is in the creativity. Which, in all honesty, “TCM” (2022), the eighth iteration, had a bit of. The original “TCM” (1974) was, in many ways, the original 70s slasher, and thus the basis for the more famous 80s slashers. No “TCM” (1974) means no Freddie, Jason, Michael or Chucky. The original had a clear directorial vision. It reveled in grime and sleaziness. It was a true grindhouse picture made by lovers of the widely dismissed and scorned genre, in order to make its audience uncomfortable as well as terrified. I respect the original and appreciate its importance in a genre I hold so dearly, but the sadistic levels of sexism and ableism throughout make it unwatchable. “TCM” (2022) is not ableist or sexist, but it also does not have any apparent directorial vision nor the saving charms or inspiring nature of an authentically low-budget sleazy slasher.

All this Netflix release has going for it is gore—a lot of gore used in ways not often seen. Directors like Ari Aster have normalized sitting in images of unfiltered body horror and yet still, the vast majority of low-brow high-budget horror shy away from it, either because of a lack of imagination or fear of polarizing their audience. They may show a stab wound and blood pouring out of a victim’s mouth, but few have the braves or facial prosthetic ability to show a skinless face, a mouth doubled in length via sharp instrument or even a beheading. “TCM” (2022) was not afraid. Chainsaws do not result in neat pretty deaths, and heads with the faces cut off, equally staples of the series, are nasty. A lot of people die in this movie, often in quick succession, and for a film that otherwise does not have a unique or inventive bone in its body, these deaths occurred in ways rarely seen. They were simultaneously quick, violent and well thought out. No matter how painful and asinine the rest of “TCM” (2022) may be, it showed gore not just often but imaginatively, in both methods of kill and bodily mutilation. 

Any fans, or begrudging viewers, of the past “TCM” films, will be confused to scrub through this supposed sequel and find no mention of the Sawyer family. The Sawyer family, or the Hewitt family in the early 2000s “TCM” remake, are the cannibalistic extended family of Leatherface. They are integral to the premise and horror of the past movies. At first, the original movies present Leatherface as a singular evil force, but it slowly becomes clear his insidious intentions span a dangerously large group of people. The protagonists are surrounded by the Sawyer family, and gruesome death begins to feel inevitable. It is terrifying. But the Sawyers were not in “TCM” (2022). Leatherface’s entire established backstory was changed and replaced with nothing of substance. The unstoppable murderous force really is just him, a human man. Leatherface and the Sawyers have been minimized into every other human slasher. They have become another Michael Myers clone.

A further similarity between this film and the newer films in the “Halloween” franchise is its feckless attempt at morality. “TCM” (2022) managed the most inarticulate, muddled, insensitive anti-gun violence message I have ever seen. The only reason I have any confidence this was in fact the intended message, as it gets utterly forgotten and even undermined about halfway through the movie when guns are shown to be the only thing that can fight off Leatherface, is the youngest character, Lila (Elsie Fisher), is a survivor of a school shooting. She is shown early in the movie having traumatic flashbacks at the sight of a gun, but by the end, she wields one without much thought. Still, the director insists he made an anti-gun violence movie. When dealing with a topic as real and somber as school shootings, one must tread so carefully in order to not end up using the deaths of dozens of teenagers as shock value. “TCM” (2022) had no such grace. 

This film was unpleasant, senseless and bad for the series as a whole, but it was entertaining and gorey enough to be worth a hate-watch.