There has yet to be a horror film with the grisly, depraved spirit that 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre brought to the genre. There’s simply no villain quite like Leatherface. He has no mercy in his bones; his identity is a warped everyman’s visage kept hidden at the heel of his insecurities. He is ruthless and despicable, but he is sympathetic in his way. He doesn’t move without cause, making his impact that much greater. He is an absolute beast, and there is a reason he and his legacy loom large into the 21st century.
With this in mind, it was hard not to get excited about the direct sequel David Blue Garcia’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre promised to be. With Evil Dead remake genius Fede Alvarez producing, and an apparent dedication to meaningfully furthering the original storyline, it seemed like there was no way this new version of the worst crime in Texas history could be a misstep. It turned out to be a trite modernization of the original, resting on topical concepts that it doesn’t know how to comment on—or at least, it’s not saying what it thinks it is.
Screenwriter Chris Thomas Devlin’s interpretation of this furthering of the franchise—from a story by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues—follows Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and Dante (Jacob Latimore), two young chefs who bring a group of wide-eyed folks looking for change to Harlow, a Texas ghost town seven or eight hours outside of Austin. The goal is to breathe life into the abandoned town, resettle it and build from the ashes of the identity it left behind.
But Melody’s younger sister, Lila (Elsie Fisher), isn’t exactly into the idea of leaving their life in Austin behind. Soon, they discover they are not alone in their new home, and that their decision to move here will be one they will regret.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre initially takes a hard anti-gentrification stance, immediately casting the newcomers as gentrifiers in the eyes of every local (and there are few, as to be expected) that we come across. The angle, however, doesn’t work: Aside from the film’s inciting incident, there isn’t actually anyone to kick out or displace—in fact, the leads mention that the bank repossessed the abandoned properties, “abandoned” being the key word.
This isn’t someone’s grandmother’s Bed-Stuy brownstone, these are buildings that need work and repair to live and work in. Further, using a Black man in Dante as a driving force of gentrification is a strange thing, given that historically Black neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by the practice. The movie is ultimately conservative in its messaging—through how it frames gentrification and, later, Confederates—strange for a franchise about the mutilation of the human body, a pretty apolitical topic.
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