Franchises: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

"Oh, fuck off! Another motherfucking reboot?!" Not only was that my genuine reaction, it was also compounded by my not even really knowing anything about this movie until the trailer for it dropped on YouTube in early 2022. But as much as it may have made me roll my eyes, I couldn't contain my curiosity and watched said trailer. Not only was I not impressed by how it looked like yet another generic entry in this franchise, with no apparent story aside from Leatherface cutting people up, but the knowledge that this was yet another reboot in the vein of Texas Chainsaw 3-D made me facepalm hard, as did the, "Try anything and you're cancelled, bro," line. But when I saw that they were going the Halloween 2018 route and bringing back the character of Sally as an older, tougher woman, intent on confronting Leatherface one last time, I seriously did almost yell, "Fuck you!", out loud. And if you thought I was aggravated that the last one was just called Leatherface, just imagine how I felt when I saw that, this time, they merely dropped the "The" from the title, as if this franchise's filmography wasn't already confusing enough. Things didn't get any better when I watched Hats Off Entertainment's YouTube video, The Massacre of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and learned details of the movie's story: the characters didn't come off as all that likable, Sally's presence felt pointless and she apparently died very unceremoniously, and the filmmakers were so lazy that they had Leatherface simply flay off someone's face, put it on his own, and have it stay in place for the whole movie. (And can we all agree that that poster is awful? The first dozen or so times I saw it, I didn't know what I was looking at because of that lens flare.) The whole thing felt inept and uninspired and, like the two previous movies, I was in no hurry to see it. The fact that I didn't and still don't have Netflix also made it unlikely that I would see it any time soon. But, as usual, life is full of surprises. In October of that year, I was house-sitting for someone who did have Netflix and, since it was the Halloween season, I figured, "Why not?" (Lucky for this movie, I hadn't yet started watched that Dahmer series, as I became positively hooked on it and blew through the whole thing within the few days I was there.)

Like the two previous movies, I wasn't that crazy about it, as it did indeed come off as a typical gory slasher movie, and an obnoxiously modern, social and political conscious one at that. While it was short and to the point, and it was fun seeing Leatherface just go to town on a bunch of people you wanted to see get slaughtered, especially in that sequence on the bus, I found the story to be very ho-hum, didn't really care about the main characters, found myself agreeing with Hats Off Entertainment that Sally didn't need to be in this movie, and absolutely hated the ending, to the point where it made me downright mad. And like with Leatherface, I hadn't re-watched it until I decided I was going to review the franchise for this month. Despite my rather profane ranting at the top, you've probably noticed that, unlike Texas Chainsaw 3-D, this doesn't have the "Movies That Suck" label. That's because, while far from the franchise's finest hour, I feel that, if you go in with low expectations, this flick can be enjoyable. It helps that, unlike 3-D, it's ambiguous as to who's right and who's wrong in this scenario, and doesn't force you to pick a side, with even some of the more obnoxious characters proving to have their good points. Also, while I still have qualms about the portrayal of Leatherface here, I won't deny that I do like his look and he proves to be one of the most wonderfully brutal versions we've ever had. And like I said, at just 83 minutes (and that's counting the different language credits at the very end), the movie is not a slog to get through and never really stops once it gets to the massacring.

Having bought up the old, abandoned town of Harlow, Texas, a group of four young influencers, Melody or "Mel," her sister Lila, Dante, and his girlfriend Ruth, head there to auction off the various properties. Upon arriving, they realize that a man whom Mel had a not so friendly interaction with at a nearby gas station is actually Richter, their contractor. They also find a Confederate flag attached to the side of one building, the town orphanage, and Dante and Mel head inside to get rid of it. While inside, they find that Ginny, the elderly woman who ran the place, still lives there. When they confront her about it, Ginny insists she still owns the property and has papers to prove it, but refuses to show them. She also refuses to leave or go to a shelter, and becomes increasingly worked up, especially when Dante gets Sheriff Hathaway and his deputy involved. She collapses from a heart attack, and an enormous man, whom she refers to simply as "Baby," and who Hathaway identifies as "her boy," comes downstairs, picks her up, and puts her in the police van to be taken to the hospital. When a group of potential buyers and investors arrive on a large bus, Mel and Dante have to stay behind and see to the auction, while Ruth accompanies Ginny to the hospital. However, Ginny dies in the man's arms en route, and after Ruth texts Mel about it, the man brutally kills both of the officers and causes the van to crash in a field of sunflowers. Upon regaining consciousness, Ruth sees the man flay off Ginny's face and wear it as a mask. Terrified and trying not to draw attention to herself, she attempts to call for help on the police band, but is soon killed as well. However, Sally Hardesty, the lone survivor of the 1973 murders in the town of Newt and now a Texas Ranger, learns of Ruth's call. Upon hearing the detail about the man wearing Ginny's face, Sally knows it's Leatherface, whom she's been searching for ever since he murdered her friends, and heads to Harlow. Leatherface himself also returns to town, heads back to the orphanage, and, retrieving the chainsaw he used decades before, plans on killing everyone there out of grief and revenge.

There have been a good number of crazy rights issues with various franchises, horror and otherwise, over the years, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is, by far, the one that jumps around the most. Within a span of just under twenty years, the rights have gone from Platinum Dunes and New Line Cinema, to Lionsgate and Millennium Films, and, at the moment, to Legendary Pictures. Despite producer Carl Mazzocone's aforementioned initial plan to produce as many as six films when he acquired the rights, because of Leatherface's delayed release, as well as the bizarre, complex nature of that release in general, his and the studio's option on the rights expired altogether at the end of 2017. It didn't take long for Legendary Pictures to get a hold of them, and they managed to get Fede Alvarez, the director of the 2013 Evil Dead film and Don't Breathe, to join the project. Alvarez agreed, and brought along his frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues, who co-wrote both of those films with him, and would go on to do the same for Alien: Romulus. However, Alvarez opted not to direct the film himself, as he wanted to give other up-and-coming filmmakers the same chance that Sam Raimi had given him with Evil Dead. He and Sayagues wrote the initial story, which would be turned into a screenplay by Chris Thomas Devlin, a newcomer who went on to write the 2023 horror film, Cobweb.

Things got off to a rough start, first when filming was delayed from May of 2020 to August because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and second when the initial directors, Ryan and Andy Tohill, who'd directed a 2018 film called The Dig (to date, their only feature film), were fired, along with their cinematographer, just a week into shooting. The reason for their firing was apparently due to the studio not being impressed with their results, and thus, none of what they shot was used in the final film. In their place was David Blue Garcia, who'd mainly been a cinematographer on shorts, television series, and feature films, and had made his directorial debut with 2018's Tejano. None much else to say about him, and you'll notice that I don't mention him much throughout this review, as he came in at the last minute, with little preparation, and seem to have much say in how things went; Alvarez seemed more like the major creative behind the film. Fittingly, though, despite the film being shot in Bulgaria like the previous one, Garcia is from Austin, Texas.

Even more so than the fairly insipid cast of Texas Chainsaw 3-D, the main characters of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 are often rather difficult to care for, with the exception of Lila (Elsie Fisher), who's dragged to Harlow by her sister, Melody, who's afraid to leave her alone. You eventually learn that Lila was the sole survivor of a school shooting and, ever since then, Mel has been positively smothering her, thinking she can't function on her own, much to Lila's aggravation. Also, unlike Melody and the other influencers, Lila isn't sold on the idea of gentrifying Harlow, especially after what happens with Ginny, and doesn't want to live there herself. And while she does have her moments, she's not nearly as judgmental and obnoxious as her sister can be. For much of the movie's first and second acts, she wanders around town, befriending Richter, their local contractor, and while Mel and Dante search the orphanage for proof that they didn't wrongfully evict Ginny, Lila is forced to stay on the bus. Because of this, she only gradually begins to realize that something's wrong, finally losing her patience and going to look for her sister. Along the way, she finds Dante dead on the sidewalk and just manages to help Melody escape Leatherface in the orphanage. From there on out, both of them, specifically Mel, are targeted by him for what happened to Ginny, with the ensuing slaughter causing Lila to have flashbacks to what happened to her. And during the climax, while Mel encourages her to run, Lila instead takes Sally Hardesty's dying advice and opts to face Leatherface rather than be haunted by another tragedy.

Melody (Sarah Yarkin), or "Mel," is a much more mixed character. On the one hand, she immediately comes off as having a judgmental, high-and-mighty attitude. When Richter pulls up at the gas station they're visiting at the beginning of the movie, she notices his handgun and comments, "Look at this guy. Who has such a small dick, they need to walk around in public with a fucking gun? Like, I mean, is he compensating for something?" Both Dante and Lila tell her to shut up but she keeps going on, and before they drive off, Richter tells her, "Sorry if a big gun makes you uncomfortable," and she retorts, "I've seen bigger," with a really obnoxious smirk on her face. She continues to disparage Richter even after they learn he's their contractor, at one point acting like he did something to Lila when she was just using his restroom. Speaking of Lila, Mel really lays on being overprotective with her, dragging her to Harlow with the others because she doesn't want her to be in the city by herself. When Lila tells her that she doesn't want to live there, Mel comes off as both smothering and condescending, saying, "You don't know what you want... I know that you need me and that you can't take care of yourself." To her credit, she does realize she messed up with that in how Lila immediately storms off, but then latter, she orders her to stay on the bus like she's a little kid. But Mel isn't without her genuine good points. When she and Dante meet Ginny in the orphanage, she tries to handle things with finesse, even if she is a bit clumsy with it, whereas Dante just acts like an impatient asshole. And when Ginny has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital, Mel is especially distraught about it and even tries to ride with her, but Ruth insists on going instead. Coupled with her fight with Lila, it really throws Mel off her game during the auction, and she's absolutely horrified when she learns of Ginny's death. She's so stricken with guilt that she tries to leave town with Lila, saying it doesn't feel right anymore, but circumstances prevent it. And when she and Dante search the orphanage for evidence that Ginny did still own the building like she said, Mel is the one who finds it, compounding her guilt. But just when she's processing that, Leatherface returns home and begins his killing spree, with Mel being one of his main targets.

While he's not as immediately obnoxious as Mel, Dante (Jacob Latimore) is the one who's really gun-ho about buying Harlow and gentrifying it. He even fantasizes about calling it, "Dantopia." But not long after they get there, he makes a big deal about a Confederate flag hanging from the side of the orphanage and wants to get rid of it, fearing it'll turn off potential buyers. He and Mel go inside the building so he can remove the flag, but he fails at that. That's when they meet Ginny, and Dante is much more impatient and harsh towards her, especially when she uses the term "Negroes," albeit in an out of touch manner clearly not meant to be malicious. He gets Sheriff Hathaway and his deputy to remove her, the stress of which leads to her heart attack. Though he does show some concern for her, he ultimately doesn't take any responsibility for it, and is hardly broken up or guilt-ridden when he learns she died. And when Richter takes both their car and bus keys out of revenge, refusing to give them back until they produce the deed to the orphanage, it turns out that Dante doesn't actually have it on him. He makes the excuse that it might be back in the office in Austin, and then, under Lila's suggestion, he and Mel search the orphanage for proof that Ginny still owned the place like she said. However, he gets attacked by Leatherface, who slices open the side of his jaw with a meat cleaver, a gruesome wound that he doesn't even die from right away.

Of the main group, Dante's girlfriend, Ruth (Nell Hudson), has the least amount of character, as she's among the first to die. She doesn't have all that much dialogue either, but does say some things that are a bit crappy, I must admit. When Ginny has her heart attack, Ruth insists on riding with her to the hospital, making Mel and Dante stay in order to accommodate the bus of buyers and see to the auction. Right after Ginny dies, Ruth texts them about it, but gets caught up in the crash that Leatherface causes when he flies into a rage over it. Ruth doesn't die immediately in the crash, and manages to call for help over the radio band, which eventually reaches Sally Hardesty, but she dies slowly and painfully before she can escape.

The most unexpected but wonderfully nuanced character in the film is Richter (Moe Dunford). When the group makes a bad first impression with him thanks to Melody, Richter makes a passive aggressive remark about eradicating an "invasive species" and later drives by them on the highway, blasting diesel smoke at them. Then, when they get to Harlow, it's revealed that he's their contractor, and even though he's getting paid for his services, he still disdains them for what they are and what they're doing. He asks them, "So you guys are what? Like a cult?", and Ruth answers, "We are idealistic individuals who want to build a better world;"; Richter retorts, "Yeah, that's a cult. It's alright. Not judgin'." His opinion of them sours all the more after Ginny has a heart attack and is taken away. After removing the Confederate flag from the orphanage's side, he shoves it against Dante's chest, contemptibly saying, "Here's your flag." Later, when Lila walks into his auto-shop and accuses him of being a nihilist, Richter puts her and her friends in their place, saying, "I'm a Texan. I don't like people tellin' me what to do, especially smug, self-righteous, rich city folk." But then, when Lila sees the large assortment of guns he has, the anxiety they cause lead her to reveal that she was the sole survivor of a school shooting, and he sympathizes with her. But that doesn't stop him from taking the keys to both their car and bus when he learns of Ginny's death, refusing to give them back until they can provide evidence that the orphanage is now their property. But, when Richter later sees Dante wander out of the orphanage, though he's initially hostile towards him about what he was up to in there, he changes his tune when he sees how hideously injured he is. Dante collapses and bleeds out right there, prompting Richter to whip out a handgun and investigate the orphanage. There, he has a short scuffle with Leatherface, fighting him even after his left leg gets badly broken and manages to hold his own, until Leatherface strikes a nasty killing blow. Collapsing to the floor, he sees Mel hiding under a bed and manages to remove his keys so she and the others can later try to escape.

William Hope, who, as I said in my review of Hellbound: Hellraiser II, I always immediately think of as Lt. Gorman in Aliens, has a small role here as Sheriff Hathaway. Early on, he and his deputy (Jolyon Coy) stop the group's car right before they get to Harlow, clearly distrusting them and not wanting them to cause any trouble. He tells Dante, "Some of us were born here, ya know. Saw it in its prime. So please, be respectful to the town." Melody then smooths things over, telling Hathaway that her and Lila's grandmother was from Harlow, reciting an old saying about the place's sunflowers. Whether that little tidbit is true or something she made up, he allows them to go on. Later, Dante calls on him and his deputy to remove Ginny from the orphanage, during which she has her heart attack and has to be taken to the hospital. When she dies en route and Leatherface goes ballistic, any idea you may have had about Hathaway being a significant character goes out the window, as he and his deputy are the first ones to die. Although the deputy is killed immediately, Hathaway manages to survive being shot through the side of his neck and the crash, only for Leatherface to finish him off by smashing his head in with Ginny's oxygen tank.

Ginny (Alice Krige) comes off as a sweet and well-meaning, if confused and senile, old woman who's raised a lot of children in her time. Though initially shocked to find Dante and Melody wandering around her home, she acts accommodating to them upon realizing they're the "new neighbors" and fixes them some tea. But when they press her about the bank reclaiming the orphanage, she insists that she paid everything she needed to and still owns the building. However, she refuses to show them any proof of this, making them think she's lying, and then unintentionally offends Dante when, on the subject of the Confederate flag, she says, "I've taken care of many boys like you over the years. I don't have a problem with Negroes." After Dante storms out, Ginny tells Melody that the flag reminds her of her great-grandfather, and that's why she keeps it. She gets more worked up when Mel continues to insist that she can't be there and she needs to go to a shelter. Hearing the commotion, Leatherface makes his first appearance and, after sending him away, Ginny explains that he needs "special care" and can't function outside. But then, Sheriff Hathaway and his deputy come to remove her, causing her to have a heart attack, and Leatherface carries her into the van and rides back there with her as she's taken to the hospital. During her final moments, you see the affection and care she had for him, and that it was definitely mutual. And when she dies, everything quickly goes to hell.

So much about this movie is similar to Texas Chainsaw 3-D, particularly the depiction of Leatherface (Mark Burnham). When we catch up to him here, we learn that, like in that film, someone has given him a home and looked after him ever since the events of the original. In this instance, however, we get to see just how strong his bond is with his guardian, as he's the last of the numerous orphans Ginny looked after over the years and clearly trusts and has deep affection for her. He first appears at the top of the stairs when he hears her arguing with Melody, and while she's able to convince him to stand down for the moment, when she collapses, he rushes downstairs, picks her up, and puts her in the police van. Though his face is obscured by his long hair and shadows (albeit not nearly enough to where you can't see him at all), you can see him angrily glare at Mel out the back of the van as they leave. Ginny dies in his arms before they reach the nearest hospital, and his world collapses with it. Like a desperate, overgrown child, he rapidly fiddles with her oxygen tank and shakes her IV stand, trying to make her come back. But once it's clear that she's dead, his rage erupts and he kills the deputy in the back, causing him to accidentally shoot Sheriff Hathaway, leading to the crash. Afterward, Leatherface removes Ginny's body from the van, flays off her face, and puts it on as a mask, before killing those left alive in the crash and heading back to Harlow. Arriving back at the orphanage, he mortally wounds Dante, and then, in a moment of sympathy that works better than anything Adam Marcus came up with for 3-D, he goes into Ginny's bedroom, removes one of her dresses from her wardrobe, and sits down with it, cradling it and making mournful sounds. Then, hearing the party that the influencers are having outside, his grief turns to rage and he removes his old chainsaw from within the wall, intent on cutting some bitches up, especially Mel.

Also like with 3-D, my overall opinion on this depiction of Leatherface is mixed, although there's more that I like this time around. On the good side, this feels like an old man version of the original Gunnar Hansen portrayal. Instead of being overly cunning like he was in 3-D (for the most part), Leatherface is still shown to be an overgrown, mentally-handicapped child. It's no longer overtly so like in the original, but the way he clings to Ginny as if she's his mother (which she could actually be, for

all we know), panics when she dies and is initially unwilling to accept it, and moans and whimpers while rocking back and forth, cuddling one of her dresses, does feel in line with a much older version of the character we first met back in the 70's. On top of that, the way he sniffs her dress and then puts a dab of makeup on her face as he's wearing it hints at that alternate feminine side alluded to in the original. And while he's still fueled by revenge like in 3-D, he's depicted as having a very simple, one-track mentality,

as he attacks in a more blunt, bull in a china shop manner like in the original, and while he sets a trap here and there, they're very simple. The most definitive part of his characterization is when Sally finally confronts him and expects him to remember who she is, as well as how he killed her friends and brother back in 1973... but he doesn't. Because of his simple mindset and how he spent many years being abused and bossed around by his family, his killing Kirk, Pam, Jerry, and Franklin were just a handful of numerous, matter-of-fact murders that meant nothing

to him and didn't even register all that much within his mongoloid brain. Plus, as angry as he may have been at the time when Sally escaped from him, it's not something that stuck with him for very long, and he's obviously not going to know who she is nearly fifty years later. That feels much more in line with Leatherface than him systematically seeking revenge on the members of the mob who lynched his family decades ago.

However, what I'm not so keen on is how, once he starts killing, Leatherface feels more like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees with a chainsaw. While he still moves a lot quicker than they typically do, he's depicted as being a lot stronger than a normal human, with the first kill occurring when he breaks the deputy's arm with his bare hand, splintering the bone in the process, and then stabbing him in the neck with it. On top of that, he's much more silent in this film than he's ever been, as he never yells or screams;

instead, he only occasionally grunts when he gets hit or shot, and breathes heavily otherwise. And speaking of which, he shrugs off getting shot like it was nothing, and despite being a delivered a final blow that would kill a normal person, he pops up for one last kill before the credits, something else you'd expect more from Michael or Jason . He even does their quizzical head-tilt now and then, and the way he poses Ginny's corpse in the cornfield feels like something they would do. Speaking of which, his killing out of revenge for his mother especially feels

like Jason. Finally, even more so than in Texas Chainsaw 3-D, Leatherface sure is strong and spry for someone as old as he has to be (his leg sometimes moves awkwardly, likely due to him having cut himself in the original movie, but that's about it). In fact, like the guys behind that movie, these filmmakers apparently can't count, as I've read from several sources that Leatherface is supposed to be like sixty in this film... which would've made him like a really big eleven- or twelve-year old in the original. Realistically, he should be in his early 70's, at least, and while I know there are people that age who are physically imposing (I've met and know some), it does stretch the credibility when they do what Leatherface does here.

Outside of the 2003 remake, this film shows us the most we've ever seen of Leatherface's actual face. They attempt to obscure it by giving him long, stringy hair and keeping him mostly in shadow before he makes his face mask, but like I said, when he glares out at Melody from the back of the police van, you can easily see his entire face (with that hair and beard, he kind of reminds me of Gunnar Hansen, though I don't know if that's what they were going for), and you see close-ups of rage-filled eyes during his first

kill. As for his "mask," while I still find it lazy that he simply removes Ginny's face and slips it onto his own without sewing or stitching it whatsoever, and it stays in place, I think it's one of the better ones he's ever had. It doesn't really look like he's wearing Alice Krige's face, but regardless, it has a rather creepy-looking feeling to it, especially near the end of the movie, when he's covered in blood and his hair is all long and wet. His overall look is great too, with his outfit and necktie, and the butcher's apron he puts on

upon returning to the orphanage. And while it's a bit implausible that he would've found a way to hide it in the walls, or that it still has gas or even works after all these decades, it is cool to see Leatherface using that yellow chainsaw from the original movie again.

By far, the laziest and most cliched part of the cast is Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouere) returning as a battle-hardened Texas Ranger who, when she puts together that Leatherface is back, arms up and heads to Harlow to face him. It wasn't enough that they did a "legacy sequel" in the vein of Halloween 2018, right down it almost having the same title as the original film, but they also had to bring back the original's final girl as a more prepared and capable badass (the only difference is that, unlike with Jamie Lee Curtis, they had to recast Sally because of Marilyn Burns' death back in 2014). They make sure to establish that aspect of her character in her introductory scene, where we see her gut a pig, then wash her hands of the blood before answering her cellphone to learn of Leatherface's return (Herb, the guy at the gas station at the beginning, has a police scanner and contacts her). Moreover, in the film's very opening, when Lila asks about what happened to Sally, Herb comes out and tells both her and the viewer that Sally became a Texas Ranger and spent decades trying to find Leatherface. In any case, once she knows she's back, she not only loads up with weapons but also carries an old picture of her and her friends in the van in the original. Coming across the crashed police van, and finding Ginny's butchered corpse, she heads on to Harlow, arriving just after Leatherface has killed everyone except for Lila and Melody. She lets them in her van, but then locks them in the back, intending to use them as bait so she can get her chance to kill him. She heads inside the orphanage, following a trail of bloody footprints, and finds him upstairs. Training her gun on him, she lists off the names of her friends, then demands that he acknowledge who she is and what he did to them, only to realize he has no idea who she is and couldn't care less. Of course, that doesn't stop her from trying to kill him when he goes after Lila and Melody (as if she didn't have a chance to kill him in the orphanage), but just a few minutes later, in the midst of their "epic showdown," Leatherface easily guts her and tosses her aside.

It almost feels like an intended shot at what they did with Laurie Strode in Blumhouse's Halloween trilogy, given how they have Sally go on about how she's been waiting for an opportunity to confront Leatherface, only for it to not go as she expected at all, and for her to die so unceremoniously. In fact, her screentime is so minimal and her impact on the plot almost nonexistent that you could remove her from the film and nothing would be lost. The only significant thing she does is save Lila from being

killed by Leatherface (this is after he put the chainsaw all the way through her and tossed her into a heap of garbage bags, I might add) by shooting at him with her shotgun. She then tells her, "Don't run. Don't run. If you run... he'll stop haunting you," which prompts Lila to take the gun herself and confront Leatherface, leading to the climax.

According to Fede Alvarez, while it seemed from the outset that this was yet another direct sequel to the original, that's actually not the case. While the events of the original are the only ones explicitly mentioned, he's said that you can fill in the nearly fifty years between films with any of the other films in the initial chunk of the franchise that you choose. I appreciate the sentiment, as he said he finds it disrespectful for a movie to erase all but the original, but he clearly didn't pay much attention to the those first three sequels, given how fractured the continuity between

them and the original already is. What's more, the movie's opening hurts that idea right off the bat, since it all but flat-out says that Leatherface hasn't been seen since 1973, and that he's never been positively identified, which is why he's never called anything else throughout the movie (except for "Baby," by Ginny), even though the sequels, at the very least, named his family as the Sawyers. Speaking of which, the other members of the family are never mentioned, and the opening documentary acts as if Leatherface was the only killer, as does Sally when she confronts

him (he is the one who actually murdered them, but you'd think she'd also mention being horribly tortured by Drayton, Nubbins, and Grandpa), which appears to slightly retcon the original movie as well. And the old photograph Melody finds at the orphanage, wherein he's standing in the back, with his face obscured, suggests he's been there for a long time. And again, the opening also says that, after she told her story of what happened to her and her friends, Sally never spoke about it again and went on to be a Texas

Ranger, which completely contradicts the openings of both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, where she's respectively said to have sunk into catatonia and died in 1977. So, as much as I'll give Alvarez credit for not wanting to erase everything between it and the original, as the Blumhouse Halloween trilogy did, it is best to just view this film as another direct sequel to the first.

Like the previous film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 is well-shot, with the filmmakers managing to get a lot of wide beauty shots of their locations, showing off the beautiful fields, chief among them the one of sunflowers where the police van crashes, and a Sally's isolated house in her introductory scene. Also, even though it's clearly a set, the shots looking down the street of Harlow have an old western vibe that I find appealing. Not only is it the most notable setting within the town, but I really like the way the interiors of the old orphanage are shot, with it being mostly

dim inside, with light from the late afternoon sun coming through the windows, and later on, the interiors gradually take on a more bluish-green look from the lighting, with spots of orange that I really like. The most visually striking setpiece in the movie, though, is when Leatherface mows through everybody on the bus, which is bathed in a deep blue light, which is so deep that it manages to mute the copious amounts of blood in that sequence. Almost the entire second half takes place during a pouring

rainstorm, where the only bits of light are from neon signs and other lights of various color from the building exteriors. And finally, the climax, set inside an abandoned movie theater, has a pale-blue lighting scheme to it that contrasts well against Leatherface's blood-soaked visage.

David Blue Garcia and his cinematographer, Ricardo Diaz, manage to come up with some shots that, if nothing else, are definitely memorable. Among them are Leatherface's first appearance, where he stands atop the orphanage's staircase in silhouette; the sight of him standing in the middle of the sunflower field, both holding up and then wearing Ginny's face (still don't think that was the best idea for the poster); him reflected on a pot in the orphanage kitchen before he attacks Dante; and him standing in an alleyway and watching the bus drive by, before he stops them from

escaping. There are also some sequences that are shot in a manner that nicely generates suspense, like when Ruth regains consciousness after the crash and attempts to use the radio band to call for help. There's a shot from outside the van where we see her in the passenger seat, and can also see Leatherface behind it, flaying off Ginny's face. Suddenly, there's a moment where he stops, having apparently heard Ruth, then goes back about his business and eventually removes puts on Ginny's face. Following that, when Ruth tries to escape, she climbs across the seat and looks out the

driver's side window, scanning the field around her. She sees no sign of Leatherface, but it then cuts back to a close-up of her and she looks behind her to see him standing outside the passenger door, before proceeding to attack. When Dante gets attacked in the orphanage, the shot of it is done through the kitchen's swinging door, so we only get quick glimpses of what happens, until Dante stumbles out and collapses, bleeding everywhere. Melody then comes about halfway down the stairs, when she stops and there's a

shot from her POV looking over the railing as Leatherface looms over Dante's body, before he looks up after having heard her. When she's stuck upstairs, there are plenty of impactful shots of her hiding under the bed (especially when he gets on the bed and the mattress mashes down behind her), and when she tries to escape without going past the room that Leatherface is in, she climbs over the railing and jumps down onto the stairs, with the camera

following her and panning back up to show him standing at the top of the stairs, looking at her. Also, when he first begins smashing open the wall, it cuts to a sequence of shots of various rooms and spots in the building, each corresponding to the sledgehammer blow, before finally showing a close-up of Dante's eye snapping open as he regains consciousness and stumbles outside. And after he's finished Richter off, there's a silent cut to the stairway before transitioning to the next scene.

Like with Leatherface, the filmmakers here had to make Bulgaria look like Texas, though their task was a tad easier, seeing as how the action is mostly confined within the small abandoned town of Harlow. Specifically, they said they were trying to make it resemble West Texas and, since I'm hardly an authority, as I've only been to Texas twice in my life and I went straight to and from Dallas both times, I can easily buy this place as being the Lone Star State. Again, you see plenty of wide open spaces in the countryside surrounding Harlow, which is beautiful

but also gives off that all important sense of isolation, as you can see how there's no one or nothing within miles. Even the gas station at the beginning and Sally's farmhouse feel like they're out in the middle of nowhere, and Harlow is more or less a ghost town, so there's definitely no help to go to there. As I said up above, those street shots in the center of Harlow are clearly those of a set akin to a backlot rather than an actual town (it reall is just one street), but I like the old-timey, western sort of feel they give off. Among the buildings there, the ones we see the inside of are

Richter's two-story garage and auto-shop, the abandoned Sage Brush theater, which is rundown and has a deep hole filled with water thanks to the rainstorm during the latter half, and the orphanage. The latter is sort of like this film's version of the Sawyer family home from the original. While it has none of the macabre decorations and air of human slaughter as that place, and is not as rundown or filthy, it's still seen better days, with the floorboards creaking very loudly (that, naturally, plays into the

suspense within the section where Melody is stuck upstairs, hiding from Leatherface and trying to escape), and its being very dark and gloomy inside, likely due to it having no electricity. Upstairs, we see both the interiors of Ginny's bedroom, with its nice bed, old-fashioned lamp, picture on the wall, dresser with a mirror, and wardrobe full of her dresses, and Leatherface's, which seems pretty plain-looking, with childlike drawings along the walls, while we see a

small quaint dining room and living room downstairs. One room in this place that reminds me of the original house is the kitchen, mostly because of the way it's lit when Dante walks in there and the old-fashioned, country feel it has, like the one in the original. The same also goes for the foyer, with the staircase to the right, another room off from it, and the aforementioned kitchen behind it.

Even though by this point, it's pretty much common knowledge that this whole thing isn't actually based on a specific real life event, the film's opening does play around with it, starting on a television documentary about the original's story. It opens with certain shots from the original, mostly the exteriors of the farmhouse, and also incorporates some of the grisly opening shots of the corpse, nicely adding a new spin on the original's already much-vaunted documentary nature. As the narrator (John Larroquette yet again) gives the cliff-notes version of

what happened, you not only see newspaper clippings but drawings showing exactly how some of the deaths occurred, newsreel footage of the recovery of the bodies and the crime scene, accompanied by a voiceover of someone saying, "There's an image in my mind that'll never go away," photos of Sally and her friends (which gives me Blair Witch Project vibes, as it reminds me of those fake missing persons fliers used in that movie's marketing), a contemporary shot of Sally closing the door on a cameraman trying

to get an interview, a composite drawing of Leatherface, a woman whose identity is obscured saying, "Everyone was terrified," and a dramatization of Leatherface slicing up the screen. If you've ever watched Unsolved Mysteries or any of the shows you may see on Investigation Discovery and the like, this opening captures that feeling really well, right down to the type of stock music you tend to hear on them.

Surprisingly, rather than being seen as just another pointless sequel to a classic film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 turned out to be quite politically-charged for a number of people, particularly in the way it deals with influencers and gentrification. Some have viewed it as having a very negative view of both, seeing it as a cautionary tale against the latter, as well as depicting a group of snobbish, big city people getting what's coming to them when they head into someplace they don't understand and are not welcome, a sort of a more overt version of one of the

social commentaries seen in the original. But for me, like with Leatherface, the film doesn't make the same mistake that Texas Chainsaw 3-D made in painting it as completely black-and-white and, instead, is vague about who's right and who's wrong. While the main characters, especially Melody and Dante, have more than their fair share of negative qualities, as I mentioned earlier, they are shown to be fairly decent down to their core; at the same time, while Leatherface's sorrow and rage over Ginny's death is understandable, and that one scene is actually quite

poignant, his proceeding to slaughter everybody he sees out of revenge is not at all viewed as justified. It goes further than that, with the character of Richter looking as though he may be a real source of trouble for the group, given his initial conflict with Mel, his having quite a number of guns in his auto-shop, and how he's not shy about expressing his disdain for them. Things get especially tense when he takes their keys after he learns of Ginny's death, refusing to let them leave until they show him evidence that they

didn't wrongfully evict her. But, at the same time, he bonds a bit with Lila when he learns of the horrific trauma she suffered and, despite their conflict earlier, when he finds Dante with the side of his jaw sliced open, he tries to help him, even holding his hand and telling him to stay with him, and after he dies, Richter goes into the orphanage to investigate, gun at the ready. Similarly, while Ginny has a Confederate flag hanging on her building, and she does use a racial term when talking with Dante, she clearly doesn't mean any malice by any of it.

One very direct and biting instance of commentary, though, is the one made against social media and cancel culture, with those morons whose first reaction to being faced with a hulking man wearing someone else's face and wielding a chainsaw is to pull out their iPhones and start filming, with the one even threatening to "cancel" Leatherface. Even Leatherface, as mindless as he is, looks bewildered by this before he cranks his chainsaw up and starts slicing people to pieces. You also see the chat streams on some of the phones, which consist of a number of

users not even believing what they're seeing, with one asking how much they paid Leatherface, another saying they've been to scarier haunted houses, and when people do start dying in horrible ways, one poster, whose username is badhombre6666, comment, "THAT LOOKS SO FAKE." Being someone who's not on social media, nor wants any part of it due to how ridiculous and toxic it is, with people constantly going at each other and looking for any reason to ruin someone's life and reputation, I do get some sadistic pleasure out of this bit of carnage. However, the

movie also takes on the touchy subject of gun violence and school shootings, with Lila having been the sole survivor of one and carrying a permanent reminder of it near her collarbone. She and Richter talk about it in his garage, with her showing signs of her PTSD when she sees he has an assault rifle in his possession, and then telling him about how everyone expects big things from her, but it's not used for much more than dramatic effect, as it flashes through Lila's mind when she and her friends are being attacked by

Leatherface and you know immediately that it's going to play a major part in the final confrontation. I don't know if I like them incorporating an all too common and horrific occurrence in America nowadays in such a shallow manner. Some people have also said that they can't tell what the movie's stance on firearms is, given how, despite her trauma, Lila uses one against Leatherface during the climax, but for me, I feel that, like with the subject of gentrification and such, it's showing that there's both good and bad when it comes to guns.

While the gore and violence here certainly doesn't have that disturbing, unsettling edge that Leatherface did, it's still plentiful and sometimes shocking in how gruesome it gets. The first kill is Leatherface breaking the deputy's left hand and then stabbing him repeatedly in the throat with the splintered bones, with his gun going off and hitting the side of Sheriff Hathaway's throat, causing him to spit blood out of his mouth and crash the van. While you only get nasty glimpses of Leatherface slicing off Ginny's face before putting it on, Sally later finds her hideously

flayed corpse in the field that night. Hathaway is finished off when Leatherface smashes his head in with Ginny's oxygen tank, while Ruth's stomach gets sliced open while she's held in place against the seat. Following Dante's encounter with a meat cleaver-wielding Leatherface in the orphanage kitchen, we don't see the hideous wound he got on the side of his face until he stumbles out later on and is discovered by Richter. Speaking of Richter, he gets it bad, as Leatherface breaks his left leg with a sledgehammer, slams his throat into a large shard of broken glass,

and, after he's collapsed to the floor, smashes his head into bloody pulp to finish him off. Once Leatherface gets his chainsaw back, though, things really get gory, as he slices up numerous people onboard the bus, guts Sally with it and tosses her to the side, gets an uppercut from it himself during the climax, and beheads his final victim with it. Unfortunately, while these kills are mostly really good makeup effects, there are moments where they're clearly augmented by CGI and, while maybe not as bad as Burt Hartman's death at the end of Texas Chainsaw 3-D, it can take you out of the moment.

The first major scene occurs when Ginny is forcibly removed from the orphanage. Just seconds after our first glimpse at Leatherface as he stands atop the stairs, backlit by the sun coming through a window, he comes downstairs, picks her up in his arms when she begins having a heart attack, and carries her into the police van. After Ruth opts to ride to the hospital with her, the van takes off, with Leatherface glaring at Melody from the back of the van. Down the road, Ginny is not doing well at all; in fact, after speaking

to Leatherface one last time, she lets out some very labored, raspy groans and gasps before going limp in his arms. As he desperately tries to shake her back awake, and fiddles with her oxygen tank and IV stand, the deputy informs Sheriff Hathaway that she just died. Hearing this, Ruth texts the news to Mel. The deputy then makes the mistake of grabbing Leatherface's hand to make him stop wasting his time in bring Ginny back... and he responds by glaring at him, breaking his wrist, and stabbing him in the neck

with his splintered bones. Ruth screams in horror at the sight of this, while Hathaway is unable to see what's going on from the driver's seat and repeatedly yells for the deputy to tell him what's happening. The deputy takes his gun out, but Leatherface grabs his hand and slams it against the roof. The gun goes off from this and shoots Hathaway through the side of his throat. He loses consciousness and the van veers off the road and through a field of sunflowers, slamming into a harvester in the middle of it. When Ruth awakens from being knocked out some time later, she

sees Hathaway seemingly dead in the driver's seat, the deputy dead in the back, and the back door swinging open, with both Leatherface and Ginny's body gone. Looking in her side-view mirror, she sees him squatting down behind the van, doing something with Ginny's body. Hearing the van's radio band crackle, she quietly reaches for it and attempts to call for help, telling them what's happened and where she is. Looking back in the mirror, she gasps when she sees Leatherface removing Ginny's face with a knife. There's a brief moment when he turns and looks back

at the van, as if he heard her, but then he goes back to it. He completely removes Ginny's face and slips it on himself, as Ruth shakily says, "He's wearing her face." Her call for help doesn't go unnoticed, as at the gas station at the beginning, Herb, hears her over his police scanner. The detail about someone wearing another person's face is what immediately catches his attention.

Hathaway suddenly regains consciousness, coughing and groaning loudly. Before Ruth can shush him, Leatherface pops up outside his window and she quickly pretends to be dead. Glancing over at her, he then finishes Hathaway off by smashing him in the head with the oxygen tank. He walks back behind the van and drags Ginny's body out of sight. Ruth tries to get out of the van, only to find that her door won't open, forcing her to climb past Hathaway's corpse and out the window. Peeking her head out, she looks

around and doesn't see any sign of Leatherface... when he suddenly appears behind the passenger door. He quickly smashes the window, reaches in, grabs her, and pulls her back into her seat. He goes to stab her with a knife, and while she grabs his wrist and tries to hold him back, he easily overpowers her and slices right across her midriff, gutting her. When she expires, he creepily brushes her long, blonde hair back across her eyes, and heads back towards Harlow, as an oncoming thunderstorm approaches the town as well. Later that afternoon, Herb contacts Sally Hardesty about Ruth's call for help and she loads up her van and heads for Harlow as well.

As Mel and Dante search the orphanage for proof that Ginny did still own the building, and right after Mel finds it in the bedroom, there's a moment where, while looking through the drawers in the living room, Dante hears a loud thump and notices how the hanging pots and pans in the kitchen are slightly rattling. Walking in there, he stills them, when he sees Leatherface reflected in one. Turning around, he comes face-to-face with him and tries to run out the door, but is grabbed, pulled back in, and attacked.

After getting sliced with a meat cleaver, Dante stumbles out of the kitchen and collapses to the floor, bleeding all over it. Mel gets halfway down the stairs, when she looks and sees Leatherface bend over Dante's body. She quickly runs back upstairs and into Ginny's bedroom, hiding in her wardrobe. She hears Leatherface coming upstairs and then sees him enter the room through the slats in the door. He heads right for the wardrobe and opens it, but while it seems as though Mel is doomed, that's when he removes one of

Ginny's dresses and holds it close, whimpering in anguish over his loss. But when he hears the sound of the ongoing party that the influencers are having down below, he looks out the window at them, then grabs a chair and smashes the mirror with it, before heading back downstairs. Once she's confident that he's out of earshot, Mel creeps out of the wardrobe, runs to the window, and tries to warn the others of the danger. But all they notice are the dark clouds rolling in overhead and take shelter from the oncoming rain on the bus. Before she can do anything else to warn

them, she hears Leatherface coming back upstairs and hides underneath the bed. Walking back in with a big sledgehammer, he goes behind the bed, flings a picture off the wall, and starts smashing a large hole into a hollow section. Meanwhile, downstairs, Dante, despite his horrible injuries, wakes up, gets to his feet, and stumbles out the door and into the pouring rain. Working in his garage, Richter sees Dante walk by and, suspicious as to why he was in the orphanage, follows after him; at the same time, Catherine, one of the investors, notices him as well. At first hostile

towards him, when Richter catches up to him and sees how badly the side of his face is sliced open, he helps him when he collapses, pulling him out of the rain. Catherine also sees what's happened, and Richter, pulling out a handgun, tells her to call the cops and keep everyone on the bus. She heads back to the bus, where she tells the driver to keep the door closed (something that Lila overhears), while Richter prepares to investigate the orphanage.

Richter walks through the orphanage's front door, gun at the ready, while upstairs, Leatherface digs through the hole in the wall. Still unaware that Mel is hiding beneath the bed, he pulls out his old yellow chainsaw, walks around to the foot of the bed, and drops it on the floor, right in front of her. He attempts to crank it up, when he, as well as Mel, hears Richter coming up the creaky stairs. Taking the saw, he walks behind the door and waits for Richter to enter. As he walks in, Mel, spotting a full-body mirror next to the bed,

sticks her foot out and slowly attempts to use it to angle the mirror to where Leatherface is reflected in it. Richter sees this right before he comes out from behind the door and attacks. Richter dodges a couple of sledgehammer swings and manages to get some hits in, even decking Leatherface straight on, but then, he gets his left leg smashed backwards in a really painful-looking fashion. Despite the agony he's in, he charges at Leatherface and smashes him back against the window, shattering the glass. He manages to put up a decent fight, forcing him to drop the sledge, and

keeps him pinned there, until Leatherface slams him to his left, stabbing a shard of glass into his neck. He pulls him off of it and Richter collapses to the floor. Seeing Mel under the bed, he removes the keys he took from them earlier and holds them beside his head. As Mel watches, Leatherface smashes Richter's head into nothing but bloody chunks of meat, before heading back out the door once he's finally satisfied.

En route to Harlow, Sally comes across the sunflower field and spots the wrecked police van. Slowly making her way towards it, illuminating her surroundings with her flashlight, she opens the back and sees the deputy's body. Hearing the police band up front mention a dead body in Harlow, she heads up there, sees the bodies of Ruth and Hathaway, then follows a trail of discarded objects through the field. She comes upon the grisly sight of Ginny's faceless corpse, which is sitting atop an object akin to a freezer, and momentarily loses her nerve. Saying, "I

fear no evil," she heads back to her van and looks at the picture of her and her friends in 1973, as she did earlier before heading out. Back in Harlow, Lila gets tired of waiting in the bus and decides to go out and look for Mel. Despite Catherine's attempt to stop her, telling her to stay on the bus (she never explains to anyone what's going on or suggest they should leave), Lila steps out of it and walks down the sidewalk in the pouring rain. Calling for Mel, she then sees Dante's body sitting against the side of a building. In the orphanage, Mel, still hiding under the bed, takes

the keys from Richter's dead hand, then slowly crawls out from under the bed and creeps out of the room. Knowing that Leatherface is in his old bedroom down the hall on the left side of the stairway landing, she attempts to get by without alerting him by climbing over the railing and hopping onto the stairs. Stepping onto the stairs' handrail, she slips slightly but manages to maintain her balance. Seemingly not alerting Leatherface, she hops down onto the stairs, only for him to appear at the top of them, brandishing

his sledgehammer. He flings it at her, knocking her backwards and causing her to crash through the foot of the stairs, down into the crawlspace beneath the building's foundation. Just as she recovers from this, she hears the chainsaw revving and sees Leatherface standing there with it. This time, he gets it going and stomps down the stairs towards her. She crawls away from the stairs and through the crawlspace, heading for some grating in the back. Before she can reach it, the saw blade comes through above her and she

quickly crawls to another spot. The saw shuts off and she hears Leatherface roaming around above, trying to pinpoint where she is. She then hears Lila calling for her and panics, right before the saw comes through the ceiling in front of her. She quickly crawls to the other side of the space, as Leatherface chases after her, sawing backwards through the floor. Outrunning the blade, Mel reaches the grating and pounds on it, yelling for help. The saw reaches her and, while it doesn't cut her, it does slice open a sewage pipe, causing literal crap to drip down on top of her.

Lila appears on the outside of the grating and yells for Mel, which Leatherface hears. Taking the grating down, she pulls Mel out and they both run back to the bus, hearing the chainsaw revving behind them. When they reach the bus, Catherine has to open the door, as the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Mel gives the driver the keys and Lila yells at him to drive. The two of them run to the back, where Lila tries to get Mel to explain what happened, but she's too traumatized to talk. The driver starts the engine and heads down the street, unaware that Leatherface is watching from

nearby. They don't get far before the saw revs and the bus lists over suddenly before stopping dead. Ignoring Catherine, the driver opens the door and steps out, heading to the back to see what happened. Everyone onboard hears the chainsaw outside, and as Catherine looks out the door, the driver's head is flung at her feet. Gasping at this, she then sees Leatherface come around the side and step onboard the bus. He walks towards her, forcing her back into the neon-lit rear section, where everyone has been partying. She tells them to run, as he follows her in, while in the back,

Lila sees and recognizes him from the police composite drawings she saw at the gas station. After the one guy threatens to cancel him, Leatherface immediately guts him, then proceeds to lay waste to anyone he can get his hands on, as everyone panics and crowds to the back of the bus. He slashes one guy, then grabs throws him to the side, and puts the saw to him. He puts another guy up against the ceiling and saws through his midsection. And when Lila gets separated from Mel and ends up facing him, she's

saved when one man shoves another right into Leatherface's path, causing him to get sliced through the torso. Lila gets knocked to the floor during this chaos and, looking at the carnage happening around her, has a flashback to the school shooting she was involved in. Mel manages to snap her out of her daze, get her to her feet, and the two of them take refuge in the restroom in the back. As the massacre continues (note, this is the first actual "chainsaw massacre" we've ever had in one of these movies), blood flows

in from under the restroom door to Lila and Mel's horror. At one point, Leatherface stabs the saw through a man and forces him towards a woman hiding in the corner, impaling her as well. Lila and Mel attempt to escape through the restroom skylight, while Leatherface chases after Catherine and saws her completely in half right as she's climbing out a window.

Now the only ones left alive, Lila and Mel get the skylight open, and Mel boosts Lila up through it, when the saw comes through the door. Panicking, Mel backs away, as Leatherface smashes a large hole in the door and, after looking in, reaches for her. Remembering a corkscrew that Lila gave her at the gas station, she stabs him in the arm with it and has Lila pull her up through the skylight. The two of them get to the road and hobble down it, when Sally arrives. She has them get in the back of her van, but instead of driving off, she locks them in the back and

tells them that, since he's after them, they need to stay until she's able to kill him. Despite how badly Mel is panicking, Sally gets out of the van, gets her rifle out from the back, and walks towards the bus, as well as the orphanage. Seeing a light on in a second story window, she walks into the building, heads up the stairs, and, seeing the light on in the one room, walks into it, pointing her rifle. Inside, she finds Leatherface sitting on his bed, his chainsaw sitting on the floor, and, pointing the gun at him, with her finger on the trigger, tells him to turn around. While he does, his

focus quickly drifts from her to the sound of Mel yelling outside. Standing up and taking his saw, he doesn't respond to Sally ranting to him about his murdering her friends, making her realize that he has no clue who she is. He walks out of the room without paying her a second thought. Outside, while Mel is frantic, she also tells Lila that she won't Leatherface kill her, when he suddenly saws through the window on her side, forcing them to back up against the other door. He reaches in, grabs Lila's leg, and tries to pull

her out, but then takes a shot to his right shoulder. Sally comes stomping down the street at him, laughing crazily and telling him that she's going to make sure he doesn't get away. She forces him to retreat down an alleyway when she takes another shot, and she tosses Mel and Lila the keys to her van, telling them to get out. Hearing the chainsaw revving nearby, she heads back down the street, while Mel and Lila pile into the front seat.

Standing at the head of a dark alleyway with trash bags lying at its mouth, Sally aims into the darkness, hearing the chainsaw down there. She then hears running footsteps, and Leatherface comes charging at her. She shoots but misses, and shoots again, only to hit the saw's handle. Not stopping, he swings, only managing to knock her hat off. She hits him across the face with the butt of her rifle, then points and prepares to shoot, when he grabs the rifle. She tries to shoot him but is unable, then pulls out a knife and stabs him in the side. Not even flinching, Leatherface

shoves his saw all the way through Sally, then lifts her up and guts her innards, her blood raining down on him. In the driver's seat, Mel tells Lila to put her seat-belt on, turns the engine on, and floors it. Leatherface tosses Sally aside, then turns to face the oncoming van. He tosses his saw right at the windshield, then runs to dodge the van. He's not entirely successful, as he gets side-swiped, while the girls crash into Richter's garage and slam into the back wall. Once everything settles after the crash, Lila awakens to see that a rod has stabbed deep into Mel's right thigh.

Unbuckling her seat-belt, she tries to help her sister, but is unable to do anything. Looking out the back window, she sees Leatherface coming, and again tries to help Mel, but Mel tells her to take the opportunity to run for it. Lila, naturally, is reluctant to do so, but Mel yells at her to run and she gets out of the van and heads out another door. Leatherface enters the garage and walks up to the side of the van. Mel apologizes for what happened to Ginny, but he revs his chainsaw, preparing to kill her. Suddenly, Lila yells, getting his

attention, and points Richter's assault rifle at him. But it doesn't go off when she pulls the trigger, sending her running back out into the street, with him hot on her heels. In the middle of the street, she turns and tries to shoot again, but she swipes the rifle out of her hands, knocks her to the ground, and tries to bring the saw down on her. She dodges it, and before he can try again, Sally, despite being gutted, manages to shoot him in the back of the shoulder. Shooting at him again sends him retreating into the Sage Brush Theater. Lila gets to her feet and heads back to the garage, when Sally tells her not to run, but to confront Leatherface. She reloads her shotgun and puts it on the ground before dying, prompting Lila to take it and head into the theater.

While Lila searches the theater for Leatherface, Mel excruciatingly tries to remove the steel rod jammed into her leg. Lila heads into the back, near where there's a large hole in the floor that's filled with water, when she hears the chainsaw cranking nearby. Walking toward a spot where there's a lot of plastic hanging down, she hears the saw idling behind it, and also makes out a dark figure. However, the figure turns out to be a cutout, and the saw is simply lying on the ground. She realizes she's been tricked right before Leatherface lunges out from the side, grabs

her, causing her to drop the shotgun, and the two of them tumble into the water. After a bit of struggling under there, things go silent for a few moments, when Lila climbs out of the water and crawls across the floor. She hears Mel call for her from nearby, when Leatherface launches out of the water behind her, grabs her leg, and pulls her back, as she grabs at the ripped up carpeting. He lets go and goes for his chainsaw, as she runs for the shotgun. Revving the saw, he flings it across the floor at her, hitting her in the back of her foot and knocking her down. She

crawls towards the shotgun, only for him to walk up and kick it out of her reach. As he walks around to her side and cranks the saw back up, Lila appears to accept her fate. She even turns over on her back, only to see Mel grab Leatherface from behind, putting him in a head-lock. Turning over onto her side, Lila spots the gun, as Leatherface flings Mel off of him and stomps towards her, revving the saw. Before he can reach her, Lila steps in front of him and shoots, blasting the saw out of his hands. She shoots him

again, blasting back towards the pool of water, but then finds that the shotgun is now empty. She futilely pumps it at him, when Mel steps in, brandishing the saw, and uppercuts Leatherface with it. He then falls backwards into the water, briefly floats on the surface, and sinks down beneath it, his eyes staring up from behind the mask. Once he's gone, Lila and Mel embrace each other, finally able to cry out the trauma they've gone through.

The next day, Lila finds both Sally's hat and her picture lying on the ground, and decides to take both with her. She then gets into the car with Mel, and they set the autopilot to head for home. As they start to leave, Lila comments, "Hey, you know what? I change my mind, actually. I'll move here with you." Mel responds with a playful, "Fuck off," when Leatherface suddenly smashes through the passenger side window, grabs her, and pulls her out. Lila frantically looks out the sunroof and watches helplessly as he beheads Mel, holds the head up in

order to taunt her, and does his signature chainsaw dance before the ending credits hit. And that's what royally pissed me off about this ending, as it was not only a dime-a-dozen shock ending that wasn't creative in the slightest, but was so unnecessary. Just end the damn movie! And it's not even the actual ending, as after the credits, there's one last scene that shows Leatherface heading back to his old house (it makes me think of the ending of the fourth Rambo movie), obviously setting up for whatever followup this film may or may not get.

The score was composed by Colin Stetson, who'd previously done the music for Hereditary and Color Out of Space. However, another thing this movie has with Texas Chainsaw 3-D, unfortunately, is that the music score isn't all that memorable. It has some notable aspects, chief among them being this often reused harsh, distant sound that's clearly meant to evoke the revving of the the chainsaw, and the moment where Leatherface is sad about Ginny's death is done with a piece that starts off as poignant, then turns creepy when he dabs some makeup onto the mask he made out of her face, but other than that, it's fairly generic horror movie music. The only other memorable part of the score is called The Leatherface Theme, written and performed by Ryan Bullet Shields, which is this memorable electronic, synthesizer piece that incorporates the original camera noise into the music (like the previous movie, this film only uses that sound sparingly). It only plays during the first part of the ending credits, and doesn't sound like any music you'd associate with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it's definitely one of the more memorable parts of the score. And there are a number of songs listed on the soundtrack, which play on the radio during the characters' initial drive to Harlow, during the cookout, and onboard the bus, but they're all completely superfluous and leave no real impression.

While it is ultimately yet another uninspired, needless direct sequel and reboot, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 is, if nothing else, a more entertaining example of what they were trying to do with Texas Chainsaw 3-D. While it does suffer from the familiar problems of an unimpressive main cast, a not quite right version of an older Leatherface, an ultimately pointless return for the character of Sally Hardesty, some digitally-augmented kills, and a mostly forgettable music score, it makes up for it with a tight running time and good pacing, a Leatherface who is ridiculously strong, brutal, and resilient, despite his old age, and also has a good look to him, good cinematography and inspired instances of direction, another nice use of Bulgaria as a stand in for Texas, and a good assortment of gory kills. And while the movie does get political and has some social commentary, some of which is handled better than others, it's nuanced, if nothing else (even if that's a problem for some people). Definitely not among the best films in this series, and light-years from the original's greatness, but entertaining if you have no higher aspirations than to watch Leatherface kill a bunch of people.