At this point, the state of Texas has seen so many chainsaw massacres that it’s a wonder the power tool hasn’t been banned.
In David Blue Garcia’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, the blade is more active than ever. But while Leatherface, the homicidal head case who fashions masks from the skin of his victims, might be busier, his ability to scare has drastically diminished. With empathy, cinematographer Ricardo Diaz imbues a rare moment of stillness with beautiful pathos as Leatherface strides, alone, through a field of dead sunflowers, his hulking figure eclipsed by a bruised purple sky.
Immediately establishing a familiar tension between the Red State and the Blue State, the film sends four young entrepreneurs (Sarah Yarkin, Nell Hudson, Elsie Fisher and Jacob Latimore) to a small town that is virtually deserted. Their mission is gentrification, their destination a property emblazoned with a Confederate flag and home to a withered old woman (a deliciously desiccated Alice Krige). A surly, armed local (Moe Dunford, displaying more nuance than the silly script requires) seems to be the only other non-manic resident in town.
“Why are you so nihilistic? asks a newcomer, because that’s how the townspeople talk to armed strangers. The dialogue, thankfully, is soon overtaken by the dismemberments, turning into a silent, party-bus massacre and the film’s only hit of humor. The flashbacks to an earlier mass trauma suffered by one of the newcomers are unpleasant, but the return of Sally, the only survivor from the first film (now played by Olwen Fouéré), seems all right.
After waiting nearly 50 years to catch her monster, Sally shouldn’t have been surprised to find him, like so many failed sons, living with his version of a mother all this time.
Chainsaw Massacre
Rated R. It’s right there in the title, folks. Duration: 1h21. To watch on Netflix.
