Critic’s rating: ★
(83 minutes; R)
There’s not much comic relief to be found in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” But it’s hard not to chuckle at least a little bit during one moment of extremely gory carnage, when the title goon, his chainsaw fired up and ready to go, prepares for another round of mindless, bloody slashing.
The 20something hipsters, assuming that the intruder is just part of the night’s entertainment, hold up their phones to live-stream the fun. And their followers start posting comments, naturally: “Who hired this clown?” writes davidbluegarcia. “Where is this, I wanna go?!?” asks ChaseAndersenTX. And, best of all: “THIS LOOKS SO FAKE,” says badhombre6666.
Garcia, of course, is the Texas-based director of the splatter fest (and the above is his actual Twitter handle), and Bad Hombre is one of the three production companies behind the film. What they’ve wrought is a retread that desperately wants to be a franchise reboot: It makes repeated references to Tobe Hooper’s chilling 1974 horror flick, controversial for its time, pretending that the other sequels never existed, but does practically nada to expand or enlarge the story of old Leatherface (Mark Burnham) and his murderous rampaging. Oh, but it does drop the “The” from the title. Presto, change-o!
The setting this time is a remote, abandoned Texas burg called Harlow, where a group of trendy, good-looking young folks have driven seven hours from Austin to party and stake their claims to various pieces of property on the town’s dusty main street. They want to gentrify the place and make it an artsy shopping destination for other hipsters. Could it become the Santa Fe of the Lone Star State? Here’s where the restaurant will go, they say, and over there is where they’ll put the art gallery. Or they just want to get away from the hustle and bustle of big-city life for a more peaceful lifestyle. Or something. It’s not quite clear.
After unintentionally causing the death of an elderly local resident, all hell breaks loose in the little Texas ghost town. The body count mounts, and narrow escapes are followed by brutal killings. Will anyone get out alive?
Garcia and Co. appear to sort of want us to care about some of these potential victims, including chef Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and her little sister Lila (Elsie Fisher, such a find in 2018’s “Eighth Grade.”) The latter is burdened with an extraneous storyline — she’s a victim of a mass shooting at a school with a name resembling that of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, where a real-life attack took place just four years ago. It’s a tacky touch, maybe meant to add some kind of real-life resonance to the thing. And yet we still don’t care.
Garcia nevertheless gifts viewers with one welcome party favor: His “Massacre” clocks in at a mere 83 minutes. Thank goodness for small mercies.
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