Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is insane. It is the least mediocre movie ever. At all times it is either brain-explodingly awesome or rotten-tomato-throwingly terrible. Sometimes simultaneously.
Whereas the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre was insulated and claustrophobic, this movie sets the Chainsaw Massacre family loose in the world. The former takes place in the mythical nightmare of rural Texas, but this takes place in the more realistic, less glamorous (I use the word loosely) Texas – the part that normal, everyday, 9-to-5 people live in. Love it or hate it, even this mundane Texas is unlike anywhere else on the planet, and the combination of slackers, rock’n’roll, rednecks, and the big Oklahoma-UT football game presented here makes this movie wonderfully close to the real thing. The original dealt with the Texas of dangerous, isolated spaces. This is – relatively – more urban. Though there are people everywhere, the dread comes from that unshakable feeling that they’re out there somewhere, and even mass humanity can’t stave off the chaos.
The opening sequence clues us in that this will not be a mere retread of the first movie. Northern Texas radio DJ Stretch (Caroline Williams) inadvertently records some rambunctious call-in boys as they play chicken with a big ol’ Texas truck with dark, tinted windows. Something fishy about that truck… Already, this is “not your dad’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” The soundtrack is 80s alternative and pop, and the tone is sillier. Later on the truck, which obviously belongs to our favorite chainsaw massacre-ers, returns with a vengeance. This first chainsaw massacre is the most sadistically fun in the movie. Leatherface (Bill Johnson) takes the stage wearing a ridiculous puppet body over his own body. The way it moves is surreal and sets the more fun, flamboyant mood of this sequel. Between that and cleaved-in-two head, makeup mastermind Tom Savini did a bang up job in this scene.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 introduces us to another new player, Lefty the renegade state trooper, vengeful uncle of the first movie’s obnoxious Franklin. If this sounds like a terrible idea, that’s because I haven’t told you yet than Lefty is played by the one and only Dennis Hopper. And he brought his crazy shoes. I refuse to spoil this character’s ungodly amazing chainsaw store freak out. Hopefully after reading that last sentence you stopped reading and ran to the video rental store. It is unfortunate that at the end of the movie Lefty is reduced to cutting down wooden building supports off-screen for about 45 minutes straight, but what time Hopper does spend on screen is magical and maniacal.
TCM 2’s conceit could have been as simple as taking the first movie “on the road.” It’s during the assault on the radio station, however, that this movie differentiates itself from its predecessor, and it’s a stumble. We re-meet the Chainsaw family up close and personal about a third of the way through the movie, when they bring the radio station that Stretch and her platonic buddy L.G. (Lou Perryman) work at under siege. From that point on the family are primary characters, and the transition is awkward. I understand that director Tobe Hooper was doing something totally different with this installment, and perhaps the awkwardness is necessary in order to allow the second half of the movie to shift gears completely.
The problem is that Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 gets the tone of the family wrong. The most disturbing thing about the first movie is that there is essentially no reason any of this is happening. Somebody mentions something about how these guys lost their jobs at the slaughterhouse, but that’s a far cry from concrete motivation. It’s totally unnerving. My biggest beef (pun? eh, not really…) with the sequel is that each of the family is given specific motivation. Drayton (Jim Siedow) is in it for money and prestige, which he gets from his popular human remains barbecue brand. Leatherface has severe mental trauma, and his chainsaw massacring is a grotesque manifestation of sexual frustration. To be fair, I find the explanation of Leatherface’s hang-ups the most tolerable, but I wish his mental issues and sexual repression weren’t as cut and dry as they are presented here. “Chop Top” (Bill Moseley) is the worst of all, returning not as the ominous freak and unnerving harbinger he was in the first movie, but as a simple, stupid PTSD ‘Nam gag. This obnoxious iteration of his character comes close to derailing the movie several times. Oops, I just read that Chop Top is not the hitchhiker from the first movie, but actually his twin brother (?) who did not appear in the first movie. The hitchhiker is actually the puppet body I mentioned earlier. …Okay, that’s kind of cool, having Leatherface wear his dead brother’s shriveled body as a puppet suit. Still, unlike the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I enjoyed my time with protagonists Lefty and Stretch substantially more than with the family, and that’s a shame, given that the family gets the star treatment this time around.
Probably the best thing to come out of the transition to the movie’s new, more reckless tone in the second half is the bizarre, surreal comedy of errors surrounding Leatherface’s attempts to woo his ‘new girlfriend’ Stretch while simultaneously attempting to hide her from his family. Wrong on so many levels, the scene where Leatherface makes Stretch wear her friend L.G.’s face over the top of her face and dance with him is probably the best in the movie. And to top it all off it turns out L.G. is still alive and was watching the whole thing! “Shee-it…”
The family eventually discovers Stretch, and the movie nosedives into blatant retreat territory. Most of TCM2 is at least inventive even when it’s not good, so I don’t understand why at this point Hooper decides to restage the dinner scene from the first movie almost beat for beat. There's even a “It’s Grandpa’s turn” vignette. There is nothing to differentiate this scene from the one in the first movie, except that it’s not as good. This is the low point of the movie, and showcases the sequel's worst inclinations, namely remaking the first movie but with less subtlety.
Thankfully, the finale and the final shot of the movie save this sinking ship. The last shot rivals Evil Dead 2’s in the “B movie gets too big for its britches” category. Even though much of the third act left me cold, the final scene, and especially the final shot had me leaping from the chair cheering.
Magic Moment: There are magical-er moments than the one I’m about to talk about, but I didn’t have anywhere else to put this, so… The setting for the movie’s finale is “Texas Battle Land,” a defunct theme park that has been inherited by the Chainsaw Massacre family. They’ve dug out an underground labyrinth to live in and decorated it with elaborate bone sculptures and Christmas lights. The entire concept is absurd, even in a movie chocked full of absurd concepts. Nevertheless, it was the right decision. I imagine that “Texas Battle Land” is what Rob Zombie wants his movies to look and feel like. The magical-est moment is when Lefty first storms into Texas Battle Land. He chainsaws the wall open, releasing a cascade of human livers. “This is the devil’s playground!”
-Ben
