 Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) Dir. David Blue Garcia, USA, 81 mins Ginger Nuts of Horror is honoured to once again be asked to participate in Derby University's Creative and Professional Writing & Film and Television Studies honours degree course. Today we welcome Charlotte Sims with their review of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) directed by David Blue Garcia MINOR SPOILERS There’s a reason why this story has been remade and rebooted time and time again due to the upstanding ranking of the 1974 original being the best in the franchise. Leatherface returns for the 9th instalment of the Texas Chainsaw franchise, once again terrorising a group of teenagers for disrupting his peace he’s managed to maintain for 50 years after the events of the 1974 film in a quaint ghost town in “Texas” – but was actually filmed in Bulgaria. Instead of living up to the original where it gained reputation for being one of the best and most influential horror films of its time, the 2022 film is a soft reboot that focuses more on gore visuals, exposition that doesn’t connect to the original story, and an overbearing lack of logic that makes this film mind-numbingly frustrating to watch. First of all, the story feels unimaginative. Netflix’s TX Chainsaw feels notably similar to the approach of the 2018’s Halloween sequel where Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, returns to finally kill her pursuer. Even though it’s a typical trope of a victim returning to exact revenge, it’s understandable why they used the story because of how Halloween received high ratings of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, and from its audiences stating it lived up to the 1978 original. Whilst they created a similar plot and had potential, it still managed to fail. The story tries to connect itself to the original movie even though it diverts from original lore. In the 1974 film, Leatherface lives with his father and brothers in an isolated farmhouse with the mystery surrounding the mother. Yet in this movie, he has apparently lived in an orphanage since he was a child with his mother, who the original Leatherface never knew. The remake made Leatherface 2-dimensional like other slasher villains such as Michael Myers, who has always been the essence of evil, unlike Leatherface who seemed to have been manipulated by his horrific family making him more human. This interesting backstory of his character that made him different to other slasher movies and had developed over the years had now been thrown through the window to just be a carbon-copy of Myers only with a chainsaw. The script sounded unrehearsed as the dialogue was flat and unemotional - even though this could be the actor’s performance, the reactions from characters when they saw someone slumped over after being brutally murdered weren’t at all realistic. It also seemed as though the scriptwriters had no idea how teenagers talk to each other because of the overuse of cringey and cliché “teenager language” – such as using “lit”, “weirdo”, “sis” and a personal hatred of mine: “Newsflash”. The characters retain the ‘collateral damage’ trope role of slasher movies, which is fine to watch but for me it felt like they were being purposefully dumb as though their intentions were to die as soon as possible. Communication between characters is practically non-existent with the famous line of “just trust me” before things go terribly wrong, it’s as though the writers want minimal character development. However, the cinematography and the use of sound were really pleasing and were the enjoyable part of my experience. The film has beautiful use of colours and interesting camera shots/angles that portray the new-Leatherface in a more terrifying light. The filmmaker revealed that the production took an “old school” approach to filming by using vintage lenses and practical effects for the gore, which seemingly enhanced the visual style of the film by making the atmosphere feel more Texan. My favourite scene is the moment we see Leatherface through the wing-mirror of the Sheriff van holding up the face he carved off up into the sky – the intense musical sting brings the tension that had been building to a climax as the infamous killer gains a new mask of human skin. The film’s use of musical stings and sound effects increased the suspense and tension in most scenes and made me feel more immersed in the action, rather than relying on loud jump-scare effects and heavy music that make me feel like the film tries too hard. I also love the subtle references and humorous moments dotted within the film. A reference to the T-Rex chase scene from Jurassic Park (1993) where on the mirror of the Jeep it says: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” can be seen on the Sheriff’s van mirror. There are also numerous references to the 1974 original, such as the end-credit scene where we see Leatherface walking up to the now-decrepit farmhouse, and the unsettlingly poetic, creepy chainsaw dance. Within five days after its release on Netflix, it stood at 1st place in their Top 10 list in the US. But overall, viewers were less than impressed and the film received a generally negative review from critics, as it holds a rating of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Atlantic’s David Sims describes the film as “unnecessary and anonymous, leaning on crass visual shocks while failing to match the unsparing brutality of its lodestar.” For me the film was a let-down. While I was shocked by the bus bloodbath scene and enjoyed the cinematography masterpieces surrounding the Sheriff’s van scene, I felt like I questioned a lot of the logic in the movie which repeatedly took me out of the immersion. I like the immortality of killers in slasher movies, but not when it starts to become ridiculous – especially with how long it took for side-characters to die after being held up in the air by the chainsaw. It’s a shame that the film had so much potential to be on a par with the original, if only they had followed the original lore and atmosphere instead of diverting in a new direction, this film wouldn’t have turned out to be a pointless remake that doesn’t connect with the other films apart from use of the words Texas, chainsaw and massacre. The director has expressed interest in helping with another sequel, but with generally unfavourable reviews from Metacritic, it may be best to leave it to someone else. Overall, I give the film a 4/10. The great use of sound and music that went against typical horror/slasher tropes of being super loud, and chilling cinematography feel like a waste of time if it’s just going to be brought down by the poor writing and execution. Review by Charlotte Simms Charlotte Simms I'm a second-year student at Derby University studying a Joint Honours in Creative and Professional Writing & Film and Television Studies. With a past publication of a poem at secondary school, I've always pushed myself to get more of my work out there so these opportunities are great for me. I'm mostly working on building my website at the moment where I can eventually set up an online portfolio and upload writing blogs. the heart and soul of horror movie review websites |
Archives
April 2023
|
RSS Feed
|
|