[ATTENTION! This article contains spoilers] Leatherface makes a violent return in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. After hiding for almost fifty years, the killer resurfaces and has lost none of his savageries. If it moves away from Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece in several aspects, the film also pays him many tributes, including in its post-credits scene…
Chainsaw Massacre: new breath for a cult franchise
After several sequels, a remake, and two prequels, the franchise Chainsaw Massacre got a makeover on Netflix. As the Halloween of David GordonGreen was released in 2018, this new installment directed by David Blue Garcia and produced by Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe: House of Darkness) ignores its predecessors to establish itself as the direct sequel to the 1974 masterpiece signed Tobe Hooper.
In the feature film, Leatherface (Mark Burnham) has disappeared from the surface for almost fifty years but his barbaric acts continue to haunt Texas. When a group of influencers arrives in a ghost town to attract investors to revive it, they unknowingly awaken the sleeping monster. The killer very quickly sows chaos and carries out real carnage in the deserted city, visibly happy to have recovered his favorite toy and pushing back all the limits of cutting.
Chainsaw Massacre ©Netflix
Going against its model by revealing incredible visual violence skimping neither on liters of blood nor on kilos of meat, Chainsaw Massacre offers a fierce return to its main character. To stop Leatherface, Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré) – the sole survivor of the first film – will not hesitate to face him. Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Jacob Latimore, Nell Hudson, and Moe Dunford play the other victims of the feature film, who will not come out unscathed.
WARNING! The following lines contain spoilers.
Leatherface Comes Home
After losing his surrogate mother, who watched over him after having collected him from the orphanage, the youngest of the Sawyer family spins completely. No one manages to resist his herculean strength, not even the protagonists aware of the threat he represents. Richter (Moe Dunford), an enigmatic armed Texan, does not last long against the formidable murderer. The heavy gait of the latter in no way slows down his vengeful madness. If she is more tenacious than most of the other characters, Sally Hardesty also ends up perishing, gutted by the monster’s chainsaw. In the last act, the sisters Lila (Elsie Fisher) and Melody (Sarah Yarkin) unite and manage to flee in their car.
While they thought they were rid of Leatherface, the monster reappears in the final seconds and savagely decapitates Melody. He then begins the macabre dance which had just ended Chainsaw Massacre first of the name. The film’s desire to pay homage to the original feature film is also felt in the post-credits scene.
Fans will probably recognize in this footage the place where it all started, Sawyer’s farm in which Leatherface slowly returns, chainsaw in hand. The killer is back home. It now remains to be seen if new travelers will dare to venture into her home or if Lila will try, in turn, to obtain her revenge…
Chainsaw Massacre East available on Netflix since February 18, 2022.
