Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Director: David Blue Garcia
Starring: Mark Burnham, Elsie Fisher, Owlen Fouere, Neil Hudson Sarah Yarkin, Jacob Latiore, Moe Dunford. USA. 1h 21m

I wasn’t aware that we needed another addition to this blood soaked series but it seems that coming out of a pandemic we just might need some fun chainsaw fun time again. The brilliance is that this isn’t a remake, a reboot or a re-imagined mish mash of horror pulp and a genuine attempt to revisit a dusty town has been achieved although with all the tropes, cliches and homages, was it really worth the effort?

Books of Blood (2020)

Director: Brannon Braga
Starring: Britt Robertson, Freda Foh Shen, Nicholas Campbell, Anna Friel, Rafi Gavron, Yul Vazquez, Andy McQueen .USA. 1h 47m

It’s been a while since we had a “proper” Clive Barker story ripped from it’s pages and cast on the silver screen. The first handful of movies really blew audiences away, as Clive’s ever watchful eye was able to help redefine his torturous visions from paper to, over the years his involvement dropped off as he was almost excluded from helping future directors and the interest in his adaptations dropped (who would have guessed?) as the unique Barkeresque touch was lost and the films began in blend in with everything else.

I’ve never understood how having the author’s input would ever be cast aside, but Clive is back and writing new material resulting in an extremely better adaptation of the Books of Blood that put the earlier 2009 version to great shame.

Leatherface : The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)

Director: Jeff Burr
Starring. Kate Hodge, William Butler, Ken Foree, Tom Hudson, Viggo Mortensen, Joe Unger, RA Mihailaoff. USA. 1h 26m.

Jeff Burr is the king of terrible remakes, okay that’s unfair but he’s never really had a commercially successful one, but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t adored by fans of bad horror, I find his films quite watchable but agree that they can be under par, but fun none the less.

This box office disaster was see a return to the cult classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre family but these are more like the Beverly Hillbilliys. The opening of the film see’s Leatherface slaughtering a young girl with a sledgehammer, cutting off her face to make a new mask as her sister watches on silently, the young girl, Sara escapes into the woods.

Mandy (2018)

Director: Panos Cosmatos
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy Olwen Fouere, Richard Brake, Bill Duke. USA. 2h 1m

Cosmastos seems obsessed with 1983, where his previous movie was also set, is there a parallel here? Same year with possible answers to Professor Arboria’s mystic drug… but nothing is laid out in a straightforward way, he keeps the viewer guessing about what is real and what might just be fantasy, eventually your not sure what you believe in anymore, questions are raised especially about the drugs involved and at times this film really pushes the envelope.

Leatherface (2017)

Director:Alexandre Bustillo – Julien Maury

Starring: Stephen Dorff, Lili Taylor, Sam Strike, Sam Coleman, James Bloor, Jessica Madsen, Vanessa Grasse. USA. 1h 30m

Finally a modern prequel that actually has some substance and a wild dark nature!! The sequels and remakes tried to pick leatherface from the rest of the family and turn him into another serial slasher such as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers and while this new prequel again singles him out it gives a larger insight into his family, hopefully next we’ll be able to see what turned Grampa into the hammer wielding nutter as I feel that’s the most interesting character (fan fiction anyone)?