Leatherface might be in his 80s, but with his older age comes an increased appetite for destruction. Recently, Netflix released its new Texas Chainsaw Massacre film which serves as a legacy sequel to the 1974 original by director Tobe Hooper. There are many similarities between this new version and the classic movie, but one of the most noticeable differences would be the levels of violence. While the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre got by with prioritizing dread and suspense over outright gore and a high body count, Leatherface couldn't seem to get enough victims in the new movie.
So, what's gotten into Leatherface since the early 1970s? Producer Fede Alvarez touched on the film's ultra-violent content in a new interview with Collider. Alvarez believes that times have changed and that horror fans will be left disappointed if they watch a movie with "Massacre" in the title only to find that it's light on the body count. Especially with the film's references to the real-life shootings that have plagued the United States in recent years, Alvarez felt that the film needed to deliver with its title.
“I think you do a movie that’s called Texas Chainsaw Massacre in this day and age, it wasn’t going to be called a massacre by just killing five people. And the shooting, in a way, at the beginning kind of shows that, the fact that we live in times when massacres do happen and that’s why I think, even in the movie, he needed to up the ante to earn the word massacre in the title, and not being just five people and just take it to a level of what happened in the bus scene, right?”
While the film is drawing some mixed opinions from horror fans and critics alike, there's no one saying that it wasn't violent enough. Netflix's Texas Chainsaw Massacre fulfills what its title promises and then some, and even some of the critics unhappy with the plot and other elements have praised the kill scenes.
Slasher Movie Killers Are Getting Deadlier and Deadlier
Maybe Leatherface took some notes from Michael Myers. When the film Halloween Kills was released in October, it was struck pretty hard with bad reviews, not too much unlike what's now happening with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. With Halloween Kills, a similar approach was taken with making Michael Myers more violent and brutal than he has ever been. It resulted in the bloodiest Halloween movie to date, though it made some longtime fans miss the suspense that made the original film special.
In any case, we are in the rise of the slasher film's return, even if some of the new movies are getting some mixed results. Scream will be getting another sequel after resurrecting the franchise with its fifth installment in theaters last month. Halloween Ends is coming later this year to continue the Laurie Strode vs. Michael Myers saga. And we can be sure Jason Voorhees will be coming back out of the lake with a new film as soon as the legal issues involving the Friday the 13th rights are all sorted out.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is now streaming on Netflix.