Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)


REVIEWER RATING: 
4/10


While horror is by far my favorite genre, I'm an all around movie fan in general. I love indie dramas, I have no problem turning my brain off for a senseless comedy, and I've been known to tap my foot along to a musical or two. I mention this because as someone who watches every type of movie, I can tell you that as horror fans, we get subjected to a helluva lot more shit than any other genre. This is the result of a couple of different reasons, but mainly due to the fact that a horror movie is cheaper to produce than any other movie. What depresses me the most is when a respectable name in the horror genre gets an installment in its franchise that makes it look like the countless other straight to video pieces of shit pissed on twice that flood the shelves. People can say what they want about the Platinum Dunes Texas Chainsaw movies, but at least they attempted to saw the name that was almost destroyed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.

The plot revolves around a group of teenagers who leave their prom, drive on the highway, and then seemingly seconds later end up in middle of nowhere Texas. They accidentally crash into another car that happens to be driving in the middle of nowhere simultaneously and set off to get help. It isn't long before our group of teens run into Leatherface and his (or is it her?) family. Originally made in 1994 under the title The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the movie was renamed and remarketed a couple years later when it's two stars, Renne "I look like I've been sucking on a lemon all day" Zelwegger and Matthew "I play the bongos naked in the middle of the night" McConaughey started to become household names. I rented it ten years ago when it was on the new release shelf and thought that it was a shiteous mess of a movie. I recently gave it another gander as it's been on FearNet all month and have to say that, although it's not as horrendous as I remember, it's still pretty much a shiteous mess of a movie. On the plus side, I have seen much worse.

Written and Directed by Kim Henkel, the co-writer of the original, it was apparently meant to be a "true" sequel to the original. Well fucking sue me but I would rather watch the glorious over the top Part 2 or the (if nothing else) entertaining Part 3. Henkel made a joke out of the series...even more than Hooper did with part 2. Leatherface in drag...are you FUCKING kidding me?! The brutal blood thirsty Leatherface....in a fracking dress. What were they effing thinking?! The bad doesn't stop there, unfortunately. The acting was downright atrocious. I've seen lemon face and the naked bongo player in quite a few movies and they've both proven to be more than adequate actors, but holy shit were they horrible in this. Maybe it was the script, maybe it was how they were directed...who knows, but they were bad. My favorite part of the movie is when McConaughey kills someone right in front of lemon face's boyfriend and after a quick chase, the boyfriend is like aw come on mister, give me a break...like casually just talking to this guy who killed someone in front of you. And let's talk about the character of Heather. I think she was killed like fifty times in the movie yet in the next scene she's still crawling around, kinda still alive. This bitch took a beating. I still don't know if she finally died or not.

Alright, now I always try to find some good, even in movies that I think are terrible. I will say that the film had a great atmosphere. Establishing shots and the scenes in the woods for creepy and foreboding. I remember the first time I saw the movie I was put on edge a few times...unfortunately this was ruined by characters walking on the screen. Another highlight was Tonie "Miss Davis, will you go to the prom with me" Perensky. We get a brief, but nonetheless, nice tit shot from her behalf..

While not as bad as some people make it out to be, it's still pretty freakin' bad. Whoever thought that putting Leatherface in a dress was a good idea needs to seriously fist themselves. It's watchable for the fact that even though it's one of the most absurd horror sequels ever made, it's not boring and is semi-competent on a technical level.
OVERALL: 
While not as bad as some people make it out to be, it's still pretty freakin' bad. Whoever thought that putting Leatherface in a dress was a good idea needs to seriously fist themselves. It's watchable for the fact that even though it's one of the most absurd horror sequels ever made, it's not boring and is semi-competent on a technical level.


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