![]() ![]() The other leading lady, Lila is saddled with a subplot that isn’t quite strong enough. NEW TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE MOVIEThe best and most memorable kill of the movie is Sally, and honestly, that’s sacrilege. Speaking of, the kills of this film are fairly boring, especially thinking back to other Alvarez projects. She went through the hell of it all first, and she couldn’t get the revenge-the ending-she deserved. It works, but it makes Sally’s demise that much more sour. A moment between Melody and Leatherface acts as a nicely framed final girl billboard. To the same point, it is also strange to so blatantly disrespect an iconic final girl when the film makes sure to concern itself with that stereotype in its young new female leads. ![]() She could have joined the Laurie and Sidney ranks, and she should have. We already know Leatherface is near unbeatable. Sally is simply used as a vehicle to show that Leatherface is an unstoppable force, a crudely made example that desecrates the memory of her struggle. One of the most exciting things about the new Scream and Halloween films is that they allow the wronged to avenge their friends, their family and their own hearts. So it begs the question: Why even put Sally Hardesty, the only survivor of the original massacre, in this film if you were going to disrespect her the way she is disrespected? In updated installments of their own beloved franchises, Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott are having their cake and eating it, too, as they should after the hell they’ve been through. On the other hand, you probably know as well as I that we are in a final girl resurgence. The movie is ultimately conservative in its messaging-through how it frames gentrification and, later, Confederates-strange for a franchise about the mutilation of the human body, a pretty apolitical topic. Further, using a Black man in Dante as a driving force of gentrification is a strange thing, given that historically Black neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by the practice. This isn’t someone’s grandmother’s Bed-Stuy brownstone, these are buildings that need work and repair to live and work in. The angle, however, doesn’t work: Aside from the film’s inciting incident, there isn’t actually anyone to kick out or displace-in fact, the leads mention that the bank repossessed the abandoned properties, “abandoned” being the key word. Texas Chainsaw Massacre initially takes a hard anti-gentrification stance, immediately casting the newcomers as gentrifiers in the eyes of every local (and there are few, as to be expected) that we come across. ![]() Soon, they discover they are not alone in their new home, and that their decision to move here will be one they will regret. But Melody’s younger sister, Lila (Elsie Fisher), isn’t exactly into the idea of leaving their life in Austin behind. The goal is to breathe life into the abandoned town, resettle it and build from the ashes of the identity it left behind. Screenwriter Chris Thomas Devlin’s interpretation of this furthering of the franchise-from a story by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues-follows Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and Dante (Jacob Latimore), two young chefs who bring a group of wide-eyed folks looking for change to Harlow, a Texas ghost town seven or eight hours outside of Austin. NEW TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE HOW TOIt turned out to be a trite modernization of the original, resting on topical concepts that it doesn’t know how to comment on-or at least, it’s not saying what it thinks it is. ![]() With Evil Dead remake genius Fede Alvarez producing, and an apparent dedication to meaningfully furthering the original storyline, it seemed like there was no way this new version of the worst crime in Texas history could be a misstep. With this in mind, it was hard not to get excited about the direct sequel David Blue Garcia’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre promised to be. He is an absolute beast, and there is a reason he and his legacy loom large into the 21st century. He doesn’t move without cause, making his impact that much greater. He is ruthless and despicable, but he is sympathetic in his way. He has no mercy in his bones his identity is a warped everyman’s visage kept hidden at the heel of his insecurities. There’s simply no villain quite like Leatherface. There has yet to be a horror film with the grisly, depraved spirit that 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre brought to the genre. ![]()
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