(Both Psycho and Chain Saw are very loosely inspired by the real-life crimes of the rural Wisconsin grave-robber and murderer Ed Gein.) Hooper and screenwriter L.M. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is grubby, relentless, and genuinely shocking, thanks in part to a few good “trust nobody” twists, akin to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. He and Henkel tell a simple, almost folktale-like story about Sally (played by the late Marilyn Burns) and her friends visiting the old Hardesty family estate and inadvertently stumbling across a nearby house owned by an eccentric clan of cannibals, including the savage Leatherface (the late Gunnar Hansen). Hooper was looking to break into Hollywood with a cheap drive-in movie that would double as a commentary on how Vietnam-era America had become numb to violence. The 1974 Chain Saw - the only one where “chain” and “saw” are separated in the title - was directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Hooper with Kim Henkel, working with a cast of Austin-area hippies and theater kids. This Texas Chainsaw Massacre is intended as a direct sequel to the first film, set in a world where the massacre itself has become an infamous murder-mystery, covered in a TV true-crime documentary narrated by the original movie’s narrator, John Larroquette. Leatherface’s return also draws one of his old victims out of her seclusion: Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré), the lone survivor of the 1974 Massacre, who has been training herself for a rematch ever since. The senior citizen, it turns out, is the mother of Leatherface (Marc Burnham) and when these cocky kids cause his mom’s health to go downhill, the angry lug embarks on a rampage that has him hacking his way through several of Melody and Dante’s visiting West Coast tech bros and influencers. When they arrive, they’re surprised to find that one of the dirt-cheap old homes they thought they bought is still occupied by an addled old lady, who really doesn’t want to leave. The new film stars Elsie Fisher (best-known as the heartbreakingly optimistic eighth grader in Eighth Grade) as Lila, a moody teen who joins her sister Melody (Sarah Yarkin) and their foodie friend Dante (Jacob Latimore) on a trip to the dinky, devastated Texas town of Harlow, where these entrepreneurial young folks have purchased some run-down real estate in hopes of establishing an affordable hipster haven. Photo: Yana Blajeva/Legendary via Netflix If there’s a theme uniting their work - this Chainsaw included - it has to do with broken and abandoned spaces, and the sometimes shifty people who nestle deep within them. (Newcomer Chris Thomas Devlin is the credited screenwriter, while David Blue Garcia is the director, having taken over mid-production from Andy and Ryan Tohill.) Álvarez and Sayagues previously collaborated on the well-received 2013 Evil Dead reboot, and on the first two entries in the Don’t Breathe series. The major names to know are Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, who co-wrote the story and are among the movie’s producers. Netflix’s new Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a large creative team, not all of whom were involved from start to finish. When the whole project inevitably fizzles, another set of writers, directors, and producers comes on board and starts over again. Every few years, it seems, someone takes a shot at rebooting or restarting the whole Chainsaw cinematic universe, with the intention of making multiple installments. Yet for nearly four decades now - from the first Chainsaw sequel in 1986 to Netflix’s new film, confusingly titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre - the idea of a Leatherface series has never really caught on. If there were a Mount Rushmore of horror-movie villains, Leatherface would be on it. Like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Chucky - or even like Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula - Leatherface has a familiar name and a ghoulish visage, highly marketable to fright fans. It’s easy to see why filmmakers keep trying to build a franchise around Leatherface, the hulking masked maniac first introduced in the 1974 splatter classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
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