The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Review

Late night radio DJ Vantia "Stretch" Brock records a murder going down on her late night talk back show. She responds to an ad asking for evidence put into the local newspaper by Texas Ranger Lieutenant "Lefty" Enright, who has been hunting down the killers of his brother Franklin (see original movie).

This doesn't go down well with everyon's favourite Texas psycho family, here called the Sawyers (geddit?), and brothers Leatherface and Chop Top are soon besieging the isolated radio station. In one of the less plausible plot developments, Leatherface is smitten by Stretch and doesn't take the full retribution Chop Top wanted. One thing leads to another, with Stretch tracking the brothers back to their lair, underground in a disused theme park called "Battlelands". A Bible-quoting and clearly off the planet Lefty is in hot pursuit, and the ultimate chainsaw showdown ensues. Does Hooper get the gore and comedy aspects right in his follow-up to a classic?

Tobe Hooper as a director had been doing it tough since the original TCM (1974) announced to the world that a formidable new dude was on the block. Hooper et al had used the original low-budget outing as an introduction to Hollywood, got what they wanted, and in an example of the hoary old "monkey's paw" be careful what you wish for, got submerged in the Boredwood system. A number of movies had crashed and burned with only the overly cutesy Spielbergian Poltergeist making any sort of impression. Hooper had just come off a less than impressive three-movie deal, and saw a return to his roots as the right option. Unfortunately for the Texas bad boy the horror genre had moved along, for better or worse, in the twelve years since Tobe's legendary first effort.

TCM 2 ups the gore, (surprisingly TCM had very little, with the Hitchcock technique of showing less and letting the audience join the dots in use), and this doesn't work for the sequel. Sure, Hooper enlists the aid of Tom Savini here for the effects, but they look dated, don't work today, and sure as hell wouldn't have worked back in 1986 with Jason and Michael etc in full implement-swinging mode. What was shocking in the 1970s had far less impact by the 1980s, and the attitude of more is better simply doesn't work. There's one shocking scene, the demise of LG, but the rest is simply over the top and more likely to cause groans from viewers than a heightened sense of unease. Hooper here isn't strong enough as a visualiser to make things work for him, and I was left more bored than anything else when the claret started flowing. The early death of the two teens in the bridge car scene (and wonderfully, it's a different bridge when Lefty is investigating the following day) set the tone, with Savini trying for another Fangoria cover rather than making seat-clenching the order of the day for viewers. The teens were another couple of the obnoxious sort, and that my friends, means the audience is applauding their demise rather than being shocked by it.

TCM was a serious movie, but TCM 2 is going for laughs since Hooper really isn't able to recapture his prior powerful vision. The Chop Top character was inspired, loved the "NAM Land" shtick, Drayton as the put-upon small businessman was worthy of a character, but that's about where things start falling to pieces. Lefty just left me bemused- dude, you're a Texan, so what's with the chainsaws? Get one big mofo gun to clean house with or call Dirty Harry. Grandpa added the odd touch of slapstick, and Leatherface has gone from being everyone's nightmare to a possible Sesame Street character. Tickle me Leatherface would sell real well - chainsaws not included.

Hooper did reprise the end scene from his first movie, and a nice touch was added with Stretch doing the chainsaw dance this time round.

Behind the camera Hooper does go for the odd interesting shot, but by and large he isn't up to handling the comedic elements, which aren't paced correctly, and he lashes on the gore, and is unable to add the tension that genre movies require in order to have an impact. The Sawyer family are no longer frightening, and nothing else is put in our way to up interest levels. Full marks for Hooper trying something different, but end of day it didn't work in any form whatsoever.

Hooper does get Leatherface's introduction exactly right, with chainsaw-swinging mayhem there at the radio station, but by the end of the film we are all over the disfigured one and are left wondering what could have been if Hooper had gone for a more serious angle.

Carson turned in a reasonable script which in the hands of a decent comic/horror Director could have resulted in an above-average movie. There are plenty of one-liners going down, a lot of background added via dialogue, and some deliciously funny moments. Highlights include Drayton winning the local chilli cook-off competition and the Compère digging in; the audience are left to their own devices in determining what ingredients were used in Drayton's chilli.

Dennis Hopper (Lefty) brings a presence to TCM 2 but is woefully misused in the role. A certain descent into madness thing happens without warning, and Lefty simply looks stupid in a couple of scenes. Hopper is trying his best with a poorly-written role that is well below his abilities. Caroline Williams (Stretch) was the pick of a bad bunch and manages to let her lungs do the acting. The chick can scream, and doesn't hold back as she runs into various Sawyer family members.

Jim Siedow (the Cook) lost all depth he had with the character in the original. Here Siedow is giving almost a parody of the put-upon Sawyer family member, and while going from pleasant to off the planet, he starts to irritate very quickly. This time around Siedow simply yells his lines and loses any levels the character may have had. Bill Moseley (Chop Top) was the find of the outing; simply over the top, degenerate, and deserving pride of place with a photo prominently displayed over the Sawyer mantelpiece. Guess Chop Top stands in for "the hitcher" from the original, and yes that desiccated corpse he drags around is apparently meant to be his brother, who of course got run over at the end of TCM. Finally, Bill Johnson (Leatherface) fails on all levels, Leatherface is no longer the unknown element and comes across as a comic character here rather than the obsessed, squealing nightmare of the original.

Surprisingly for an "X" rated 1980s horror flick there isn't any T&A going down. In Hooper's defence he pretty much tones down the nudity in all his movies, and end of day it really wouldn't have helped TCM 2 in any fashion.

Tobe Hooper and Jerry Lambert did a pretty lacklustre score, which does nothing for the film. Did they watch a different cut to the one I viewed? There are also plenty of rock numbers to be grooving to, another sign of a bad movie, with Concrete Blonde adding "Your Haunted Head" and "Over the Shoulder" as the highlights. Don't even bother hunting out the CD, go grab a Blonde Album instead.

Wasn't digging it, didn't float my boat, left me wondering if Tobe Hooper can actually direct or whether he has been totally subverted by Boredwood. The original movie is powerful, is an ordeal in itself, and you are lucky to get to the end credits with any semblance of decorum left. TCM 2 simply has you hoping for the end credits. The 1970s were a golden age for horror, and this movie indicates how far the genre had fallen by the 1980s. Tobe Hooper goes from auteur to just another dude making cheap and exceedingly bad horror flicks in just over a decade. What happened, Tobe?

TCM 2 ran into a backlash against horror on its release, as too many low-budget outings got under the censors radar with major studio backing. The BBFC considered 20-25 minutes of the movie needed to be shaved for the UK market, thus aborting any plans Studio Cannon had for a 1990 release in Europe. The MPAA were even more draconian, slapping an "X" rating on the movie in the US, thereby finishing any chance of box office glory in North America, as audiences would have viewed the rating as indicating a porn flick. Australia and New Zealand were simply up front; they banned the film for a number of years, with it becoming available only recently via a DVD release. I should have listened to the censors, really!

Exactly zero recommendation on Tobe's follow up to TCM. This is bad movie-making trying to cover its arse via humour and over-the-top gore. There's no story being told here, and nothing to take home after the end credits roll. The buzz might be back, but the chainsaw is running on fumes.