Massacre à la tronçonneuse 2

In 1974 upon the release of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre it was immediately met with shock and became an overnight sensation. It was horrifying and people had seen little like it before.

It's creators clearly never saw the potential for a franchise as it took twelve years before a sequel came out.

Tobe Hooper returns for this odd little film, odd because it follows a dark gritty horrific gory serious horror with a colourful campy and often comedic effort.

The movie revolves around the demented Sawyer family and the random killing sprees they go on. But when they get outed by a DJ they go after her for revenge. Add to that Dennis Hopper as a former US Marshall who is as crazy as the family themselves and you have a the recipe for a gory riot.

Trouble is I couldn't take it seriously, it simply didn't feel like a TCM movie! It was loud, colourful and the jokes flowed freely. Leatherface doesn't even get anymore screen time than the rest of the family and even he is goofy and no longer scary.

I have no idea what they were thinking when they made TCM 2, but it sure as hell doesn't work.

The Good:

Bill Moseley

The Bad:

The screaming, really!?

Such a crazy shift in genre

Sudden and dumb finale

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

LG has the hardest skull in the history of movies

"The sex" is a swindle

Chainsaw "Sword" fights aren't as exciting as you'd imagine

Very similar to the first movie,some of the actors even

look the same ( those that survived first time round ). Granpa must be really old by now and he just cannot bring that hammer down with enough force to split the young ladies' head apart. I seem to remember him having the same trouble in the first film. The sets for the last half hour are really spaced out and I wonder where they shot it. There is more comedy and tongue-in-cheek humour than in the original film, and the glorifying of the chain saw as a "sacred" object is obviously pushed further! I reckon the directer wanted to get a few things across that he regretted not having put in the original film ! Picture quality is obviously better than first time round. I would say that what is missing is the novelty effect but with a sequel we obviously cannot expect that. If you liked the original movie, then this one shouldn't disappoint too much. I wonder what happened to Dennis Hopper in the end !

TCM 1 is to TCM 2 what Alien is to Aliens. Nuanced tension building is replaced with "more is more" theatrics. This may have inherently less artistic merit, but it does follow through on an intention that's impossible to ignore. In a way, maybe this always should have been the tone, as no one ever expected subtlety from a movie called Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It gets to the point quickly then proceeds with a relentless bludgeoning of blood and gore. Not achieving the comedic brilliance found in the excesses of the Evil Dead franchise, but thankfully not succumbing to the trappings of self serious torture porn. Also fun to realize how much Rob Zombie's 1000 Corpses movies were just as much an homage to TCM as his Halloween movies were to the John Carpenter originals.

A late night radio host hears some prank callers being killed over the phone, she offers to help Lieutenant 'Lefty' Enright (Dennis Hopper) track down what he believes to be the same people responsible for chainsaw killings in Texas. He however uses her as bait and she is taken by the Chop Top and the gang. He then has to try and save her before she becomes dinner. After the intensity of the original, that was probably impossible to top, Hooper decided to go with a comic leaning this time, some of it works some of it doesn't, but by the end i was just about persuaded it was fun. Hopper is naturally OTT, he doesn't quite sleepwalk through the film like others have stated, but he also doesn't really excel either. Caroline Williams constant screaming is more than slightly irksome and her playful musings with an impotent Leatherface are just silly, but its Bill Moseley you'll remember most from this film, he's a hoot.

Wow. I've never seen a sequel that spoofs its predecessor harder than this one does. 10 years after the original TCM, Leatherface is back, making a stunning entrance atop a speeding pick-up truck with his legendary chainsaw held high. After dispatching two incredibly annoying, cell-phone wielding yuppies, the cannibalistic Sawyer family is after Stretch, a DJ who was on the phone with the two idiotic victims and heard everything that happened. Simultaneously using Stretch as bait and protecting her from the Sawyers is bug-eyed weirdo Dennis Hopper, playing the demented, chainsaw packing sheriff and uncle to one of the previous films unfortunate victims.

This movie is definitely played for comedy, black as it may be. It's almost a retelling of the first tale, as Stretch runs screaming through the Sawyers underground abode, only to end up bent over a washtub while Grandpa feebly whacks away at her head with a hammer. There's a great chainsaw-as-penis scene, where Leatherface suddenly discovers sex and orgasms and promptly loses interest in chainsawing Stretch to death. There's also a hideous hammer murder and a gruesome "defacing" scene, just so you don't forget that, no matter how hilarious, this movie is still about over-the-top gore, mutilations, cannibalism and fates worse than death. Just when your stomach starts lurching, along comes another sickening joke to relieve the tension.

This is a brilliantly done film, made even better by its offbeat humor and oddly likable characters. In my humble opinion, it's the perfect sequel, done the way more sequels ought to be done.