Retro Review--The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is unarguably one of the all-time great horror movies. Tobe Hooper probably never thought he'd get around to making a sequel, but after a career high with Poltergeist (thanks you Steven Spielberg) he blew his good will with the big budget bomb, Lifeforce. I'm sure that had nothing to do with the second act of that film being so boring audiences worldwide had their actual lifeforce removed from their bodies.

Soon he was schlepping back to his old stomping grounds over a decade after the original that made him famous.

To his credit, Hooper wasn't interested in regurgitating what he had already done before. Where TCM was very gritty and real due to its low budget, TCM2 is an over-the-top Black Comedy that uses its higher budget to slap Dennis Hopper in the main (well, main when it came to advertising) role.

The plot kicks off when two of your standard obnoxious Horror douchebags call up a local radio station just to fuck with them. The station is run by a spunky woman nicknamed Stretch, and LG, a man spitting-mad over his eternal status in Stretch's friend zone. Seriously, the dude loves to spit. The annoying goobers are killed by Leatherface & co. while being recorded on the phone, leading to Stretch contacting Lefty (Hopper), a cop who has been tracking the Sawyer clan ever since the events of the first movie. It's the Blow Out of Horror movies.

Before even being released it marketed itself as a different beast from the '74 classic by having a poster parodying The Breakfast Club. Right off the bat there's a much goofier tone, and that tone threw off audiences back then who expected more of the same. History has proven Hooper to be right with the approach he took since it has become more popular over the years. It doesn't hurt that none of the Leatherface films that came after have been particularly good.

Bill Moseley has a scene-chewing role as Chop-Top, the brother of the hitchhiker character who was in Vietnam during the events of the first movie. At first I wasn't sure if he was supposed to be the hitcher-guy or a completely new character, but the magic of the internet helped me solve the most pressing question of my week. He giggles a lot and enjoys scratching at the exposed plate in his head.

Stretch is about to earn her nickname in ways she never thought possible.

Then of course we have Leatherface. He gets a new wrinkle this time out by having a crush on the female protagonist. This comes over him when he gets distracted by her slick legs, causing him to appear to wildly ejaculate in his pants. He also gets a scene fighting Dennis Hopper with dueling chainsaws that is the stuff of fans' dreams. Rounding out the Sawyer clan is Grandpa and only returning cast member, Jim Siedow as The Cook.

If there's one thing that really doesn't work in TCM2, it's the music. The score is credited to both Hooper and Jerry Lambert and sounds like they took a leftover score from a filler episode of the Tales From the Darkside television show. Unfortunately the music is very weak and works against the movie more than it helps.

Other than that it's the most worthy follow-up to the original. Dennis Hopper would go on to say it was the worst movie he ever made.