Review by CJ

Director:
John Luessenhop

Starring:
Alexandra Daddario, Dan Yeager, Tremaine ‘Trey Songz’ Neverson, Tania Raymonde, Scott Eastwood, Keram Malicki-Sánchez, Shaun Sipos, Thom Barry, Paul Rae

Other notable appearances:
Gunnar Hansen

Running time:
92 minutes

Watch this if you liked:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw, Wrong Turn

Just before a road trip to New Orleans, Heather Miller (Daddario) discovers she is adopted and her birth grandmother has bequeathed a house in Texas to her. Heather and her friends decide to stop in on the way to Louisiana. What she doesn’t realise is that the house comes with a secret — a murderous, chainsaw wielding secret.

There is a fair bit of gore in Texas Chainsaw so if this is something that bothers you in a horror film, it’s probably best to give this one a miss.

The characters in Texas Chainsaw are portrayed well by the actors involved, but wow do they ever make some stupid decisions. Granted, some of those decisions involve homages to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but yikes. If you enjoy horror movies as a spectator sport — where instead of cheering for players, you yell at the characters when they do stupid things — then grab the popcorn, some throat lozenges and strap yourself in.

Despite its predictability and the stupid things the characters do — if I couldn’t deal with those two things, I could never watch another horror film — I enjoyed Texas Chainsaw’s plot. It has an interesting twist on the ‘final girl’ trope and that’s all I’m going to say about that, lest I be wandering into spoiler territory.

I don’t often like films that delve too far into the “torture porn” genre, but the plot in Texas Chainsaw, while predictable at almost every turn, was interesting enough to make up for the gratuitous gore. While not something I would rush out to buy, it’s worth a look on a streaming service or if it’s on TV.

Rating:

“Family’s a messy business. Ain’t nothing thicker than blood.”