Number 5 — TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION

For the month of October, we’re counting down the best horror movies of 1995! Check back every day for a new entry in the list.

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION (aka THE RETURN OF THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) is an oddity and asterisk when it comes to 1995. Because, while it’s another later sequel—like LEPRECHAUN 3 or HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS—it marks the return of one the co-creators of the franchise and while it was completed in 1994 and then premiered at SXSW in 1995, it wasn’t formally released wide until 1997. Part of that was New Line Cinema having no idea to market it and part of it was their cunning calculation to cash in on the celebrity status of stars Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger.

The plot synopsis for the film is familiar enough, combining elements of basic slasher tropes with the lore of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE:

A group of teenagers get into a car crash in the Texas woods on prom night, and then wander into an old farmhouse that is home to Leatherface and his insane family of cannibalistic psychopaths.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE co-writer Kim Henkel returns after 20 years to write and direct this outing. The previous two sequels—TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 and LEATHERFACE—are summarily waved away in the opening crawl as “two minor, yet apparently related incidents,” setting this up as the “real” follow-up to the iconic 1974 film. Or is it?

As others have pointed out (like Justin Yandell in Bloody Disgusting and Robb Antequera on this very site), this could very well be Henkel poking fun not just at the original TCM, but also the state of horror in the mid-’90s. Much like what Hooper did with his sequel in 1986, Henkel goes for over-the-top insanity and big flourishes of comedy amidst the carnage. Unlike Hooper’s though, the effect isn’t as entertaining.

Personally I find this fourth entry to be rather middling and meandering for much of it, the comedy not hitting like it does in the ‘86 sequel. There is a late movie reveal about a massive conspiracy that is somewhat interesting (and the basis for most of the meta-commentary), and kind of prefigures MARTYRS in a roundabout manner. But unfortunately it’s so rushed and convoluted that it doesn’t land as a joke or as an intriguing expansion of lore.

Still, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION has certainly found its fair share of cultists over the years and its reappraisal as metatextual meditation on TEXAS CHAIN SAW and horror at large has also grown with time too. It is better than most of what came after (in remakes, reboots, and more), but mostly TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION just makes me think of the Hunter S. Thompson quote:

There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.