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As any horror fan knows, you cannot keep a good franchise (or even a bad one) for very long. And so, five years after the origin story Leatherface came out, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is back with a new Netflix film.
The new Chainsaw Massacre is the latest in a long line of so-called "legacy sequels"—in just the last year, we have had Halloween Kills and the new Scream.
In the Netflix film's case, this means that it sets itself up as the sequel to the first film but disregards a lot of stuff from the later sequels—easy to do with this franchise, where Leatherface's origins, motivations and even name have pretty much changed with every film.
The film combines a new set of characters with some familiar faces (and faces worn as masks) from previous movies.
How Netflix's Texas Chainsaw Massacre links to the old movies
Per interviews with its writers, the Netflix movie sets itself as a sequel to the first film— and along the way, disregards much of the lore from the later sequels.
As Fede Álvarez explained to Entertainment Weekly: "Our take on it was this guy [Leatherface] probably disappeared after everything he's done. You know, how do you catch a guy who has a mask? Once he removes the mask and runs away, it's very easy for him to hide somewhere.
"This story will pick it up many, many years after the original story. He's been in hiding for a long, long time, trying to be a good person. These people arriving in this town are going to awaken the giant."
Which characters return from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
Like the 2018 Halloween, the new Chainsaw Massacre brings an original character back from the original film. In this case, it is Sally, the final girl from the 1974 original. Except unlike Halloween, which brought back original actress Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, Sally actress Marilyn Burns died in 2014.
As such, in the Netflix film the role is filled by Olwen Fouéré, star of Netflix's Cursed and the second Fantastic Beasts film. Also recast due to the original actor's death is Leatherface. As Gunnar Hansen died in 2015, the role has been taken by actor Mark Burnham.
In his EW interview, Álvarez said of this: "If Gunnar had been alive, I'm pretty sure he would have played [the part], so we were trying to find someone that could have been Gunnar today."
As this, suggests, the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre sees a much older Leatherface than usual. It has been widely reported that the Leatherface in the film is in his 60s, though the timing of that does not quite work—if he has been in hiding for 50 years, then that would have made him 10 years old in the original.
In this new version, Leatherface does not live in the bone-strewn house from the original, however, but in an abandoned orphanage, where he decides to kill again after a group of property-buying gentrifiers evict the woman who has been caring for him all this time (Alice Krige).
As this suggests, the plot may follow on from the first Massacre, but it has a streak of very heavy satire straight out of the second movie. That 1986 film was a broad satire of Reagan-era America, with Leatherface's demented family becoming successful as small business owners selling human chili.
The new film takes pot shots at the hot button issues from the Trump/Biden era—gentrification, the Confederate flag as a symbol, school shootings and cancel culture. Though if reviews are to be believed, it is less successful in this than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2—an AVClub critic summed up much of the criticism when they called the new film "a movie that wants to be topical but has no real perspective on its topics."
Who are the new characters in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
Like any legacy sequel, the new film combines original characters with a new cast of characters for the monster to hack his way through.
As usual in this franchise, these are city kids who find themselves trapped in the Lone Star State. These include Eighth Grade's Elsie Fisher as school shooting survivor Lila, Happy Death Day 2U's Sarah Yarkin as food influencer Melody, The Chi's Jacob Latimore as Melody's business partner Dante and Vikings' Moe Dunford as handyman Richter.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is streaming now on Netflix.
