In recent years we have had Halloween, Candyman, and Scream, all acting as reboot/legacy sequels reviving once thriving horror franchises and simply taking on the name of their first predecessor. This film continues that trend with a fun twist: it sucks.
The film picks up nearly 50 years after the original film, as a group of idealistic young people looking to build a community of positivity for people to find peace from the craziness of the world (they swear it isn't a cult though). Only problem: they choose the middle of bfn Texas and unearthed Leatherface, who is primed and ready to get cancelled(?).
I'll start with positives because they do exist. Overall the film is actually shot quite well, some shots are goofy but a lot actually looked really good. There is also ONE awesome scene. The bus scene from the trailer with the infamous line about Leatherface getting cancelled is honestly fantastic, he just brutally chainsaws through an entire bus of people in one of the bloodiest and most gruesome scenes I've seen in a while. I also liked a few moments where he literally threw his chainsaw, they were kind of dumb but in a ridiculous way that somewhat echoed the craziness of the early sequels. That scene is really the only scene I liked though, this movie is a bit of a mess.
First and foremost here is the issue of the film's position as a legacy sequel. Halloween brought back Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis in her iconic role, every horror fan knows who Laurie Strode is and even casual fans know Michael Myers. Leatherface while iconic to fans, doesn't have near the same wide appeal as Michael, he's been called many different names, he's looked wildly different between some films, and the original is less a case of one killer taking out a group of people and more of the weird family torturing the teens. An even bigger issue is the idea of using the survivor from the first film as a legacy hero. It directly rips off the revenge fuelled comeback story of 2018's Halloween, while unfortunately forgetting that practically nobody has a clue who it is that survived the first movie. Jamie Lee Curtis played Laurie in 4 Halloween films before the 2018 version, and crafted an iconic character as the gold standard of the "final girl," whereas no one remembers the name of anyone other than Leatherface from the first film, and this time around Sally isn't even played by the actor that originated the role. This leads to the legacy aspect of the film to fall entirely short, and the other bones the film has to stand on are also weak.
None of these characters are interesting, and in such a short runtime there isn't any time to connect with them enough to care what happens. Elsie Fisher's character is as close as we get to connecting with anyone, but her character is bogged down by a school shooting backstory that feels more like a means of making a political statement than deepening her character. It should be noted also that the political statement in question falls entirely flat, ultimately leaving a school shooting subplot that goes nowhere in the middle of a movie about a crazy guy cutting people in half with a chainsaw.
This film is ultimately the sum of several meaningless parts, each rushed together in a minuscule runtime without any time to even learn a character's name, lightly glued together with some great kills. If you just want to watch some blood splatter, there's enough of that to make this watchable, but if you want anything more than the 3-4 minutes on that bus you will be sorely disappointed. There's also a post-credit scene... in this 80 minute mess. Really wish this was good and could revive this dying franchise but I just really think it missed the mark.
Rating: 1.5/5
Written by Matt McKenzie
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