I Don't Want to Talk About TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

We're clearly having something of a "moment" in horror. Laurie Strode returned for Halloween and Halloween Kills, and she'll be back in Halloween Ends. 2022's Scream brought Sidney Prescott back to the current decade. Spiral brought a new spin on Saw. In 2021, Candyman returned for the first time in decades.

The trend seems to be for franchises to drop their numerical indicators (No Scream 5 here, even if it does continue the continuity) and you scramble in a mixture of new faces and returning characters. Then you try to force the old lightning to strike a second time. After all, 2018's Halloween became the highest grossing instalment in the franchise, and who can say no to 150 million dollars?

To be fair, if you factor in inflation the gap between original Halloween and the latest remake practically disappears, but it's not bad money either way.

So why not Texas Chainsaw Massacre? As one of the movies to start the slasher craze in the '70s, why should Leatherface be omitted from the fun?

The answer is simple: because Texas Chainsaw Massacre sucks.

I could give you a plot synopsis or a full review, but what would it matter? Could I really give you any information that is not already contained within the title? Some people go to Texas. Then there's a Massacre. The murder weapon? A Chainsaw.

Instead, I want to try something else.

I Want to Talk About Dante's Car

I guess should explain a bit of the plot in order to talk about this. And yes, this is a weird angle from which to approach the movie, and yes, it will make sense later.

The movie begins with a summary of a series of murders from the distant past. The camera pulls out to reveal that we're actually watching an in-universe documentary intended to bring the audience up to speed on the plot. After all, there have already been reboots and sequels for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the movie needs to establish what this continuity is.

We learn that a group of young people are travelling across rural Texas, and they've just stopped at a gas station. They will shortly leave this gas station, and they will head to their ultimate destination: the ghost town Harlow where the titular massacre will occur.

So why am I hung up on this car?

There's a lot that's weird going on here, and as soon as I saw this car I had questions. What make of car is this? What model? It looks familiar, but not entirely familiar.

Frankly, that grill bothers me.

However, I've got a pretty good theory, and if you'll trust me for a moment, I promise to make this relevant to a discussion of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and horror as a whole. There might not be much in the way of a plot in this movie (again, I am confident arguing that the title functions as a plot synopsis here), but I can talk about this car for a while.

So let's assemble the evidence: what kind of car is Dante driving?

Exhibit A: Auto Presenting Door Handles

This is something of a new feature for cars. These door handles remain flush with the body of the car until the vehicle is unlocked, at which point they stick out far enough for someone to pull on the handle and open the car's door. They serve two primary functions:

1. Their flush design reduces drag, improving range and efficiency.
2. They are rad as hell.

Exhibit B: Autopilot

Okay, a driver-assist feature called "Autopilot." If you know anything about modern cars, that probably narrows down the options to basically one manufacturer. We get a nice, big close up on the screen, so it's like the movie wants us to know what car it is.

Wait, though. Because it gets weirder.

Exhibit C: The Steering Wheel

The camera never dwells on the steering wheel the way it does on the autopilot feature, but this is where things get weird. Autopilot? Auto-presenting door handles? Those are hallmark features of a Tesla. I'm not a Tesla geek, and I know that.

So is it that simple? Dante's driving a Tesla?

Well, like I said, things get weird here, because look at the shield-shaped badge on the steering wheel. To my knowledge, that's not a badge that Tesla has ever used on its vehicles. Instead, there's usually a T-shaped symbol since that is, you know, the logo of Tesla Inc.

Exhibit D: The Interior

The shots of the interior show a vertical touch screen with wood accents on the dash. That doesn't match any of the Tesla models currently available, as they all use screens that are wider than they are tall.

That said, this wasn't always the case.

Previously, the Model S and the Model X both used a screen with a vertical configuration, much like the interior we see in Dante's car in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Exhibit E: The Wheels

With five groups of two spokes, these wheels look like Tesla's Arachnid wheels, which it offers on the Model S, but not the Model X.

The Verdict

Based on all of the images we see of the car, the most likely answer seems to be that we are looking at an older version of the Model S with arachnid wheels, just with something covering the Tesla badge on the steering wheel and some weird grill added to the front of the vehicle. (If you look at the images of the car at the gas station, you'll see vertical bars on the front end of the car. To my knowledge, Tesla has never used that styling since Teslas do not need a grill as their electric engines function differently than internal combustion engines).

Why Should You Care?

Okay, consider Dante's position. He, along with his friends, have decided that they want to start a new life by bringing fresh blood to Harlow, Texas. Harlow is a ghost town, and while it's exactly location isn't specified, it appears to be in the middle of nowhere. At one point Lila says that this is seven hours by car from where her friends live, and the opening introduction says that the original murders happened miles from Austin, so... somewhere in south Texas?

The point is that Harlow is established to be abandoned and run-down. The first thing we learn about Dante is that he is struggling to find cell-service. And this is where he decided to move with an EV? I don't think Harlow is exactly on the supercharger network, Dante.

Besides, a Model S with those wheels currently sells for almost $100k in American funds. Dante is a cook who works out of a food truck, and he can afford a six-figure vehicle like this?

I mean, come on, Dante. At least go for the tempest wheels instead of the arachnid wheels. You might not like the way they look, but that will save you $4.5k and you get 30 miles further on a charge.

And what about that opening: why were they parked at a gas station anyways? Okay, maybe they needed to use the bathroom, but why park at the pumps? You do not pump gasoline into an EV, Dante, and there was plenty of space to park in front of the building.

Why did the filmmakers do this? Does any of it matter?

Films Are About Images

Okay, I guess I need to provide a bit more context again. At the gas pump scene, Dante's Tesla is contrasted against a red pick-up truck that spews black fumes into the air. There's talk of the protagonists being on a mission of gentrification. They are outsiders. They are city people. They're not from 'round here, and there's tension between them and the locals.

In that light, the Tesla is just a symbol. They are not truck people. They are people who put their cars on autopilot so they can check their phones.

And like all of the writing in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the symbol is clumsy, heavy-handed, and stupid.

The Script

Richter is from 'round here, so the film introduces him in this order: gas guzzling truck, big-ass open-carry gun, American-flag-and-camo baseball cap, cigarette.

Subtle, right?

But if you want the peak of subtlety, there's Lila's first conversation with Richter. Her opening words to him are:

So, Richter, why are you such a nihilist?

Because that's totally how humans open conversations with other humans who they just met.

This is a clumsy, stupid movie that uses blunt objects to make its point, a tactic that, coincidentally, Leatherface also employs until he finds his chainsaw. We see Richter's gun before his face, because the movie needs us to know this guy is a gun guy. How will the audience know what kind of town Harlow was unless we see a Confederate flag? The movie needs to deliver a bunch of exposition. Well, let's have the characters stop at a gas station so they can see a documentary playing on a TV despite the fact that they're driving an EV that definitely doesn't need gas.

This Movie is Bad

And yet, none of this is why I don't want to talk about Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don't want to talk about it because it is grotesque.

After seeing Richter and his gun, Lila scratches at her collarbone, which pulls back her shirt enough to show that she has a scar from a bullet wound. We learn that she is a survivor from a school shooting. That's some heavy stuff for a movie called Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I'm sure that a movie called Texas Chainsaw Massacre will handle that subject matter gracefully, right?

In a later sequence, the movie cuts between the violence inflicted by Leatherface and the aftermath of a school shooting. And... isn't this starting to feel gross to anyone?

This is a trashy movie. The movie's few positive reviews have said that it's intended for gorehounds, and they've mentioned that the director understands that people are only watching it for ultraviolence and buckets of blood.

People watch these movies because they enjoy watching the slaughter. And through juxtaposition, the movie is implying that the Leatherface killings are like school shootings. School shootings are notably a real-life phenomenon that are anything but enjoyable.

After deliberately establishing a parallel between school shootings and the events on the film, what does the director do with this?

The soon-to-be victims, who are metaphorically the victims of a school shooting, hold up their phones and start live-streaming.

One victim says:

Try anything and you're cancelled, bro.

Typical kids these days! Always trying to use cancel culture to stop mass-murderers.

In Conclusion

Texas Chainsaw Massacre sucks.

I like horror. I genuinely do. I even try to write it from time to time. But I can't find anything about Texas Chainsaw Massacre to recommend. This is a movie so stupid that it parked a Tesla in front of some gas pumps, so blunt that it introduces characters guns-first, and so arrogant that it tried to tie its absurd violence to real-world tragedies.

It is downright silly at times. In one baffling sequence, a character has an easy chance to kill one of their enemies but doesn't because that would end the movie. It's obvious that the screenwriters made that call because they couldn't figure out how to keep their movie going otherwise. By the time the credits roll, Texas Chainsaw Massacre has fully entered the territory of the absurd. The final sequence before those credits is so dumb as to be laughable when it's clearly supposed to be haunting.

And yet, this stupid, garbage movie thought that it would tackle school shootings? Don't worry. I'm sure that the solution it implicitly delivers is definitely convincing, thoughtful, and not-at-all idiotic.

Why does this movie exist? Because the Halloween reboot/sequel made money. Perhaps John Carpenter, one of the fathers of the modern slasher genre, explained it best when he said...

Let me explain the movie business to you: if you take a dollar sign and attach it to anything, there will be somebody who wants to do a sequel. It will live. If the dollar sign is not big enough, no matter what, it will not live.

I hope this movie loses Netflix so much money that we never see garbage like this again. There is good horror out there. Some of it even uses chainsaws! But this is not it.

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