The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
★★½ — The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Tobe Hooper returned to the franchise that made his name a full twelve years after the original 1974 film, this time under the banner of Cannon Films (the Golan-Globus operation then at the height of its gloriously trashy output). Where the first picture was shot on a shoestring and played things with horrifying sincerity, Hooper came back with a reported $4.5 million and a deliberately comedic sensibility, leaning hard into Grand Guignol excess rather than replication. The film arrived at a curious moment for Hooper, sandwiched between his big-budget studio work on Poltergeist (1982) and Invaders from Mars (1986), and represents something of a conscious provocation against the po-faced slasher cycle that the original had inadvertently helped to spawn.
As mad as a box of wasps. If The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was raw, nerve-shredding terror, its sequel is… well, something else entirely. Gone is the oppressive, documentary-style horror of the original and in its place, we get a chaotic, cartoonishly violent horror-comedy that dials everything up to eleven. To be fair, there’s some charm in the sheer madness of it all. Dennis Hopper dual-wielding chainsaws like some sort of deranged vigilante is certainly a sight to behold, and Bill Moseley’s performance as Chop-Top is pure unhinged brilliance. But the shift in tone is jarring and incongruent where the first film was nightmare fuel, this one feels like a fever dream after watching too much Looney Tunes. There’s fun to be had, but it’s a long way from the grim icon that came before it. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a strange beast. One that you either embrace for its over-the-top weirdness or reject for completely missing the terrifying simplicity of the original. I fall somewhere in the middle.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1986 | Watched: 2005-02-02
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Tobe Hooper: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
More with Dennis Hopper: Land of the Dead (2005) · True Romance (1993)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
