To date, there have been nine Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, and I don’t think it’s an unpopular opinion to state that the first classic movie by Tobe Hooper has never been equalled. Sure, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a blast, and the 2003 remake was fairly decent as far as these things go, but the original is rightly considered an unassailable classic. Yet, there’s a lot of excitement brewing around A24’s upcoming instalment, which last week just signed a new director in Obsession’s Curry Barker. That film was a $15 million acquisition at TIFF last year, and the reviews in advance of its May 15th release date have been ecstatic (including ours).
As such, Barker is promising his new take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre will be brutal, but also have heart. While recently talking to Total Film at a Q&A for Obsession, Barker opened up about his new take, saying, “I’m really excited to do a Texas Chainsaw Massacre that’s not just about a guy chasing some people around with a chainsaw. [One] that has some heart to it, you know? Where you care about these characters, and you want to see them survive, but you know… it is still brutal.”
As for the other remakes out there, while praising the 2003 version, which he said is “quite good,” he had reservations about most of them. “I really think that the potential for that series has not been fully realized. I actually feel like a lot of the remakes went the complete opposite direction than they should have gone.”
The most recent entry into the series, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (which is now called Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022among fans), was released direct to Netflix and was disliked by many fans (check out our own Mike Holtz’s deep dive HERE). Hopefully the A24 version will be a major improvement and actually do justice to Hooper’s original, which remains one of the most chilling horror films ever made.
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