Director: Tobe Hooper
Starring: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow
My Rating: Loved It!!
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 might as well be the original Scary Movie. It's a complete and utter spoof of everything that the first movie was; which is at once perplexing and highly unique to me. It's perplexing obviously because the first one is one of the most highly regarded horror films of all time, and it's just a strange choice to openly mock it in its very own sequel. But it's so unique because what other sequel in the history of cinema has ever done this? TCM2 is the polar opposite of everything the original movie is. The original is a tautly made, horrifying portrayal of a serial killer and his family hunting down a group of teenagers, with an absolutely airtight script. TCM2, on the other hand, is a downright goofy parody that throws any kind of logic right out the window. The craziest thing about it is: it may be a crazy, off kilter freak show of a movie, but what it's trying to do, it does exceptionally well. The Scary Movie series has nothing on this; not that they're spoof masterpieces or anything, but I do quite like the first two.
Instead of bringing a lot of guns and police back-up to the Sawyers' (leatherface's family's last name) underground circus lair, the cop, played by Dennis Hopper, rolls in solo, armed with three chainsaws. Also, Leatherface discovers that he has a thing for Stretch (the main girl), and he proceeds to make humping motions with his chain saw in the place of his penis. Yeah, I'm not making this stuff up. There are several hilarious moments, maybe one or two genuinely frightening moments, and loads of 'what the fuck?!' moments in this movie.
For what it is, I think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a highly entertaining, weird, psychopathic, blacker than night spoof-horror-comedy that a lot of people just didn't quite understand when it came out, and rightfully so. It's truly a conundrum why Tobe Hooper and everyone involved decided to openly mock the first one, but I think it makes for one of the most interesting one-two, original-sequel punches in the history of cinema.