TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022)
Is anyone else starting to see Netflix as some sort of modern manifestation of a Lovecraftian abomination, slouching through the annals of time, corrupting and tainting everything it touches like a cross between a reverse Midas and Jeffrey Epstein? Welp, witness another celestial molestation straight from the bowels of Rl'yeh.
In "Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)" we follow a group of social media influencers, which to give this movie some credit, is one of the quickest and most efficient ways I've ever seen a slasher movie make you hate its characters. They make their way to an abandoned Texan town called Harlowe where they plan to sell off the old properties to a bunch of cosmopolitan city types and create a small progressive utopia. Sort of like Galt's Gulch but with a lot more Starbucks and homeless people shit.
The group is led by Dante, the only black guy in the group and probably the most unlikable character in the whole film. Not because he's black of course, but because he's a massive raging dickhead. From the moment we meet him he's scoffing at locals and getting old ladies thrown out of their rightful property because they said something that offended him. I'm not kidding. When they speak to Ginny, an old lady who lives in a run-down orphanage, she claims that she still has the deed to the house and when she comes out and says that she has no problem with Dante because she's 'looked after many boys like himself' over the years, Dante throws a shitfit and gets the local rozzers to force her out of the house. The stress of the whole thing causes her to die in an ambulance and the big hulking dude who lives with her to go apeshit and kill the two police officers and Dante's fiancee who went along with them.
Meanwhile a busload of city-slickers and Twitter-tards show up for an auction of the properties within Harlowe and I'm currently in talks to trade my entire Kingdom for a fucking drone strike. Lila, the tomboy of the group strikes up a mild friendship with the MOST likeable character in the film, Richter, a local mechanic and open second amendment rights advocate. Lila is revealed to be the survivor of a school shooting, giving her a fear of guns most likely driving her gun control advocacy. It's actually an interesting character dynamic which the film never really takes advantage of, but even then it's yet more needless political commentary Netflix seems intent on inserting into their movies.
Upon hearing of Ginny's death via some text messages sent by Ruth, Dante's now late fiancee, Richter confiscates the keys to the orphanage and tells Dante he wont get them back until he proves he's got the deed to the place. Predictably it turns out he doesn't and they ultimately find the deed inside Ginny's house, prompting us all to play the 'womp womp womp' sound effect in the collective soundtrack of our minds.
Leatherface, being the embodiment of Southern Karma he is mutilates Dante and leaves him bleeding to death out in the rain. Unfortunately this also leads to the death of the best character Richter because this film hates me with every fibre of its being apparently. Leatherface then proceeds to board the party bus filled with oblivious social media influencers who, in the height of satire, start livestreaming their own gory deaths.
After this Sally Hardesty, the sole survivor of the first film and now grizzled Texas Ranger, shows up, allowing Lila and her sister Melody to get into her car. But instead of driving away Sally gives us a Nam speech, snatches up her shotgun and starts after Leatherface because revenge and shit. But when she catches up with old skin-face and has him dead to rights at the end of her gun barrel, instead of just giving him the Lenny from 'Of Mice and Men' treatment right then and there, she just talks to him and then lets him get up and walk away.
This prompts an altercation where Sally is eventually gutted with a chainsaw which didn't need to happen. Lila, now with the full opportunity to leave, is convinced to stay and hunt down Leatherface by a dying Sally, claiming that she will be forever haunted by him if she runs. Uh, thanks old dearie, but I'd rather be forever haunted than forever chainsawed.
Lila of course goes 'a huntin' for the sadistic hillbilly. Leatherface gets uppercutted with his own chainsaw by Melody leading both to believe that the nightmare is finally over.
OR IS IT?
No it's not, as the two roll away in some sort of self-driving car, Leatherface reappears and pulls Melody out of the vehicle. Lila sticks her head up through the sun-roof and watches her sister be decapitated as the car slowly and hilariously rolls away with Lila screaming like a banshee in a mockery of the original's ending.
First the good stuff. It's well shot, quite colourful and the performances and gore aren't bad. It doesn't try to mimic the style of the original except in the opening where a documentary about the original killings airs on a TV in a convenience store in bumfuck nowhere. For that they even get John Larroquette to voice the narrator just like in the original. It's actually a nice little touch and it's appreciated. The film even manages to insert a couple of interesting characters in there with Richter the gun-toting local mechanic and Lila the mousy tomboy school-shooting survivor. Whilst some might cringe at the needless insertion of such modern social issues into a slasher flick - and I did - both characters are treated with a bit of humanity and their interactions don't degenerate into a contrived shouting match despite their diametrically opposed worldviews, with Richter even being sympathetic towards Lila after finding out about her past. You can sort of tell this wasn't written by Americans is what I'm saying.
Unfortunately just about everyone else is completely insufferable and yeah, I know, slasher movies don't have real characters, they have special Olympics contenders of the type that try to eat the cool shiny candies inside the starting pistol but you can have characters be stupid without being annoying and most of these people are not only annoying, but not particularly good people either.
The film is surprisingly NON-woke at times with its obvious disdain towards social media influencers; but its commentary is, predictably, wielded the same way Leatherface wields his chainsaw. Wildly, unsubtly and with very little direction or goal. As a result when Leatherface boards the party bus and is immediately threatened with being cancelled, I cringe more than I laugh. I'm not even against Chainsaw movies having some comedy in them either. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is filled with ridiculous comedy and even the almost documentary style original had a few dark laughs thrown in. But this one has neither the black mirth of the original nor the absurdity of the second film.
Among the worst aspects is the addition of the Sally Hardesty character from the original film, played by Irish actress Olwen Fouere. It's not really that she does a bad job and more that her character is underwritten and completely irrational. They were obviously going for their own version of the recent Halloween movie's take on Laurie Strode's character, but without nearly the commitment to the character that those movies provided (also, quick review of 'Halloween Kills'; it fucking sucks, don't watch it). Her dialogue is almost entirely 'Back in Nam' thousand yard stare nonsense and when she eventually does get the chance to kill Leatherface, she doesn't do it, leading to her getting chainsawed to death. She's pretty much nothing as a character and could have been completely cut out. Had she had been cut out then this would've have only contributed to this film's one other positive aspect. The fact that it's short.
Seriously, it's only about seventy-three minutes long if you cut out the very stylized end credits. It makes me wonder if stuff was cut out due to a supposedly terrible test-audience feedback. But really, this film being about ten minutes shorter than what it already is honestly wouldn't be to its detriment. It kills off it's only truly likable character very early on and we're left with two waifish women with very little personality. Lila may have an intriguing backstory but she doesn't make for a very convincing hero. Even her arc surrounding her fear of guns doesn't even pan out into anything cool or interesting.
Overall Quality - 2/5
It's got some good gore effects, it's well shot and it's mercifully short but I don't think this really makes it worth it. It's not even one of those 'reimaginings' that insults the original so much that it raises my hackles. I was able to predict pretty much everything that happens in the film with relative accuracy as well. If you want to check out just for the Instagram massacre on the bus then go right ahead but outside of that it's not really worth anyone's time.
Idiot Rating - 2/5
Not even much in the clown department unfortunately. The bus massacre probably comes closest and there are a few properly clown-shoes moments sprinkled here and there. But 'Malignant' this most certainly ain't, hell it's not even Chainsaw 2. If you have Netflix and plenty of booze then check it out. If not, you're not missing so much.
BLACK CHRISTMAS (2019)
The original 'Black Christmas' from 1974 and directed by Bob Clark (the man who brought us one of my favourite comedies, 'Porky's'), is a classic of the proto-slasher genre and highly under-sung in mainstream horror discourse. It's an atmospheric seasonal horror with a sense of humour, creepy set-pieces, a terrifying killer and it leaves us with more questions than it does answers.
The remake from 2006 is a massive piece of shit. Devoid of almost anything that made the original great. But at least it was a remake. The latest 'Black Christmas' from 2019 makes you wonder why they even bothered to use the title in the first place. I mean, like I said before, the original film isn't exactly well-known amongst your general film-goer so it's not like they were going to make much out of the brand-recognition. But apart from anything else, it just bares no resemblance to the original whatsoever. The original was a genuinely creepy stalker movie with scenes and imagery that still linger in my mind years after seeing it for the first time. This film is a woke atrocity. Neither funny nor scary nor thrilling or entertaining in any sense of the words. It's an ideological screed written in the style of a twelve year old girl's diary.
Actually scratch that. That's an insult to twelve year old girls and I apologize. This film could only have been written by a bitter female post-graduate with sixteen cats and no positive father figure in their life. I'm saying the script for this film reeks of cat piss. It's drenched with the stuff.
This shit sucks so bad Wikipedia wont even detail the plot on its page, which I can only assume is it's way of protecting it. Which is strange since even the critics didn't seem to find any reason to big-up this bullshit. So fuck it, I'm going straight from memory, let's see how we do.
The film opens with some blond girl walking home and getting some creepy texts from some Chad named Calvin with a Greek looking statue in his profile pic. The girl almost assaults a random person because of this. Luckily a good Samaritan in a black hood and cloak intervenes and saves the day by stabbing her to death with an... icicle? I guess he forgot to take a knife with him to the murder he was going to commit. Oh well, no big deal, it happens to everyone on their first time.
We cut to Riley whose roommate asks her for a spare menstrual cup, which she then proceeds to insert in front of her in an entirely needless and awkward scene. Get used to this because it sets the tone for the entire movie. This film is not meant to be enjoyed, it's meant to make you feel like a bad person for feeling uncomfortable.
Riley was allegedly date-raped by a jock in one of the fraternities. We're never given any real evidence of this other than the fact that almost every male character in the film is cartoonishly evil, beginning with the Jordan Peterson-esque Professor Gelson (played by Cary Elwes). This man spends so much time dropping truth bombs on his class that Riley's friend Kris (or as I like to call her, puffy-haired woke black girl #34567) is passing around a petition to get him fired. She also managed to get a bust of the university's founder Calvin Hawthorne removed from campus because he owned slaves or some shit and he was wacist and sexamalist.
The girls end up performing at a talent show for the fraternity where Riley spots the frat boys engaging in some freemason-esque ritual nonsense involving the bust of Calvin Hawthorne which has black goo leaking out of its eyes. At the talent show the girls sing a song containing a thinly veiled rape accusation and one of the only good male characters, Landon, tells Riley that it was cool. I hope she notices, bro.
Riley's friend Franny then gets murdered in an *ahem* "homage" to the excellent jump scare in Exorcist 3. Of course this movie doesn't do it anywhere near as well and only makes me wish I was watching Exorcist 3. Which you should watch. Because Exorcist 3 is good.
RIley's other friend Helena has also disappeared and when she tries to get a security guard to investigate she pretty much gets dismissed with a 'boys will be boys'. A reference to the feminist myth that the phrase is used to justify genuinely shitty behaviour like rape and other 'toxic masculine' behaviour. Unlike the original this film has absolutely no sense of subtlety whatsoever.
As threats continue Riley realizes that a video of the talent show performance was uploaded to the internet and at the end Kris can be heard flat out accusing Riley's rapist, which is potentially defamatory. The girls end up in an argument over Kris's activism and then Nate, one of the girls' boyfriend - who up until this point has been tolerating all this nonsense like an absolute trooper - wades in and starts bombarding everyone with truth nukes. Naturally Nate gets kicked out of the house which is what happens when you argue with a woman and win.
Blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bollocks - eventually it turns out that Professor Gelson has been using some kind of black ooze that comes out of the bust of Calvin Hawthorne to turn new fraternity pledges into killers who then go around taking out insolent or non-compliant girls. He also claims that these men will fill boardrooms and courts, etc in order to take power back from women. It also turns out that Helena, Riley's friend who disappeared, has been helping them the whole time. Then they kill her... for no apparent reason.
A bunch of sorority sisters led by Kris armed with a bow and arrow - because we needed that cliché as well - bust in and somehow manage to beat up a group of dudes most likely with sports scholarships because female power. Riley then destroys the bust of Calvin Hawthorne, breaking the spell over the pledges. They then proceed to set fire to the room and lock a bunch of fraternity boys inside, no doubt killing every single one of them, including the ones that had been brainwashed.
This... was a train wreck.
Whereas the original dealt with abortion as a theme in a fairly subtle and grave fashion, this new Black Christmas (which by the way, doesn't need to be set at Christmas at all) takes on the theme of campus rape culture - an entirely made up and ideologically driven concept - and drives it straight into your face with the subtlety of a sledgehammer covered in period blood. Almost every male character in the film aside from a select one or two is portrayed as evil and irredeemable, with even the brainwashed pledges in the film being given a horrific and fiery death.
The characters are horrendous caricatures, with Kris taking the top as the most reprehensible. She's a thoughtless, surface level activist who responds to criticisms by trying to get you fired or shouting you down. In other words, she's a social justice warrior, what else is new? Now one could argue that she's there as a criticism of this kind of mindset, but that simply isn't the case since she's completely validated in the end, with Riley even stating outright that she was correct during the final fight scene.
Putting aside the ideological nonsense (which to be fair is around 80% of what the film is if I were to be generous), the film is just not good. The bad guys are obviously evil from the very start. The Professor Gelson character is the sort of guy you'd expect to be used as a red herring, especially given how clearly villainous he is. But there's no twist, the bad guys are exactly who you expect them to be, so realistically there's no mystery here.
Wait, I take that back a little bit; the true mystery is why there was even any black ooze inside the bust of Calvin Hawthorne to begin with. What the hell was it? Is it something Hawthorne made? Is it supernatural? It's one of the dumbest plot devices I've ever seen used in a slasher movie and that's fucking saying something.
Sophia Takal, the director of this film has gone on record stating that she didn't want to make an 'anti-male' film. If that was truly her intention, she failed. The film is entirely anti-male. I always say; if these people tell you who they are then you should listen. Black Christmas (2019) is these people telling you who they are. Bigots with a worldview based on utter fantasy and who parasitize other more well known intellectual properties to push their shallow agendas. They even go so far as to rip off (oh, sorry.... "homage") other horror films, like the aforementioned jumpscare scene from Exorcist 3 which probably pissed me off more than the woke shit if I'm being honest.
Overall Quality - 1/5
Irredeemable movie. Even gore fans wont be satisfied as the film contains no gore. Trickles of blood are few and far between. Here's the thing; if you're a feminist and you genuinely believe some of the shit that this movie is espousing, this film isn't going to convert hearts and minds. This film is basically like Kris in the movie. It's obnoxious, terminally stupid without realizing that it is and whose every action is designed to provoke. If you want the feminist film that's going to explore the struggles of women in an effective manner, look elsewhere. For everyone else, there's nothing to recommend.
Idiot Rating - 2/5
I'll admit, it was hilarious to watch with a friend, but that was entirely down to the insufferable wokeness. I can spot this nonsense from a mile away and I was usually able to predict everything they'd say. Maybe good for drinking games. Outside of that there's little to recommend even in terms of its own idiocy. Avoid at all costs.
I'm DeadEye and I hope you all rot in Hell.
