The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Movie Review)

The third iteration of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise attempted to give it's lead slasher a standalone film in the same vain as Freddy, Jason and Michael. When that ideas success fell through, it seemed that approaching the other popular slasher trope of the 90's was its best bet. Explaining the origins of a killer or what drives them to kill was the cap to the major franchises during the mid to late 90's and in 1994 Leatherface was given the same treatment. Original writer of the first film, Kim Henkel, returns for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation as not just the writer, but the director as well. If TCM2 was Tobe Hooper's expansion on the Sawyer clans dirty deeds, then TCMNG is Henkel's final word on the chainsaw mythos. Due to this film being Henkel's one and only directing attempt, the quality is much lower compared to the rest of the films, including the low budget original. There was room to run with the low budget, horribly acted, and head scratching plot, however TCMNG attempts to play it all too straight and ultimately creates a bore.

Jenny (Renée Zellweger) is heading to her school prom despite her lack of interest for anything overly social. Her date Sean (John Harrison) holds the same feelings and the couple decide to waste the night away in the back of Heather's (Lisa Newmyer) car getting high. When Heather and her date Barry (Tyler Cone) decide to move their argument from the dance to the car, they speed off and realize that they have two others in tow. As the four drive home, they turn down the wrong road and their night changes for the worse. Vilmer (Matthew McConaughey) comes across the kids and forces them to meet the rest of his clan, including Leatherface (Robert Jacks) and Darla (Tonie Perenski). As the body count starts to rise, the truth behind the chainsaw clans need to kill reaches conspiracy theory levels. 

This film is straight up bonkers. The plot delves into the government driven conspiracy realm; a place that never seemed possible for a story revolving around cannibalistic country bumpkins. Much like the Thorn cult in the Halloween franchise, the explanation here takes the characters to new heights that live and die in the set up of said explanation. What Halloween does successfully is filter extreme characters and acting around the crazy plot to make it all flow like a waterslide. Next Generation holds the elements of crazy but never utilizes them correctly. The perfomances, for example, never reach the ludicrous heights that they should except for McConaughey's Vilmer and Jack's Leatherface. The rest of the cast is bland and downright bad, but riding the line that makes the experience boring rather than laugh out loud. Vilmer and Leatherface are characters that match the hysteria of a men in black plot and are a joy when on screen. 

Low budget is typically something to be praised in horror due to director's finding creative ways to craft a smart and entertaining film out of nothing. However, Henkel has several mind numbing directing choices that make the low budget appear to be a negative. When the teens first enter the forest they complain of how dark it is, however the film has several floodlights on to light the scene which makes the entire search for flashlights and dialogue about how dark it is feel completley ridiculous. While these moments can give a good laugh or be a great choice for a crowd to watch together and riff on, the overall package stretches itself out with bad decisions and zero fun. There could have been a great "bad movie" with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, but Henkel's mixture of crazy plot and lackluster performances makes it slip into obscurity.