Plot: A young woman learns that she has inherited a Texas estate from her deceased grandmother. After embarking on a road trip with friends to uncover her roots, she finds she is the sole owner of a lavish, isolated Victorian mansion. But her newfound wealth comes at a price as she stumbles upon a horror that awaits her in the mansion’s dank cellars.
Direction: There's no way to make most people happy here, so director John Luessenhop comes in, does his job, and gets out of the way of this direct sequel to the original. It probably did his career no favors, as he only has one credit since, writing 2018's Speed Kills, a John Travolta film about speedboat racing that Power & Motoryacht Magazine said was only for "masochists." Interestingly enough, that's what Chainsaw & Massacre Magazine said about this movie!
Screenplay: Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan, and Kirsten Elms write a slasher that has backwoods creeps, idiot teenagers, premarital coitus, and the line, "Welcome to Texas, motherfucker!" What more can you ask for from the 7th TCM movie? That's enough for me, but I'm not a diehard.
Performances: Trey Songz is in this movie! Anyway, Scott Eastwood is a schmuck, Bill Moseley makes an appearance, and Dan Yeager finds a fun physicality in his 6'6" Leatherface. Alexandra Daddario is our final girl and no one complains about watching her for 90 minutes, even if she's dressed like that. (Nothing in this movie has aged worse in the past ten years than the clothes.)
Best moment: Because the film was released in 3D, there are plenty of silly gags. The best, however, is when Leatherface is running through the carnival (that was fun - Leatherface in public!) and he just throws his chainsaw at a cop's head - and right in your face.
Fun fact: According to a Collider interview, Alexandria Daddario wanted to cut the line, "Do your thing, cuz" 'cause she thought it was silly.
Another fun fact: Literally anyone would've wanted to cut that line.
Imaginary accolade: Best Wilford Brimley Lookalike goes to...Richard Riehle!
Everything is too long. Is it too long? Nope! 92 minutes is how long movies should be.
Rating: I was not fair to this the first time around, giving it one-and-a-half stars and calling it "kinda bland compared to the others." Since then, I've watched more Texas Chainsaw entries and realized that it's 1 - The original 2 - anything else, who cares? I've since doubled my original star rating.
Credit: Plot synopsis from Letterboxd via TMDb.