The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
Does The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 live up to the greatness of the original? No, but it’s not the worst in the series. We get a bit more kills and a bit more gore, but we get a lot more black humor. Maybe a bit too much. But a fun ride with Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, and Bill Moseley.
Released: Aug 22, 1986
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Director: Tobe Hooper
Writer: Tobe Hooper, L.M. Kit Carson
Actors: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow
MY THOUGHTS
I wouldn't wish this rotten life off on a one-eyed ferret with mange.--Drayton
With The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 director Tobe Hooper ups the gore and increases the amount of kills from the first movie. Though half of the kills are the Sawyer family members and half of the kills are from the grenade going off. Not bloody or gory. Poor L.G. gets the worst death. He’s repeatedly beaten with a hammer. Thinking he’s dead, his face is skinned and several parts are taken. Only to find out later he’s still alive and probably died from blood loss and shock. Also, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is also one of the few movies where all the people who died were men.
Well, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 still is creepy but has a lot more comedic moments. Most of the actors seem to over act to the point it’s kind of silly. Dennis Hopper plays Lieutenant Lefty Enright, Sally and Franklin’s Uncle. At first he seems like a serious guy investigating. When he gets to the Sawyer's hideout, he is kind of unhinged. Quoting the bible and singing hymns. He seems to have lost it.
Caroline Williams plays Stretch, a radio DJ that inadvertently records the death of two annoying teenagers. She definitely screams A LOT in this movie. She also has some sort of relationship with the non speaking Leatherface that is kind of weird. Culminating in a strange chainsaw dance, mimicking Leatherface at the end of the original movie, Stretch has at the end.
Stretch appears, uncredited, in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III as a TV reporter. She also appears in Hatchet 3 as Amanda Palmer. Rumored that Hatchet 3 director BJ McDonnell told Caroline Williams, 'She's Stretch. That's what we're doing here.'
Caroline Williams will play a character named Stretch in Sharknado 4. Not a direct character from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, but some believe it’s an alternate timeline Stretch where she cashes in on what happened to her.
And then we have Bill Moseley as Chop-Top. Yes, he plays him over the top just like in House of a 1000 Corpses. Chop-Top is the twin brother of Nubbins (the hitchhiker in the original movie). The skeleton that he dances around with and carries around is supposedly Nubbin's body. Though he was hit by a semi in the last movie, so I don’t know how he has a complete body but whatever.
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is about Stretch, a local DJ who overhears on the phone two guys getting killed by a chainsaw. Others just think it’s a joke or don’t know what it is. She finally gets the attention of Lefty, a cop who is investigating chainsaw killings after Sally survived. He wants Stretch to run it on the radio even though she would get into trouble. She still does it, attracting the attention of the Sawyer family who decide to pay her a visit. Stretch and Lefty get in over their heads but must try to stop the Sawyers before they kill more people.
Overall, not as dark and gritty as the original movie. They did up the gore but they all upped the humor which doesn’t work as much for me. Go watch it and judge for yourself if it’s as good as the other movies. For me, too much humor, which causes it to be lower on my rankings but it’s not the worst in the franchise.
Did you know…:
In the posters and video covers, they use the same positioning as the promotional group shot for the movie The Breakfast Club (1985).
Caroline Williams wanted to make a strong impression at her audition. When she was called in, she went to the end of the hallway and ran screaming into the room, where she pulled Tobe Hooper and L.M. Kit Carson out of their seats and used the chairs to barricade the door before she began her scene.
Bill Moseley created a short film parody entitled "The Texas Chainsaw Manicure" where he played a small role as The Hitchhiker and showed it to a screenwriter, who was able to show it to Tobe Hooper. Hooper loved it and kept Moseley in mind for a part should he ever make a sequel. When the time came to cast "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2", Moseley was contacted for the role of Chop-Top, The Hitchhiker's twin brother.
Primus sampled Chop-Top's line "Dog will hunt!" for their song 'Jerry Was a Race Car Driver'.
Lefty finds the skeleton of Franklin sitting in his wheelchair from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Jim Siedow (the cook) is the only actor in this movie who was in the original movie. Lou Perryman (L.G.) worked on the original film as a crewmember, but did not act in it.
A fire erupted one night in the downtown Austin building where much of the movie took place. When firemen arrived, they found bodies and thought they'd stumbled upon the lair of a psychopathic murderer.
In the Sawyer clan's lair, there hangs a skeleton from the ceiling, riding a bomb and waving a cowboy hat over its head. This is an homage to the end scene in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" from 1964.
Tobe Hooper does a cameo during a party scene.
Have you seen the other The Texas Chain Saw Massacre movies? Check out my other reviews here: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Franchise.
Let’s get into the rankings:
Kills/Blood/Gore: 4/5
Sex/Nudity: 0/5
Scare factor: 3/5
Enjoyment factor: 4/5
My Rank: 2.75/5
IMDB: 5.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes: critics: 4.7/10 audience: 4.4/10
Letterboxd: 3.3/5