A little more than a year ago, it was announced that Fede Alvarez was set to produce a new film in the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise. At that point, directors were announced and everything seemed to be going well, albeit the entire production was shrouded in mystery. Was it going to be a reboot? A remake? Or perhaps just another sequel? Well, since that time, the previous filmmakers left the project right after production began and a new filmmaker was hired, but the film finished production last year. And in a new discussion with Bloody Disgusting, Alvarez answers some questions about the new ‘Chainsaw’ and how it might pay homage to the original. (Spoiler alert—it’s definitely going to be tied to the original, in more ways than one.)
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“It is a direct sequel, and it is the same character. It is old man Leatherface,” revealed Alvarez. “Everything is classic, old school gags. A lot of the approach that we had with ‘Evil Dead’ – never VFX, to do everything on camera. It’s a very old school approach to filmmaking. Vintage lenses… it’s very similar to the original film.”
Not a whole lot is really known about the upcoming “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” sequel. Well, outside of the fact that we now know it’s a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic. And we know the film is directed by David Blue Garcia (who joined the film mid-production after the previous filmmakers departed), based on a script by Chris Thomas Devlin. The film stars Elsie Fisher, Sarah Yarkin, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Olwen Fouéré, Alice Krige, Jacob Latimore, Nell Hudson, Jessica Allain, Sam Douglas, William Hope, and Jolyon Coy.
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Obviously, if you’re a fan of horror films, or just films in general over the past several years, the idea of making brand-new “direct sequels” to classic films is nothing new, especially in franchises with a bunch of forgettable installments. 2018’s “Halloween” did a similar thing and broke records. “Terminator: Dark Fate” did it in 2019, with not-so-great results. And interestingly enough, 2013’s “Texas Chainsaw 3D” attempted the same thing with a soft reboot. However, that film never had the box office success to relaunch the franchise in a meaningful way.
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Now, it’s unclear when this new “Texas Chainsaw” film will be set. The original feature is now approaching 50 years old, meaning if it was set in the present day, Leatherface would be roughly the age of his grandpa in the first film. As interesting as that might be for a story, we don’t need to see geriatric Leatherface slowly hobbling behind teens, right?
At this point, we’ll just have to trust that Fede Alvarez knows what he’s doing, and honestly, he hasn’t really let us down yet, when it comes to horror films.
