Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
The Next Generation (1994)
AKA: Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994)
(Release Date: October 7, 1994)

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J.C. Maçek III The World's Greatest Critic! I have been unrelentingly vicious in my comments about 2003's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film that not only lends more credence to the fiction of one movie-cum-urban legend, but also sucked like an unsalted chest wound. However, 2003 wasn't the first time Tobe Hooper's most famous film had been remade. No, thinly veiled as a sequel, yet another piece of bird shit on the windshield of cinema noisily passed its way into theatres back in 1994. Looking at the title Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, I still can't believe it didn't star LeVar R.M. Burton, Jr. in some capacity. Instead, equally unbelievably, this thing managed to cast two then up and coming actors whom I'm sure would give real money to have this expunged from their records like a drunk driving incident. We're talking Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger here. Naturally after they got big, the re-releases of this un-frightening fright flick publicized their presences like a papal appearance at a local Sunday School. Matthew McConaughey! Man, I swear if I ever meet that guy I'm gonna kick his dick for this movie. The only thing more insulting than his lame, one note performance was the presence of Kim Henkel as writer, producer and director of this clone of cow pies. The opening crawl pays lip-service to the other movies in this (ha ha ha) "saga" before old Kimmy-boy summarily takes the exact script he crafted with Tobe Hooper, changes the names, changes tiny pieces of the dialogue and then lets her rip like a Larry the Cable Gay monologue (with even less subtlety). Take a gander, here, Tex: A group of four teenagers end up on a bit of a joy ride when they come across a strange wanderer on the side of a rural Texas road, begin to look for help, then come across a now-stereotypical family of inbred cannibalistic hicks, one of whom is a cross-dressing, retarded lumbering oaf, wearing a pleather mask to cover his deformed face. They are then hung on meat hooks, put into freezer boxes and chased through the woods, until all but one of them is deader than an astronaut with a pierced suit. Naturally every person they go to for help is in on the whole sadistic mess, and leads them right back to the dinner table. Yep, it's pretty much the exact original here, only without the innovations, interesting new items or scares. You can practically see Robby Zombie taking notes on each scene thinking "I'm gonna make my movie just like this one!". Man, I'd like to get everyone involved in this film as well as House of 1000 Corpses into a room, rush it with cops and yell "Officers, arrest those men!" The most insulting carpet stain here is how Henkel, without even a trace of logic or continuity, attempts to explain the machinations of "The Family" as part of an extra-governmental X-Files-like conspiracy, which culminates in an ending that proves that the makers of this movie think the audience is stupider than old naugahyde-face himself... and almost as mean spirited. Cigarette Smoking Man has better taste, honies! Look, if you've seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's a safe bet you know what Marilyn Burns looks like, and by her "cameo" at the end of this, you won't care. If you haven't, you really won't care. The minimal charm this movie holds (and I had to really dig deeeeeeeeep to think of any) can be found in the character and the blouse of Tonie Perensky's Darla. Her self-deluded and oblivious portrayal occasionally encroaches on the continent of funny, but never quite makes dock. Renée Zellweger is also decent here with what she's given, but with a script that feels a lot like it had been run through a cuisinart before being pasted with type-distorting glue back together and forced upon her with her parents and hamster at gunpoint, that's not a whole lot. It's frustrating to note that with all the talk of what a great body she has, we never get to see it. One Mardi-Gras style boobie flash from Darla is the extent of our skin sights. To deal with the rest of this we deserved some nudity! The rest of the cast, especially little Matty sucks like a liposuction machine powered by a pulsar. From Matt's own version of Sandler's "Excited Southerner" character, most visible as he cuts up other people and himself, to the terrible addition of Joe Stevens' relentlessly quoting W.E., to... well, let's talk about Leatherface here. What made Leatherface scary in the original was that this was a simple-minded, yet very strong, killer from a family of killers was so devoid of morality that he wasn't even quite "evil". His silent and growling menace was only broken by the scream of his chainsaw. Robert Jacks' performance reduces the monster to a high-pitched screaming and anything-but-scary caricature, who actually uses his chainsaw... only on wood. Seriously, he's like Howie fucking Mandel in one of his less coherent moments from "Howie from Maui" with his ridiculous high-pitched piggy-squealing! It's never even vaguely scary, but it's incredibly annoying, Kemosabes! Why Henkel and company thought that having Pleatherface scream like a hungry and horny Chimpanzee would be scary might be one of those "eternal questions" if anybody gave a fuck. No one does. Lastly, the final glimpse we get of our "zombified Divine" is enough to make Gunnar Hansen roll over in his grave... and to date, Gunnar Hansen is still alive! A word to the anti-wise: When you work your asses off to make something both scary and funny, 90% of the time you end up with a project that is neither. It takes a real master to pull that off, and no masters were involved in Texas Clusterfuck Massacre: The Next Masturbation. This thing is to horror films what white Leisure Suits with red scarves are to Giorgio Armani. Between fizzled plot points, unoriginality and the only thing being added making as much sense as the "Wanna Fanta" song being released as a single, (The Return of the) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation gets a Dog! It's not even one of those "bad movies we love", it's so damned bad, it's not even fun. Beam me up, Mr. Argysle, there's no intelligent life in this movie. So, until we find out in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Origin that they're still trying to convince you that this "really happened" in a town called "Otisburg" in which Ned Fucking Beatty is the mayor... I'll see you in the next unsharpened reel. How many Naugas had to die for that get up, man?