Warning! SPOILERS for Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Netflix’s 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel missed the mark in a whole host of ways, but it was its complete ignorance of the iconic “family” of cannibals that saw it desecrate the original film’s legacy. The film completely focused on Leatherface (Mark Burnham), the skin-wearing, chainsaw-wielding killer from the original film. However, it completely ignores the Old Man, Hitchhiker, and Grandpa characters who were arguably even scarier than Leatherface himself, as they pretended to be upstanding citizens before tormenting Sally Hardesty.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a gritty, documentary-style horror film that became an immediate cult classic upon its 1974 release. However, it was unlike the slashers that would follow in its footsteps like Friday the 13th, and by contrast it featured very little blood. Though its cast of teenagers was killed by Leatherface, there was an entire family of cannibals who threatened the group. This included a shopkeeper merely known as the Old Man, as well as a hitchhiker and their “Grandpa“, who Sally initially thought was a corpse. The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre made no reference to the family and made it seem like the events of the original film were purely Leatherface’s doing.
Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s bizarre decision to make the entire film about Leatherface harmed the original film’s legacy by making it seem like the family was less important. This could not have been further from the truth, as many viewers back in 1974 found the more “normal” characters to be even more horrifying than the more blatant Leatherface, as nobody suspected them to be cannibals working with the masked killer. When it was revealed that they were all hunting Sally, and they tortured her at the dinner table, it made for one of the most disturbing scenes in horror history. It was thus baffling that Netflix decided to focus purely on Leatherface.
This decision may have stemmed from the popularity of Halloween (2018). That film featured the original protagonist, Laurie Strode, hunting down Michael Myers, another masked killer. Netflix may have wanted to recreate that film’s success with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, positioning Leatherface as Sally’s ultimate nemesis and solely focussing on him as the franchise’s horror icon. If true, the original family of cannibals would have simply been in the way, explaining the lack of explanation for their role in the events of the first movie.
Positioning Leatherface to be more like Michael Myers also made his role within the family less consistent, however. Though the new film did see him demonstrate more childish attributes, he was nevertheless a brutal killer with a complete agency, and he was quite a competent murderer. By contrast, the first film depicted him as subservient to the rest of the family, as he cowered when threatened by the old man or hitchhiker. The lack of mention of the family in Texas Chainsaw Massacre thus diminished Leatherface’s character, as well as the legacy of the first film.
