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Soon, the buzz will be back… from the people who gave you The Witch and Hereditary? Yes, believe it or not, A24 is currently in talks to create a television series based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Glen Powell is currently set to executive produce, as is Kim Henkel, who co-created the series with the late Tobe Hooper. J.T. Mollner, who made last year’s satisfying Stephen King adaption The Long Walk, will direct.
At first glance, that collaboration seems unlikely, and not because of Powell. The name A24 is synonymous with “elevated” horror, scary movies with high ideas and ambitions beyond grossing out viewers. With its garish name and (completely made-up) true crime pretensions, 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an exemplar of the sort of nasty, low-brow stuff that elevated horror was supposed to replace. However, the Texas Chainsaw series has always had a self-aware, dare we say even intellectual streak, behind all of its blood and guts.
Nowhere is the franchise’s self-awareness more apparent than in the second entry, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 from 1986. Partly out of spite for being forced to return to his most famous movie, partly out of frustration that no one saw how funny the first movie was, and partly because he had a huge budget (at least by the standards of the Cannon Group), Hooper made his sequel into an over the top comedy.
The film barely cares about continuity from the first entry, swapping out the hitchhiker from the first movie (Edwin Neal) with Bill Moseley as Chop Top. Instead, it goes for over-the-top sequences, culminating with Dennis Hopper as a vengeful sheriff who bellows a sermon while wielding multiple saws. And just in case anyone didn’t get the joke, the film’s poster pays homage to The Breakfast Club, with Leatherface and Cook standing in for Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson.
However, Texas Chainsaw 2 isn’t the only entry with a brain in its about-to-be-bashed-in head. The first film operates as a dark mirror on America’s involvement in Vietnam, when the country essentially ground up its young people in the same way the Sawyers turned teens into BBQ. Later entries continued to find allegories in the ultra violence, as in the school shooting themes running through 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Even Powell’s involvement makes a bit of sense. Not only is the handsome star a Texas native, but he’s following in the footsteps of fellow A-listers from the Lone Star State, as Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger both appeared in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995).
For its part, A24 has never shied away from grizzly images and plots. The head trauma in Hereditary, Midsommar, Talk to Me, and Bring Her Back alone is as bad as anything in a TCM movie, and that’s just the work of two filmmakers.
Most importantly, both Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A24 have changed the face of horror for the better. Together, they may be able to make something special; something gross, weird, and smarter than you’d think, but also special.
The post An A24/Texas Chainsaw Massacre Pairing Actually Makes a Lot of Sense appeared first on Den of Geek.
