Over ten years after making the original
Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
Tobe Hooper returns to his deranged family of reclusive cannibals for another round of chainsaw chases and non-stop screaming. Hooper brings a real budget this time (having recently directed
Poltergeist for
Steven Spielberg) and the talents of veteran make-up artist
Tom Savini. This means he can make things bigger, louder, and gorier than ever before -- and they are. He also brings a wacky, self-deprecating sense of humor, as if deliberately flaunting
Texas Chainsaw Massacre's status as one of the first and still greatest "splatter" movies. The result is an impish take-off on the original film (and contemporary horror movies in general) that elevates its own clichés -- buckets of blood and gore, droll dialogue, the screaming female lead -- to the level of high camp. The movie is loosely concerned with a small-town disc jockey named "Stretch" (Caroline Williams, who does most of the screaming) and an embittered Texas Ranger named "Lefty" (
Dennis Hopper). They team up and decide to put an end to the murderous activities of the Sawyer family once and for all (that is, of course, until Texas Chainsaw Massacre III). The real highlight of the film is when Stretch and Lefty find their way into the Sawyer family hideout -- a ruinous, winding abattoir underneath an abandoned amusement park -- and engage in a chainsaw-battle-to-the-death with Leatherface (Bill Johnson) and the rest of the clan. Jim Siedow is back from the first film as the acerbic Drayton Sawyer, the family cook and owner of the Last Roundup Rolling Grill. Chop-Top (Bill Moseley) and Leatherface do most of the movie's dirty work. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide