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When pressured to make a sequel to his seminal masterpiece, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, director Tobe Hooper decided to embrace the comedy and lampoon the original. Caroline Williams stars as a late-night deejay who accidentally records one of Leatherface’s slaughters when two college joyriders call into her show one evening. She soon teams up with a renegade police detective played by Dennis Hopper, whose character seeks revenge on the Sawyer family (Leatherface and his two brothers) for killing his nephew in the previous film. Once the Sawyers hear Williams replaying the murders on the radio to drum up awareness, they show up at the station to make her their next victim. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 then spirals to Hell much the same way the first film does, with Hopper and Williams squaring off against the Sawyers in an abandoned Texas amusement park.
The sequel is nowhere as compelling or remarkable as the 1974 film, a true masterpiece of cinema if there ever was one. So I think Hooper made the right decision by taking a more broadly comedic approach to the material and just having some fun with it. If we have to have a Texas Chain Saw sequel, it may as well be this one, even if feels pedestrian by comparison. Judged on its own merit, the sequel suffers from leaving the Hopper/Williams relationship underdeveloped. These two characters, performed by two charismatic, more-than-competent actors, deserved more screen time together. I’m also not a fan of the anemic-sounding synth score for this movie — a bigger score could have really elevated things.
But TCM2 also does some things right. In addition to Williams’ and Hoppers’ commendable performances, Bill Moseley puts on a hell of a show as Leatherface’s brother Chop-Top. Moseley’s introduction in the film is a highlight, as he takes a lighter to the end of a clothes hanger and proceeds to scratch his scalp with it — eating the bits of flesh that gather at the hanger’s tip. Moseley succeeds in upstaging Leatherface (Bill Johnson) and ‘The Cook’ (returning Jim Siedow), which is no small fete. Another highlight is the wonderful Sawyer hangout in the tunnels under an old amusement park. The Sawyers have lined the tunnels with myriad lamps and chandeliers, creating a striking cinematic look for the third act.