TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE Sequels, Prequels, Remakes, and Reboots! (aka ALL THE BUZZ)

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986) d. Tobe Hooper (USA)
LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III (1990) d. Jeff Burr (USA)
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION (1995) d. Kim Henkel (USA)
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003) d. Marcus Nispel (USA)
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING (2006) d. Jonathan Liebesman (USA)
TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D (2013) d. John Lussenhop (USA)
LEATHERFACE (2017) d. Alexandre Bustillo/Julien Maury (USA)
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022) d. David Blue Garcia (USA)

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This week, we're firing up our collective McCullochs and taking a trip through one of the most bizarre and tangled family trees in horror history: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise. As fans know, Tobe Hooper’s classic 1974 film eventually yielded an entire franchise—one filled with sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, retcons, and enough continuity headaches to make both the Sawyer AND the Hewitt families scramble for their handy almanacs.

Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE (1985) Turns 40: Nude Space Vampires & The Apocalypse!!

LIFEFORCE (1985) d. Tobe Hooper (USA/UK)

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Based on Colin Wilson’s novel, The Space Vampires, a team of astronauts encounter a ship lodged within the head of Halley’s Comet and discover three impossibly beautiful humanoid creatures, two male, one female, encased in coffin-like crystalline blocks. And, as any genre film fan can predict, as soon as they get these strange creatures back to earth, blocks are going to crack and heads are going to roll.

MASTERS OF HORROR: SEASON 1 - LOOKING BACK AT 20 YEARS OF MOH!!

MASTERS OF HORROR (2005-2007) was a horror anthology series like none before, making its small-screen bow on the cable channel Showtime in October 2005.

Created by Mick Garris, the show brought together some of the most renowned names in horror filmmaking to direct hour-long episodes that showcased their unique visions. Predating the wave of multi-voiced anthology films like V/H/S and ABCs of Death, each episode was a self-contained story, with genre icons such as John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Tobe Hooper, Stuart Gordon, John Landis, Joe Dante, and Don Coscarelli, alongside newer voices such as Lucky McKee and Takashi Miike, exploring different themes and scenarios ranging from supernatural terror to the murderer next door.

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The idea behind the series emerged from informal dinners hosted by Garris, with established horror directors sharing ideas and mutual admiration for one another, as well as discussing the genre’s rich history and diversity.

VAMPIRES IN 1979! (DRACULA, NOSFERATU, SALEM'S LOT, LOVE AT FIRST BITE, THIRST, VAMPIRE)

DRACULA (1979) d. John Badham (USA)
NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979) d. Werner Herzog (Germany)
LOVE AT FIRST BITE (1979) d. Stan Dragoti (USA)
THIRST (1979) d. Rod Hardy (Australia)
VAMPIRE (1979) d. E.W. Swackhamer (USA)
SALEM'S LOT (1979) d. Tobe Hooper (USA)

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The year was 1979, and it was a time of disco, political unrest, walkmans, and vampires. No fewer than six major film and TV projects premiered across the globe, providing a spectrum of bloodsuckers not seen before or since. Played for laughs (Love at First Bite) or steeped in social commentary (Thirst), from tortured souls (Nosferatu) to top of the food chain (Vampire), adapted from literary works old (Dracula) and new (Salem’s Lot), or completely original storylines, you just couldn’t keep the undead dead, and the shock waves have continued to reverberate throughout history.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) d. Tobe Hooper (USA)

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 In 1973, Tobe Hooper and a group of young actors and technicians ventured out in to the Texas wilderness to shoot a low-budget horror film that would go on to become one of the greatest landmark cinematic achievements in history. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a smash hit upon its release the following year and has not lost any of its ability to shock and terrify and influence other filmmakers over the ensuing five decades.

THE MANGLER (1995) Blu-ray Review

SCARE-A-THON Totals to Date:

Total Movies Watched: 15 

Total First Time Views: 8 

Amount raised for BOXVILLE: $1069.80 

The Mangler (1995) d. Tobe Hooper (South Africa/UK) (106 min) (1st viewing) 

Unlike The Lawnmower Man, this actually IS an adaptation of a Stephen King story. However, it’s about a possessed industrial laundry pressing and folding machine… so there’s that. Yes, you read that correctly, and in spite of the fact that you’ve got Robert Englund headlining (and reuniting with his Eaten Alive director Hooper) and Ted Levine, Silence of the Lambs’ Buffalo Bill himself, playing our lead, there’s no denying that everyone involved and/or watching is asking themselves, “Wait, so, it’s a haunted mechanical laundromat? How is that going to work?”

Answer: It doesn’t.

EATEN ALIVE (1976) Blu-ray review

Eaten Alive (aka Death Trap) (1976) d. Tobe Hooper (USA) (91 min)

Deep in the Louisiana bayou sits the ramshackle Starlight Hotel, destination of choice for those who like to check in but not check out! Presided over by the bumbling, mumbling Judd (Neville Brand) and his pet croc which he keeps in a large pond out front, the patron of this particular establishment may seem like a good-natured ol' Southern gent - but he has a mean temper on him, and a mighty large scythe to boot....

LIFEFORCE (1985) movie review

Lifeforce (1985) d. Hooper, Tobe (UK/USA)

Based on Colin Wilson’s novel The Space Vampires, a team of astronauts encounter a ship lodged within the head of Halley’s Comet and discover three humanoid creatures encased in coffin-like crystalline blocks. As any genre film fan can predict, as soon as they get them back to earth, blocks are going to crack and heads are going to roll.

TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D (2013) movie review

Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013) d. Luessenhop, John (USA)

What to say, what to say? It’s been nearly 40 years since Tobe Hooper’s original insta-classic roared onto drive-in movie screens, a low budget masterpiece that has overshadowed anything he or anyone else involved have done since. But after three middlin’ sequels of varying quality, 2003’s Platinum Dunes reboot and ensuing ’06 prequel to said reboot, there seems little point in trying to preserve the integrity of the sacred Saw. This latest studio cashgrab starts off promisingly, setting itself up as a direct sequel to the events of the 1974 flick (even having the cojones to use Hooper’s actual footage in its opening sequence), with a Law vs. Saw(yer) face-off occurring presumably not too long after that pickup truck brought Marilyn Burns’ hysterical Sally into the next Texas burg over. Cameos from Gunnar Hansen, Bill Moseley and John Dugan offer a little goodwill, but after local redneck Paul Rae’s lynch mob instigates a clan-crisping bloodbath inferno, we’re launched into the present day world and the whole thing goes kerplooey.