The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Franchise - Ranked

This marks the end of my series on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’ve written pretty exhaustively about all of these movies at this point, but there is one thing I wanted to comment on regarding the entire franchise: the titles.

Somehow, despite this series being nine movies long, which includes a remake, three prequels, and three direct sequels, there is no repetition among the titles. They are all very similar, but each one contains a difference. The original film used “chain saw” instead of “chainsaw,” so that’s how it technically has a different title than the remake. And the Leatherface from the ‘90s contains the subtitle of Texas Chainsaw Massacre III which makes it different from the 2017 Leatherface movie. And the latest movie drops the “the,” making its title barely unique, as well. This doesn’t mean anything, but it is nice that the series doesn’t suffer the maddening titles of the Halloween franchise, which has three (!) movies titled Halloween, and two Halloween IIs. 

Oh, and for no reason at all, I’ve included a bit at the end of each entry letting you know if the film contained narration from John Larroquette.

More importantly, I included the running time of each film. As you’ll see, these movies are better the shorter they are. Anyway, here are my rankings for the series.

1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

First off, any ranking of this series that doesn’t have the original at the top spot is just bullshit clickbait. No other movie in this franchise is in the same fucking ballpark of this disturbing first movie. 

Larroquette? Yeah

Running time: 83 minutes, perfect

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

AKA the one where they learned “chainsaw” is one word. I realized over the course of this series that it is stupid and pointless for a filmmaker to try to recreate the first film in any way. Tobe Hooper knew this, which is why he leaned into the comedy for the sequel. We get crazy Dennis Hopper and chili cookoffs, and I’m all for it. Add an unhinged Bill Mosely and you have the second best movie in the series. 

Larroquette? No, but there is opening narration

Running time: 101 minutes, a little too long, but the goofiness makes it okay

3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

This was the palate cleanser I needed after going through the whole series. If this had been the actually only direct sequel to the original, I would probably hate it. But it’s actually the third direct sequel to the original, which means this series has become way too messy. So I enjoyed the brutal kills and general silliness of it all within the context of a shitty franchise. 

Larroquette? Yeah

Running time: 83 minutes, way to match the original’s run time

4.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

This is a fine remake, as far as those early ‘00s remakes go, but overstylizing everything completely misses what made the original so effective. But it’s still a pretty good time, mainly thanks to R. Lee Ermey. 

Larroquette? Yeah

Running time: 98 minutes, that’s 8 too many

5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

This is already where I start to kind of hate these movies. This one does add a half-assed attempt to mix things up by shoe-horning in a subplot about the family being paid by some secretive boss to create an experience for the victims. But it’s not fully developed and instead feels like a tacked on “surprise ending” in a weak attempt to differentiate itself from the rest of the series. It does have a crazy McConaughey, at least.

Larroquette? No, and no narration

Running time: 87 minutes (theatrical) 

6. Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

This one felt like someone wanted the series to return to its more serious roots after the comedic second film, but that was a mistake. This just felt like a poorly made remake of the original. But I’ll still take that over any prequel or mythology-building bullshit.

Larroquette? No, but there is opening narration

Running time: 81 minutes (theatrical), hell yeah - 86 minutes unrated, okay

7. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

You know, if “the beginning” of a story was worth telling, it would have been the actual beginning, not the second movie. This was simply made because the remake was successful, but it started the trend that I absolutely despise in this franchise: the need to explore the fucked up family. With this one, it’s just giving you information about the remake that didn’t need to be explained. It’s not that hard to figure this family out: they’re a bunch of crazy fuckheads, end of story.

Larroquette? Yeah

Running Time: 91 minutes, okay, I guess

8. Leatherface

I still hate this movie for exploring the “character” of Leatherface, but overall I’m just numb to the series by the time it gets to this film. The filmmaking and acting is actually fine, but I just don’t want any of this.

Larroquette? No, and no narration

Running time: 88 minutes, okay

9. Texas Chainsaw

Now this one fucking broke me. I hate this stupid shit. It’s a direct sequel to the original that makes the fucked up family the victims. It’s fucking crazy. But worse, none of this movie is fun, save for one kill. If you’re going to make something this fucking stupid, it should at least be fun. This shit was unbearable, and the filmmakers knew it, which is why they tried to make Alexandra Daddario show as much skin as logically possible throughout the film, but no amount of near-nudity can save this garbage.

Larroquette? No, and there’s no narration, but the beginning is basically an extended recap of the original film.

Running time: 92 minutes, which is 92 too many

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The End...for Now

This is pretty fucking stupid, but I actually had fun with it. It’s nice and brutal, and it’s so fucking short. But the best part is there is very little backstory and almost no attempt to expand on the lore of the family. It’s just Leatherface killing a bunch of people. It is not a good movie, but there’s nothing else this franchise should or could be at this point, so just make it like Friday the 13th and be done with it.

This is the one that started it all for this series of articles. I had not watched a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie in years (I think), and then this just suddenly appeared on Netflix. For whatever reason, this was just what I needed to spark my interest in the franchise, so much so that I decided to rewatch every film and write an article for each film followed by a definitive ranking. Looking back, I wish I had just settled on ranking the movies and writing a short blurb about each, but once I started, I felt required to finish. 

Of course, I procrastinated to the point that by the time I got to this film’s article, I needed to rewatch it to remember why I liked it so much. As a standalone horror film, I found it enjoyable, if dumb, enough. But watching all of the other films, especially the most recent shitshows, made me appreciate the gory simplicity of the film. 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise got bogged down in building the lore of Leatherface and his fucked up family in the previous three films (easily my least favorite three movies in the nine-movie series). Texas Chainsaw Massacre actually does the same thing Texas Chainsaw did, in that it ignored every sequel and prequel and was actually a direct sequel to the first film. But Texas Chainsaw attempted to turn the cannibal family into sympathetic victims, with Leatherface being used by his long lost cousin as her personal murderer by the end. It was stupid and insulting.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre has no interest in building the mythology of the fucked up family. Instead, they go the Halloween (2018) route. Shit happened a long time ago, but the legend of that terrible time has grown while the monster has lain dormant; oh shit, the monster is back! They even brought back the lone survivor from the first film (played by Olwen Fouere taking over the role from the deceased Marilyn Burns) a la Laurie Strode from Halloween. She ends up being about as useful as Dick Hallorann in The Shining, but whatever. The point is Leatherface shows up and people die horribly. 

That’s all I want from this exhausting series. I don’t care about expanding the lore of the family, and I damn sure don’t want them turned into victims. They were fucked up, and they did fucked up shit. A woman running an orphanage took pity on Leatherface and took him in…and kept his chainsaw in a wall…

Okay, this movie is pretty fucking stupid, too. The whole premise of the movie is a group of influencers decide to buy almost the entire downtown area of the town close to the first film’s events. The idea that you can just make a few TikTok videos and convince dozens of people to buy up property in a ghost town in the middle of nowhere is idiotic. If there were enough people around to sustain a thriving downtown, it would already be thriving. Just sinking money into an old building won’t create a population of people with money to spend. Those people already live in places like the one they’re trying to create. (The opening narration tries to fix this by claiming the town is “just a few miles outside of Austin” but I call bullshit. If it’s so close to Austin, where all these dickheads are presumably from, then why is the drive so far that they have to charter a bus to bring people there? And why is a town so close to Austin so fucking dead?)

It’s a flimsy plot, but the whole point of it is to make fun of these influencers as they get cut to pieces in a party bus, and I’m okay with it. Perhaps the filmmakers thought they were making a statement about this generation, especially when they start livestreaming their own murders (with people commenting that it all looks fake), if so it was drowned out by the sound of a chainsaw disemboweling someone. 

There’s also the subplot of the main character being a mass shooting survivor that doesn’t get any kind of meaningful resolution, aside from her going on the attack? Or embracing assault rifles? I suppose the point was she got past her PTSD, but it’s not she’s not going to be fucked up for life after surviving the events of this movie. So the point is there are worse things to survive than a school shooting? This is just too sensitive a topic to bring into a goofy chainsaw gorefest movie. Don’t give me Leatherface killing a bunch of  morons in an Insta Story, and then ask me to ruminate on mass shootings. Pick a lane.

Beyond that, I can imagine some people not being thrilled with Leatherface’s treatment in this film. He should be in his late 60s at best, but possibly in his 70s at this point. For an AARP member, he’s a bit too deadly, but whatever. The end truly crosses a line for the character as he straight up becomes a monster akin to Jason or Freddy in that he should be dead or at the very least severely injured, but he comes back and is able to decapitate someone and do his trademark crazy chainsaw dance. I don’t care, at this point, but any purists will have issues with this. 

The original film is not a slasher film. It’s not meant to be a franchise, despite Leatherface making for an iconic horror character. There was nothing supernatural about the fucked up family, including Leatherface, in the original film. Sure, his strength became amplified in subsequent movies, but he wasn’t blatantly supernatural. Here, there has to be something beyond reality happening for him to still be alive at the end. Once again, I don’t care because this series has become an exhaustive mess, but this is not in keeping with the original at all.

And that’s why I actually like it more than most of the other films in the series. There’s no point in trying to make a film like the original. So fuck it, turn Leatherface into Jason, and let him loose on a bunch of fuckheads. There’s a Friday the 13th void in my life right now, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre filled it. If the Friday the 13th series was still active, perhaps I would have hated this silly movie. But it isn’t, so I don’t. Watching this whole motherfucking franchise has taught me that it’s pointless to get up in arms about these movies. Texas Chainsaw broke me, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre put me back together.

But I still hope this is the end of the franchise, despite the after credits scene of Leatherface returning to the house. I know there will be more because this series seems as unkillable as Leatherface himself, even if the last two movies were released direct to streaming (ish, since 2017’s Leatherface was technically released directly to…uh…DirecTV). Hopefully the tepid critical response at least leaves the series dormant for a while, because I certainly want to be done with the franchise for the time being.

Leatherface - I Don't Care About These Movies at All Anymore

I had no clue this movie existed until I decided to write about the entire series. I really didn’t want to watch it, especially when I found out it was a prequel about a teenage Leatherface. So I’m not going to be fair to this movie. It’s actually okay, but I didn’t want it. It’s somehow worse than the prequel to the remake to me for no other reason than that I’m tired of the series. But I said I’d write about all these fucking movies, so here goes.

This film is a prequel to the original and also Texas Chainsaw. You’d think this would mean I would be interested in it because Texas Chainsaw left me with so many questions about the dead, rich aunt, who is played by Lily Tomlin in this one. But this movie just made that film even dumber. It’s revealed that the aunt is basically the leader of the family, encouraging the killing they do. 

This is stupid to me because if she was gung-ho about all the killing, then why did she just gather up Leatherface and keep him locked up in her basement later on? If she’s this stone cold killer matriarch, wouldn’t she immediately seek revenge? Instead, she lives a quiet life in her mansion, waiting for her long lost niece to take over once she dies. It’s fucking stupid and is not in keeping with the character presented here. Because this family is not the type for long-term plans. They just kill whenever they fucking feel like it, and get away with it for a while somehow.

Putting that aspect of the film aside and just forgetting about Texas Chainsaw (which is for the best), Leatherface then becomes the origin of the titular character. Rather than being genetically inclined to murder like Alexandra Daddario in the last movie (I can’t forget that fucking movie!), this Leatherface has to be fucked up into becoming a maimed killer. 

Leatherface is presented as a kid who just seems to attract murder. He’s born into a murderous family, so there’s that. He’s taken away and sent to a mental institute for troubled kids. When he’s a teenager, a murderous riot takes place, and he’s taken hostage by a dumbass Bonnie and Clyde type from the institution. They go on the road, killing everywhere they go. This kid is a fucking magnet for murder!

None of this was interesting to me, or to the writers, it seems, because they used a time jump to create a needless mystery to the film. Leatherface gets taken away when he’s very little, and then the movie jumps ten years to the institution, where all the kids have different names (so parents can’t track them down, for some reason?). Because of this, we technically don’t know which of the kids on the run is the future Leatherface. This whodunit aspect just annoyed me. Not only did I not need to know why Leatherface became a killer, but I definitely didn’t need a lame ass guessing game to go along with it. By the time the real Leatherface was revealed, I just wanted the movie to end.

Obviously, I was not in the right mindset for this film. But I wasn’t alone in my disinterest in the franchise. This movie was released on DirecTv exclusively in 2017 after being shelved by Lionsgate for a year. Lionsgate had originally bought the rights to the series with a potential six films planned, but due to delays with the previous film and this film, they only made two. And they dumped this onto DirecTv, which I didn’t even realize was a thing studios did. It was like releasing a movie straight to streaming before it was really a thing. In that way, this movie is a trailblazer. But what it really means is that people were sick of this franchise, or at least sick of the direction it was going. That was certainly the case for me.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation - Some Movies Don't Deserve to Be Cult Classics

Yeah, I’m still doing this. I immediately regretted watching all these fucking movies then claiming I was going to write about each one. And I know that literally no one is asking for this, and I could just drop it, but I’m not going to. That written, some of these articles are going to be mercifully short, because I just don’t have much to say about most of these movies. On the bright side, the delays brought on by my life and general laziness have made this series of articles get closer to Halloween, the only time it makes sense to write about these fucking movies. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the one with McConaughey. 

The most recent Texas Chainsaw movie inspired me to watch and write about all of them, but The Next Generation played a factor, as well. I had seen this years ago, and I remember thinking it was better than it had any right to be, but still sucked. Upon revisiting the series, I saw that Shout! Factory (also known as Scream Factory) released a special edition of the film. But just this one. Part 2 and Leatherface hadn’t received this cult treatment. So this one must be special. 

But it isn’t. At least, it isn’t to me. Yes, it had Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey in it, so that’s interesting. McConaughey goes appropriately nuts, and it’s pretty great, but there’s nothing here to make this some underrated classic. 

The most interesting part of the film is the reveal that the crazy family is actually a part of some strange experiment meant to provide a spiritual experience for the victim. But it isn’t explored nearly deeply enough. If the entire film had been about that, rather than dumping in some silly exposition scene at the end in a lame attempt at a “twist,” then maybe this would be worth revisiting. 

For many people, it is enough. The film also seems to be proud of its decidedly non-threatening version of Leatherface, but this is nothing new. Leatherface has been a troubled, child-like monster from the beginning, and he was already made downright goofy in Part 2. The cross-dressing is new, I guess, but in general, no new ground was broken with the character. 

Despite all these issues I had with this just okay sequel, it would have been redeemed for me if it was a fun watch. And it isn’t. For a failed horror sequel to gain cult status with me, there needs to be some honest enjoyment from watching it, and this film gave me none, aside from one goofy ass moment in which a character stops for pizza right in front of some cops while she has kidnapped victims locked in her trunk. A few more scenes like that would have been great. But instead the film wants to be both subversive and derivative, and that just doesn’t work.

Despite my overall negative feelings about this movie, it’s still upper tier in the franchise simply for being a little bit weird. From here on out, the franchise plays it pretty seriously, and I think this should be a little fun after the perfect horror of the first film. This is why I like Part 2 so much even though that movie is a sloppy mess. Hooper knew trying to recreate the shocking horror of the first one was impossible. If only everyone else after him knew that too.

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III - "I Like Liver! And Onions! And Pain!"

Okay, covering this entire franchise one film at a time almost immediately became a mistake. The second one was interesting, but I’m already getting into the ones people don’t even remember existing, yet still have some kind of bullshit, undeserved “cult status.” I know that I can just drop this plan because it’s not like I have any kind of following to hold me accountable to stupid shit like this, but when I claim I’m going to do something, I typically try to follow through, even if I’m the only one who demands it. So with that, here’s Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.

This one is pretty forgettable, mainly because they decided to mostly abandon the comedic tone of the second film and go for a more straightforward horror movie. The plot is pretty basic: a young couple comes across some weirdo at a gas station, and they end up at the Sawyer house fighting for their lives. That’s fine, but only if there’s at least some great gore or something. But the studio was so adamant about getting an R-rating that the gore is so toned down that the film only offers the empty promise of something truly disturbing. 

That’s the problem with all the sequels and remakes and prequels of this series. It is impossible to recapture the tone and surprise of the first film, so each subsequent film sets out to do something slightly different, but never as good. At least the second film said, “Fuck it, let’s make a comedy.” That film leaned all the way into it, and that’s what makes it memorable. These other films, either due to studio interference or bad filmmaking or both, don’t go all in and just end up in some weird, boring direction. 

Franchises with villains like Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers are successful because they (mostly) stick to a basic formula, for better or worse. With Massacre, no one knows what to do with Leatherface. It’s a great name and a striking look, but is he a sadistic cannibal with the mind of a child, or is he a superhuman monster that can’t be killed? Too often, like with this film, they try to make him like Jason and the others. But why do that when Leatherface is the only one of the group that doesn’t work alone?

Texas Chainsaw isn’t a series that has to copy the slasher genre. I like watching some of these movies because they can be different. If I want Jason, I’ll watch Jason. The original Leatherface was fucked up enough already to be scary; I don’t need him to to rip cars apart and come back from the dead. I just want him to be part of a fucked up family.

You do get the fucked up family here. The only returning member is Leatherface, making this the first movie to start expanding on the Sawyer family. It’s nice to have a rotating roster of fucked-up weirdos and all, but as the series goes on, it gets less and less plausible that all these other crazies were just hanging out somewhere else during the events of the previous movies, just waiting for their turn to swoop in and take Leatherface to their murder-house.

The crazy family dynamic of the original is here again, but it’s just not disturbing this time around. You can’t recreate that kind of magic, I guess. It’s fun to see a young Viggo Mortensen as part of it, I suppose, but he’s not going all in like Bill Moseley before him or McConaughey after him. The addition of a sweet little girl felt like a weak attempt to be edgy. I didn’t care about anyone, and I didn’t find any of them particularly memorable.

In fact, I was ready to dismiss this one with a one paragraph review just to be done with it, but then I watched the special features (yes, I bought the fucking DVD just so I could write about this one). The silver lining of a lot of these failed franchise sequels is that they develop enough of a misguided cult following to warrant plenty of special features on a DVD. And since so much time has passed, everyone involved is much more honest than usual in these behind the scenes featurettes. 

With Leatherface’s DVD, director Jeff Burr is very open, even talking about being fired from the production and hired back within days when the studio couldn’t get anyone else to take on the movie. He also talks about how the studio limited him at every turn because of the desire for an R-rating (to the point that even the “unrated” cut is surprisingly tame). The most interesting revelation has to be that the ending of the film was written and filmed without Burr’s knowledge. He only learned of the ridiculous ending (in which Ken Foree is revealed to be alive with barely a scratch even though he had been clearly killed by Leatherface, and Leatherface is alive as well even though he was clearly killed, too) at the premiere. Apparently the studio found out Foree was testing well, so they wanted him alive for future sequels, which is also why they revived Leatherface. Though why they suddenly cared about continuity is beyond me.

Behind the scenes stories like that are much more interesting than what ended up on screen. I like this series overall, but the haphazard nature of each sequel makes it difficult for any of them to stand out. Leatherface at least stands out on DVD because all involved are willing to acknowledge it was a failure. And it’s interesting to hear what they intended compared to what we got to see. I might be grasping at straws to find enjoyment out of this one, but as the series goes on, that becomes harder and harder. 

Random Thoughts

The opening narration references a trial. I really wish they showed footage from the courtroom.

“He’s a little touched. Been that way since he lost his job at the slaughterhouse.” I like how losing a job at a fucking slaughterhouse is used as the excuse for this family in multiple films.

This is definitely leaning back into the horror after the comedic second movie.

“It’s Armageddon, bitch-face!”

Leatherface rips off the trunk of a car with his bare hands. This is definitely the beginning of turning him into a superhuman monster like Jason rather than a child-like murdering basket case. I’m glad the fourth movie went the complete other way with it. We have enough giant boogeymen in the horror world; why can’t we let Leatherface be the weirdo of the group? I’ll take him screeching in a wig over him ripping cars apart with his bare hands any day.

“Militant lumberjacks…see ‘em all the time.”

So Ken Foree gets run over because he runs out of bullets? Even if he had gotten a shot off, he still would’ve been run over. He lives, but it’s still stupid.

“I like liver. And onions. And pain!”

Michelle couldn’t bring herself to kill the armadillo with the rock at the beginning of the film. But she’s able to hit Leatherface with a rock at the end of the movie. Character development!

Ken Foree being alive and pretty much unscatched at the end is fucking hilarious. While it was explicitly shown, he was pressed up against a running chainsaw for quite some time, and he stopped screaming at one point. Did he just get used to the pain? Was he playing dead while being attacked with a chainsaw? He must have some zen-like pain control.