The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

The most surprising thing about this 1986 sequel is that after twelve years there's still plenty of gas left in the chainsaw. Returning director Tobe Hooper gleefully fires up The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part 2 and lets it roar for well over an hour before it sadly splutters out and dies rather abruptly at the end.

Its fair to say that Hooper would never be able to top his 1974 original and thankfully he doesn't try. He instead opts for a relatively lighter tone, lashings of repulsive gore and an effective streak of psycho comedy which makes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part 2 a very entertaining movie indeed.

Story picks up with two guys driving through the deserted landscapes of rural Texas. As they drive into the dusk they communicate with a foxy local DJ named Stretch (Caroline WIlliams) who is broadcasting evening requests. They joke around on air for a while but when they have some trouble with a large pick-up truck on a highway bridge, their increasingly terrifying encounter is recorded by a horrified Stretch.
Two minutes in and Hooper moves into high gear with a truly nerve-wracking set-piece; as the two guys belt along at high speed they are menaced by the mysterious truck and a hulking man wielding a chain saw in the back......

Cut to the next day and the guys' mangled car is found crashed into a bridge with deep lacerations in the bodywork. Texas Ranger Lefty Enright (played by Dennis Hooper with black eyes peering out from under a huge stetson) suspects foul play but the authorities want to hush up any talk of chain saws.
Meanwhile Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow making a welcome return) hears Stretch playing the boys' screaming encounter over the radio repeatedly and when he rages to himself about "them darn fools" (Scooby Doo-like), we know something BAD is going to happen.

And it does; Sawyer (furious at their escapades in the pick-up the night before) dispatches his crazy sons Leatherface and Chop Top to the radio station in an effort to silence Stretch and keep her off the air for good.
But Leatherface is rather taken with with the tasty DJ and (in a memorable sequence) lets her go, leaving her to follow them back to their huge subterranean hide-out at a disused amusement park. A vengeful, chain saw wielding Lefty isn't far behind and some ballistic carnage eventually ensues.

As you can tell, an awful lot happens in Chainsaw 2 which is impressive given the brisk running time. Unfortunately a lot of scenes are disappointingly short and several subplots remain frustratingly unexplored; this is a movie that has suffered some serious cutting (pun very much intended). Most grating omissions include Lefty's relationship with Sally and Franklin (from the first movie), his apparent drink problem and lack of job credibility and the origins of the Sawyer clan (especially Chop Top).

Unlike many horror directors, Hooper is in the enviable position to milk the terrifying threats created in the original. The scene with the pick-up truck is brilliantly orchestrated and this intensifies the feeling of impending violence that pervades the quieter moments at the radio station; Hooper only has to point his camera at a doorframe to send a shiver of anticipation up your spine.

Many purists hate this movie but (with the benefit of hindsight) it seems like the most sensible step, at least thematically. There are certainly plenty of satisfying parallels with the original, such as the returning Jim Siedow, Hopper stumbling across the still-wheelchair bound carcass of his nephew Franklin and Chop Top cavorting around with the stuffed corpse of his late brother (who was – as you no doubt remember - messily mown down by a truck at the denouement of Chainsaw 1).

Its certainly the best of the sequels, with Part 3 coming off as a confusing mess (whatever version you watch), Part 4 being virtually unwatchable and the recent re-make suitably nasty but lacking in any decent ideas and being a bit too Hollwood-glossy for its own good.

Chain Saw 2 is also atmospheric and often very creepy; Stretch's meeting with Chop Top in the neon lit reception of the radio station is stark but electric, awash with clammy fear and dread. The Sawyer's underground home (aided by a magnificent production design oddly reminiscent of Fellini) is littered with Christmas lights, unnerving dark corridors and rotting human remains.

There's also a lot more gore; this time Hooper happily shows (with the help of FX guru Tom Savini) what he only hinted at in 1974. The film isn't any more effective for it but we do get to see a man have the top of his head sawed off, skin sickeningly peeled from a fresh corpse, a man battered repeatedly with a hammer and a chainsaw thrust into a stomach and out the other side. Nice.
The most disturbing moment (and this is as nasty as anything in the original) sees Stretch forced to wear the moist, flayed face of a skinned victim; this scene is grim in the extreme and unnecessarily protracted. Yuck.

The performances are several notches above the usual horror fare: Hopper's role is surprisingly limited but he gets some good scenes (picking out the biggest chain saw in a hardware store before going outside and madly hacking at a tree with it) and some good lines ("Boys, you shouldn't have been doing this" he dead pans after scanning the carnage created by the Sawyer family).
Caroline Williams is fetching and feisty (with great legs) as Stretch and the aforementioned Jim Siedow is a neat link with the original.
Bill Johnson takes over from Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface and he aquits himself well, even if his character becomes progressively less threatening as the film unfolds. His worried eyes are very funny beneath his mask.

Best of all though is Bill Moseley as Chop Top; decked out in a frightful Sonny Bono wig, he is a simultaneously fascinating and repellant loony prone to picking at the oversized metal plate in his head (with a cigarette-lighter sterilized coat hanger), cackling maniacally and lapsing into random 'Nam flashbacks (probably where he was during the original movie). It is a quite brilliant, unpredictible performance that veers uneasily between comedy and horror.

Hooper directs at break-neck pace and he and screenwriter LM Kit Carson throw in some other interesting ideas and scenes; Leatherface's infatuation with Stretch throws up a terrifically subversive moment (he waggles an unstartable chain saw between her legs whilst as she quivers in terror) and an unsettlingly bizarre one (after forcing her to wear a flesh mask, he dances with her ballerina-like) and the final chainsaw duel is undeniably cool (even if the saws aren’t actually turned on!)

For criticisms look at the musical score which is rather too obvious, formulaic and damagingly ‘eighties’ and the disappointing ending which mirrors the original right down to Grandpa delivering a ball-peen hammer blow with the trusty sledge.

But if pure mayhem is your thing then check out Chainsaw 2. It's fast, funny and above all highly entertaining hokum for fans of the genre. Think Re-Animator with chainsaws and you're already there.