The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Tobe Hooper
1986

The inevitable sequel to Tobe Hooper's immaculate original fares better than one might expect, but made over ten years after the original it noticeably suffers (if slightly) from mainstream 80's horror sensibility. Hooper's maniac family is winning chili cook-offs all over Texas with their patented man-beef recipe when local rock DJ "Stretch" (well played by Caroline Wiliams) accidentally becomes an aural witness to one of the their murders. Dennis Hopper joins the fray as a lawman only a hair saner than the family, intent on fighting fire-with-fire via an arsenal of freshly bought logging saws. Horror vet Bill Moseley steals the show in one of his first roles as "Chop Top," a psychopath with a steel plate on his melon who eerily combines flower-child stylings with murderous insanity a la Charles Manson. The picture's got lots of good scares and a heavy gore level, but the epic battle between Hopper's Lefty and the killer clan takes place in a disappointing and overly fake looking set. There's a brief nod to the macabre Ed Gein inspired trinkets/furniture that were so believable and horrifying in the first but this time around they have a plastic quality that betrays any authenticity - overwrought props bought from the Halloween store as opposed to the previous Martha Stewart arts and crafts from from hell. The sequel's sense of humor is unnecessarily elevated as well; whereas in the original any semblance of humor was pitch-black and used to disturb, this outing has more "wink wink" moments as well as outright gags and pratfalls from the loonies.