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I first saw this movie years ago, and found it completely ridiculous. I bought it a few years ago on DVD, to be a completist, and recently watched it for the first time in forever. And it was…..just as stupid as I remember. Even more so, actually. I found a few likeable sequences, and a few good character traits in our final girl, but honestly, I could completely do without this one. That said, I definitely liked the Breakfast Club arrangement of the cast on the poster. This one is crazy, absolutely crazy. Not good crazy - idiotic, mind-numbing, will-it-ever-end crazy.

We get the typical introduction about the past crimes of the chainsaw-wielding family, and then, we’re introduced to two fucking punk ass teenagers, driving along the back roads of Texas. They’re drinking, listening to the radio, and destroying property. Didn’t we all do that? Uhh, no. Anyway, they play chicken with this truck driver, running him off the road, and they really shouldn’t have done that. They call into the radio station to speak to the host, Stretch, a pretty, resourceful young woman, who they begin to harass. They refuse to stop and won’t hang up the phone, which I don’t really get. I mean, I don’t know how radio stations work, but if I want to not talk to someone anymore, I hang up the phone…but that’s just me. Later on, they call again, as they encounter the truck from earlier. It begins taunting them, driving right alongside them. Leatherface, wearing some kind of creepy get-up begins chainsawing their car, and eventually cuts the top of the teen driver’s head off. The kids crash, and Stretch hears the whole horrific encounter. The next morning, investigators are on the scene, collecting evidence from the crash. A former Texas Ranger, Lt. Lefty Enright, (what kind of fucking name is that, really?!), played by Dennis Hopper, comes upon the crash, and believes the chainsaw murderers are behind it. Other cops tell him to get lost, but he’s determined to get justice for his niece and nephew, Sally and Franklin Hardesty, from 13 years ago.

Lefty somehow convinces a local newspaper to run the story he’s chasing, prompting a visit from Stretch, who tries to get him to listen to the tape of the murders. He brushes her off for some reason, and she goes back downstairs. The hotel is hosting a Texas-Oklahoma Chili Cook-Off – the winner turns out to be Drayton Sawyer (The Cook from the original). Everyone wants to know the secret to his fantastic meat, but he’s keeping his lips zipped. She and her partner L.G. record a report of the cook-off, and leave. Lefty goes to a chainsaw store, and purchases three, two small, and one huge one, to which he lays down about 600 or so bucks in cash. He meets Stretch back at her station, saying he’s changed his mind. He wants her to broadcast the tape every hour in hopes of gaining tips and information. She’s reluctant, but agrees. On his way home from receiving the chili award, Drayton gets a phone call from his family, telling him that the radio is playing a tape of the murders. After listening to the tape for what seems like forever, L.G. goes to get food, and Stretch is left alone. She hears a noise and goes investigating.

Stretch comes upon a terrifyingly hideous man in a wig, sitting on the couch. He tells her she’s his favorite, and talks about a bunch of weird things. She asks him to leave, trying to keep him calm, because he keeps burning a metal hanger with a lighter, scratching his head with it, and licking it. Gross. This guy (Bill Moseley, one of the only good things about the movie) has horrendous teeth, and isn’t very fashionable. He’s freaking her out, and she gives him a mini-tour to pacify him. As he enters the record room, he flips the light on, revealing Leatherface with his cranked up chainsaw. Leatherface chases her throughout the station, as she eventually barricades herself in a room behind a huge metal door. In the process, he has knocked off Chop-Top’s wig, revealing a large nasty plate in his head, which is not covered by skin. That’s what he was picking at with the hanger, which makes it even more icky. Stretch is relieved when the buzzing stops.

Leatherface goes back out to confront L.G., who has now returned with some drinks. He knocks him down, and Chop-Top proceeds to bash him about the head with a hammer for what seems like an eternity. He tells Leatherface to finish the girl off, and he breaks into the room from the other side. She attempts to distract him by acting sexually towards him. He replies by grossly licking his lips, and running the now-off chainsaw up her thigh into her crotch. She pretends to like it to make him not want to kill her, and it works. She tells him he’s good, and seriously, watching Leatherface get horny is extremely disturbing in itself. He freaks out again, apparently sexually frustrated (come on dude, look at yourself, you’re wearing someone else’s face). He doesn’t kill her though, but goes back downstairs and tells Chop-Top he did. They drag off L.G., hop in their truck, and drive away.

Ugh, I’m sort of already sick of talking about this one, and for me, that’s pretty rare. There’s just no umph, no spark in this sequel. Anyway, Stretch is pissed that the murderers showed up and Lefty wasn’t there, so she follows them. Makes sense? No, but it’s a movie. They’re going to their home, which is located underground in some sort of abandoned theme park or something ridiculous. She gets out of the car, and someone begins chasing her in a vehicle. It’s only Lefty (can we please change his name?!), and as her face shows relief, the ground opens up beneath her feet, and she starts falling. Lefty tries to help her by reaching out with a skeletonized arm. She grabs its bony fingers, but we all know how frail dead limbs are, so it breaks and she falls for what seems like forever. Now, Lefty is even more determined, and straps the chainsaws to himself in full militia style, which by the way, looks utterly ridiculous. Normally, I don’t mind revenge aspects, but this is just too much. I know it’s supposed to be dark comedy, but I don’t get that at all. It’s more like……ridiculous. Yes, I’m aware that I’ve used the word ‘ridiculous’ several times, but it’s really the best adjective for this film.

So he bursts in the joint, guns….I mean, chainsaws blazing, and starts tearing the place apart, making his way from room to room. Stretch hides as she sees Leatherface begin to undress and skin parts of her friend, L.G. He removes his face, and hangs it on a meat hook. He notices Stretch, and tries to attack her. She tells him “no good”, and he stops. He goes over and grabs L.G.’s face, and places it on hers, as well as his cowboy hat. She’s lookin’ really freaky and bloody, and Leatherface begins to dance with her. Suddenly, Lefty’s destruction upstairs causes debris to fall on them, and Leatherface must hide her again.

Leatherface goes to the rest of his family, while Stretch discovers that L.G. isn’t dead. He gets up and begins wandering around with no skin on his face or the right side of his chest, his ribs exposed. He cuts the ties binding Stretch’s hands, and falls down, finally dead. She gives his face and cowboy hat back to their rightful owner. Stretch escapes the room and starts running, but she is noticed by the family. Meanwhile, Lefty is still cutting a path of destruction looking for the killers. He comes upon Franklin’s skeleton, still mangled and sitting in his wheelchair from thirteen years earlier. Lefty’s even more pissed now, and continues his quest for revenge.

Stretch runs into Leatherface in a long tunnel thing, and he begins chasing her. Finally confronted, his family catches up, and starts talking how about how Bubba’s got a girlfriend, and they want her to stay for dinner. Drayton tells Leather to finish her off, but he won’t do it. She begs him to help her, but Chop-Top continues to act insane and harass her while carrying around a dead body. Leatherface begins hitting his head against a light fixture, and Stretch wakes up at the dinner table, as usual.

At supper, Stretch is tied to the table, and the family goes to get Grandpa. She screams at Leatherface to let her go, but he simply can’t bring himself to defy his relatives. They drag her from the table, and try to get Grandpa to bash her in the head with a hammer, just like in the original. He’s too weak to do any real damage, but eventually does knock her unconscious. Lefty bursts in with his chainsaw, and confronts the family. Drayton, I guess, doesn’t realize what he’s pissed about, and thinks it’s concerning his meat, his business, and him winning the chili cook-off. He soon takes him a bit more seriously, and as he turns to get away, he is chainsawed in the butt. It doesn’t kill him though, and he hides under the table. Lefty and Leatherface get into a chainsaw match of pretty fantastic proportions, including on top of the table that Drayton is hiding beneath. He frees Stretch and tells her to run. She does, with Chop-Top right behind her.

Lefty eventually plunges the chainsaw into Leatherface’s stomach, but somehow he’s still fighting. Under the table, however, Drayton figures his only way out is to use the grenade hidden in one of the dead body’s pocket. He pulls the pin out, and a few minutes later, as Lefty raises his two small chainsaws in victory, it falls to the floor. It’s not really shown, but it’s assumed that the place blows up. I guess. I mean, this movie is so crazy, no one can tell what the fuck is going on half the time. Stretch makes her way across a bridge, and is attacked by Chop-Top, but she uses electricity to zap his metal plate, causing him to spaz out for a while. She sees the most obvious EXIT sign ever, and takes the flight of stairs. She gets out of the building finally, and climbs up some kind of rock structure with even more stairs.

That loony fuck Chop-Top is still behind her, and as he gets closer, she bites the shit out of him. She attacks him from behind, causing him to lose his balance, and hang on for dear life to the staircase. Well, of course, he makes it back up to the top. Stretch finds herself in some sort of altar thing that’s some sort of shrine to the Sawyer grandmother, as she sits, dead and rotting, with flowing gray hair, chainsaw in tow. Chop-Top arrives, and begins cutting his own throat several times, as Stretch reaches for the chainsaw on Grandma’s lap. He tells her to leave the woman alone, but she cuts him in the stomach and he falls backwards off the mountain. Emerging victorious, and now clearly nuts as well, she begins cheering, and swinging the chainsaw around, as Leatherface does at the end of nearly every movie.

Wow, so, this movie is……incredibly repetitive, manic (and not in a good way), confusing, cheesy, boring in most parts, and too long. Not that I have an issue with long movies in general, just long movies that feature nothing but the same people running around, screaming the entire time, and never getting anywhere. As you can probably tell, this is my least favorite Chainsaw film. I didn’t like it before, and I don’t like it now. I don’t hate it, it’s just that I couldn’t get into it. I rolled my eyes several times, and found myself getting verrryyyy sleeeepppy. Someone, please give me a few redeeming qualities about this film, besides Chop-Top’s character, and the unique, creepy chainsaw-in-the-crotch part. This is so far removed from the original. It’s honestly hard to believe they were both directed by the same guy. I just think the story became quite ludicrous, and it held none of the gritty, grindhouse, snuff-film feeling you get from the first one. I liked Stretch as the radio DJ, but after a while, her screaming really got on my nerves, and it just felt too forced. Jim Siedow and Bill Moseley were brilliant as usual, but the rest of the movie didn’t fit their genius. Dennis Hopper’s Lefty Enright was just…..I don’t know. Ridiculous? Not vengeful enough? Half insane himself? The character was just so weird, and weird in a way I didn’t get. Usually, weird is good, but in this case, it was like his character was pulled from a different movie and placed in a slasher film loaded with chainsaws and no direction as to what to do, what to say, or where to go. This is definitely not the best Chainsaw film, it’s the worst. You could completely skip this one, and miss, virtually, nothing from the story or the series as a whole.

Posted by Aloha Mister Hand in General Gore, Horror Movies, Reviews, Slasher Films Tags: 1986, bad sequels, bill johnson, bill moseley, bubba sawyer, cannibalism, caroline williams, chainsaws, chili contest, chop-top, dennis hopper, drayton sawyer, horror movie, jim siedow, leatherface, lefty enright, metal plate, murder, radio stations, revenge, review, saw is family, stretch, texas, texas chainsaw massacre 2, the cook, tobe hooper, torture