It makes sense that Tobe Hooper’s 1986 sequel-that-nobody-wanted The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, rather than futilely trying to replicate its illustrious predecessor’s gritty, uncompromising terror, instead opts for campy humor. Still, it’s nonetheless surprising to discover that the 180-degree tonal switcharoo works. Thirteen years after the original Lone Star state slaughter, Leatherface (Bill Johnson), scalp-eating brother Chop-Top (Bill Moseley), and dad Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow) are still roaming the Texas countryside looking for a few good whitebread chumps to saw, grind, and turn into Drayton’s award-winning chili. When their slicing and dicing of two preppies is broadcast live on the radio program of disc jockey Stretch (Caroline Williams), Lieutenant “Lefty” Enright (Dennis Hopper) – the revenge-seeking uncle of the first film’s victims – uses the murder recording to lure Leatherface and company into the open, culminating in a chainsaw-on-chainsaw battle in the clan’s corpse-littered home underneath a wild west amusement park. Hooper wisely doesn’t attempt to reproduce the austere nastiness of his seminal horror hit, and his surreal, carnival-esque blend of excessive gore (thanks to Tom Savini) and tongue-in-cheek comedy, while far from graceful, nicely places his film in Evil Dead territory. Plus, there’s just something irresistibly demented about a Texas Chainsaw follow-up with the balls to feature a wacky pseudo-romance between Stretch and Leatherface, the loony tunes Hopper (who reliably spikes the action’s bizarre quotient), and the awe-inspiringly histrionic Moseley, whose maniacal Chop-Top – blessed with the Primus-worthy catchphrase “Dog will hunt!” – proves to be nothing less than the clown prince of cannibalistic chaos.
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