The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

A radio host is victimized by the cannibal family as a former Texas Marshall hunts them.

Director:

Tobe Hooper

Writers:

L.M. Kit Carson, Tobe Hooper (film "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre")

Stars:

Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dennis Hopper	...	Lieutenant 'Lefty' Enright
Caroline Williams	...	Vanita 'Stretch' Brock
Jim Siedow	...	Drayton Sawyer - The Cook
Bill Moseley	...	'Chop-Top' Sawyer
Bill Johnson	...	Leatherface 'Bubba' Sawyer
Ken Evert	...	Grandpa Sawyer
Harlan Jordan	...	Patrolman
Kirk Sisco	...	Detective
James N. Harrell	...	Cut-Rite Manager
Lou Perryman	...	L.G. McPeters (as Lou Perry)
Barry Kinyon	...	Buzz - Mercedes Driver
Chris Douridas	...	Rick - Gunner
Judy Kelly	...	Gourmet Yuppette
John Martin Ivey	...	Yuppie
Kinky Friedman	...	Sports Anchorman

Storyline

Radio DJ Vanita 'Stretch' Brock's open request night is plagued by the annoying phone pranking of two road tripping, party-hard, hoodlums, but things take a disturbing turn when the hoodlums meet their demise at the hands of familiar chainsaw wielding maniacs. With the entire gruesome ordeal recorded on tape, Stretch seeks out the help of a former Texas Marshall who's on a personal quest of vengeance against this family of cannibals. While at first he turns her down, he eventually decides to use her tape to his advantage, asking her to air it during her request block- effectively baiting the cannibals to the radio station where he'll personally deal with them.

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Plot Keywords:

chainsaw murder | scene of the crime | radio | radio station | characters killed one by one | 

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Taglines:

After a decade of silence... The buzzz is back!

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Genres:

Comedy | Horror

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

MGM

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 August 1986 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2

Filming Locations:

Loop 150, Bastrop, Texas, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$4,700,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$2,822,439, 24 August 1986, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$8,025,872

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cannon Films, Golan-Globus Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min (Ontario) (cut) 101 min (original uncut)

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Color:

Color (TVC)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A release in West Germany in 1986 was not possible because the film was banned before the film could be released to theaters. In 2012 Turbine Medien acquired the rights to the film and started work on getting the banishment revoked. It took them four years until the local court of Berlin-Tiergarten finally lifted the banishment.

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Goofs

When Stretch is being chased by Lefty in his car, in one shot right before she runs to safety in the metal structure, a camera man's shadow can be seen following her.

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Quotes

Drayton: [to Leatherface] You have one choice, boy: sex or the saw. Sex is, well... nobody knows. But the saw... the saw is family.

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Crazy Credits

At the very end of the closing credits, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre logo appears briefly and the end title song is replaced by a loud chainsaw buzz noise.

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Alternate Versions

The film had major censorship problems in the Canadian province of Ontario. After seeing the film rejected three times by the Ontario Censor Board, distributor Pan-Canadian pre-cut 11 minutes out of the picture, including a huge elimination around the midpoint that deleted almost everything shown in the Sawyer family's underground slaughterhouse. Other eliminations included the shot of the Yuppie driver's head cleaved in two and spurting blood, and many of the wounds inflicted on each other by Chop Top and Stretch during the climax. Also, Chop Top only hits L.G. in the head with hammer once in this version, instead of dozens of times, and this single blow kills him (the sequence where the half-skinned L.G. comes back to life is among the other material dropped in the major cut mentioned above). This 89 minute edition of the movie was finally approved for exhibition in Ontario, but because of all the censorship delays, it opened a week later than in the rest of English Canada.

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Connections

Referenced in Midnight Screenings: Rob Zombie's 31 (2016)

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Soundtracks

Good to Be Bad
Performed by The Lords of the New Church
Written by Stiv Bators (as Stiv Bator) and Brian James
Lyrical Inspiration by L.M. Kit Carson (as Kit Carson)
Published by Illegal Songs, Inc. (BMI)
Produced by The Lords of the New Church (as Lords) with Dennis Herring

User Reviews

Hooper's stylish directing saves this from being an unwatchable schlockfest.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a terrible film. I knew going in it would be nothing like the original and was completely fine with that, but this movie goes out of its way to be as ridiculous as possible. The genuine scares from the original have been replaced by awkward comedic bits, from the cannibal family's bickering to Leatherface making silly faces (yeah, they had the audacity to turn Leatherface into a punchline).

It's just embarrassing, and this is largely due to an inconsistent script. The first act sets an ominous tone from its premise of hearing a murder live on the radio and the radio host being terrorized by the same murderers. Then the second act is silly, borderline cartoonish with Leatherface acting like a hormonal teenager; and the third act tries to pay homage to the original by recreating the dinner scene almost exactly as it was in the first (but not nearly as effective) combined with an admittedly cool chainsaw duel between Lefty (Dennis Hopper) and Leatherface, then closing with a somewhat thrilling final struggle for the heroine to make her escape. Then it closes with another "homage" to the original and then credits roll and a cheesy '80s pop song ensues. If not for the second act, it had potential to be an engrossing story and potentially disturbing (the gore is still top-notch) but the drastic shifts in tone make it virtually impossible to become immersed into this overtly fake, cartoonish world.

Thankfully, Tobe Hooper's directing makes even the dullest moments of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 aesthetically pleasing. The location and set design is perfect - the underground lair with brightly colored lights juxtaposed with rotting corpses and leftover entrails is oddly unsettling, and the scenery during the final moments of the movie is hauntingly beautiful. Hooper knows how to make these scenes look as gritty and urgent as possible. Dennis Hopper's Texas ranger was also a welcome addition. He was related to Franklin of the first movie and is out for revenge on these hillbillies so he buys the biggest chainsaw he can, then storms their lair screaming his lungs out like a lunatic.

What ultimately killed this movie for me (aside from the script) is the lead actress. She is just awful. You can't take anything she says seriously because of how poorly she delivers her lines, and her screams are so forced and annoying I was practically rooting for Leatherface to chop her head off. Her relationship with Leatherface is also forced and awkward, but maybe that was the screenwriters' attempt at comedy. There are a couple laughs in this movie, and by that I mean two; three max. Something about the bombastic chainsaw duel is undeniably exhilarating, despite it not being fleshed out to its full potential.

There is some fun to be had in this movie, but you have to suffer through a lot of stupidity to get there. I have no idea how sequels continued coming out after this, and I can even empathize why they would want to make a "sequel reboot" with Texas Chainsaw 3D, but that was even more abominable than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's true sequel - this - and this is pretty darn bad. This movie is for Leatherface completists only.