- Directed by David Blue Garcia
- Written by Chris Thomas Devlin, Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
- Stars Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Jacob Latimore
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 21 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcI6SFiKyk
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a continuation of the 1974 original. Survivor Sally is back, and so is Leatherface. It’s quite different from the original, but it’s pretty good in a modern kind of way with a much bigger budget. If you haven’t seen the original, you don’t have to first. But it would probably be interesting for you to see it afterward.
Synopsis
We hear the voiceover from the introduction to the 1974 film. We hear that Sally Hardesty was the lone survivor of the story, and we get an artist’s rendition of Leatherface, who was never caught. It’s one of Texas’s most famous unsolved murders.
Melody, Lila, Ruth, and Dante are on the way to Harlow, and the gas station man says he knows all about them. Lila and Melody are very much anti-gun, and they insult one of the locals who’s carrying.
The sheriff pulls over their car. The sheriff says he’s gonna keep an eye out for them, and protect the town. The town of Harlow is a ghost town, and Dante has plans to literally buy and renovate the whole thing.
Rochester, the guy with the gun, turns out to be their contractor. He thinks the young people are some kind of cult, but they say they’re just idealistic.
They go into one of the buildings and find an old woman living there. “You’re the new neighbors, aren’t you?” Mrs. MC has run the local orphanage for decades. Melody says that the bank repossessed the entire town months ago.
Mrs. MC gets upset and “the last of my boys” comes to the top of the stairs. He’s big and scary-looking. The sheriff and deputy come in to lead the old woman away. Ruth goes off with the ambulance after the old woman has a heart attack.
The busload of investors arrives, and banker Catherine is impressed.
The old woman dies in the ambulance, and her big, silent son gets upset and snaps the deputy’s arm in two then stabs him in the neck with the jagged bones. This goes badly for everyone in the ambulance. Ruth, who isn’t dead, sees the big man cut off his mother’s face and put it on over his own… She makes a call for help on the radio before she is killed.
Lila talks to Rochester about him being a nihilist. He doesn’t know what that is; he’s a Texan. He shows her his guns. She’s never shot one before, but she has been shot at in a mass shooting. When Melody hears that the old lady died, she gets upset and tells Lila that they’re leaving.
The man in the gas station hears Ruth’s final radio call and phones Sally Hardesty to tell her that Leatherface is on the loose again. Sally’s a ranger now, and she’s been hunting Leatherface for decades.
Richter takes the keys to the bus and the other vehicles; he wants proof that they own the old woman’s building. Dante looks for it, but it’s not there. “Please tell me we didn’t kick that woman out of her own house.” They go looking for the deed in the dead woman’s house. Melody finds the deed in the old woman’s desk— she was right!
Leatherface also returns to the old house and kills Dante as Melody looks on. He notices the crowd outside near the bus and gets enraged again. He knocks a hole in the bedroom wall, uncovering his hidden chainsaw.
Dante, who still isn’t dead, wanders outside where Catherine and Richter find him. Richter pulls his gun; he’s got some idea of what’s happening. He and Leatherface fight, but Leatherface is huge and has a hammer.
Lila gets tired of waiting in the bus and goes looking for Melody. Melody takes the bus keys from Richter’s cold, dead hands, which are about the only recognizable part of him left. Leatherface soon starts chasing Melody around with his chainsaw. She runs into Lila and they run down the street to the bus.
They give the bus driver the keys. The bus driver soon loses his head. Leatherface boards the bus, and everyone sees him. It’s like dismembering fish in a barrel (or something like that).
Lila flashes back to the school shooting, and she and Melody hide in the bathroom as everyone else on the bus is killed. They narrowly escape through a skylight and run away. They run into Sally, who lets them into her car. “Fifty years I’ve been waiting for this night.”
Sally goes inside and confronts Leatherface, who has no idea who she is. Lila thinks death has followed her here. Sally stabs Leatherface, but he impales her with his chainsaw.
Lila overcomes her fear of guns but still doesn’t know how to turn the safety off. Sally, on the other hand, can still shoot. Sally warns Lila, “Don’t run— he’ll never stop haunting you.” Then she dies as she hands a loaded shotgun to Lila.
Lila follows Leatherface into the old abandoned movie theater. Meanwhile, Melody tries to get out of Sally’s crashed car, but her leg has been impaled.
Eventually, the two girls team up to show Leatherface who’s really the toughest. Later Lila finds Sally’s old-times picture and cowboy hat and puts it on.
But at least Leatherface is dead, and he’ll never be seen again. Right?
Commentary
OK, so this isn’t a reboot; this is a continuation of the first (1974) film. It’s a completely different story, and they don’t try to do the same thing again. Still, there’s not much connection to the original here other than the chainsaw and the overall look of the villain. The house, the butchery, and the family from the original are all forgotten here.
This one brings back the character of Sally, who’s waited fifty years for her revenge on the monster who terrorized her in the 70s. It’s exactly the same plot as “Halloween Ends.” This one, however, didn’t have the pressure of ending a long-awaited trilogy, so it actually fares better.
I was entertained. It wasn’t awesome, but I didn’t hate it.