Yet Another Texas Chainsaw Reboot Is On The Way

Yet Another Texas Chainsaw Reboot Is On The Way

Reboots of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are like Leatherface’s masks. They pop on and off over the face of the original film, again and again.

After reboots/reimaginings in 2003 and 2013, which spawned several sequels and prequels in between, Variety reports that directors Andy and Ryan Tohill have been hired by Legendary to do yet another new reboot of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 cult classic. Chris Thomas Devlin will write and it’ll be produced by Fede Alvarez.

If you don’t know any of those names, producer Alvarez directed the recent Evil Dead remake as well as Don’t Breathe. But Devlin has yet to have a script produced and the Tohills have just one feature to their name, a 2018 film called The Dig. So, this new Texas Chainsaw will be very much in the spirit of the original film in that it’ll be made mostly by relative newcomers.

“The [Tohills’] vision is exactly what the fans want,” Alvarez said in a statement obtained by Variety. “It’s violent, exciting, and so depraved that it will stay with you forever.”

We can only hope that’s the truth, because while the 2003 reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre was mostly successful, recent attempts like 2013’s Texas Chainsaw 3D have been less than that. Many of these versions forget why the original film was so terrifying. It’s not the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface, though he’s obviously scary-as-shit and the most recognisable character. It’s Leatherface’s disturbing family and living situation, and how the discovery of that is slowly played out over the course of the film.

If this new film captures some of that but also updates it in some way maybe it’ll work. But it has a long road ahead.