Sequel to Hooper’s notorious 1974 horror classic. Demented ex-Texas Ranger ‘Lefty’ Enright (Dennis Hopper) has spent the intervening years tracking down Leatherface and family, and finally gets to meet them when they target a female DJ.

Hooper’s sequel was made as part of a deal with Golan and Globus, and has a much larger budget and production values than the original. The presence of Hopper would seem to add respectability, until you remember where his career was at the time. Not many famous actors would have to be waving chainsaws around quite so enthusiastically. However the standout performance is from Caroline Williams as the tough DJ.  The rest of the cast gibber endlessly, as if they’d never been away.

Hooper and writer Kit Carson go for a sort of slapstick comedy, but the gore is so extreme that you’re very unlikely to laugh. There is a fairly neat subtext about commercialism and the exploitation of Texan history, but again I don’t expect many of the target audience would have noticed.

It’s better than you’ve probably heard (it got a lot of criticism from the fan-boy press for not using Gunnar Hansen for Leatherface, although it does have a brief Joe Bob Briggs cameo), but lacks the single-mindedness of the original. Hooper can hardly be accused of selling out, and anyone expecting the shock impact of the original probably hasn’t noticed how the world’s moved on.

Mild Peril Rating:

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