It’s complicated…
I had a bad night sometime in ’98. The kind of bad night you can only have when you’re in your mid-20s, tragically angsty, heartbroken, tipsy… and you end up wandering into a 24 hour video store at 1 AM on a Saturday looking for something to dull the existential pain. The shelves were devoid of my then-usual art-house go-tos, but I spotted this thing in the new releases.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995) starred a bunch of mostly-unknowns, I may have recognized the writer of the original TCM Kim Henkel as the brains behind this… reboot? The reversible box art was charming and it had been a while since I got my leatherface on. It seemed like a harmless way to pass the time and wait for the dawn chorus, so I took it home with me.
Maybe it was the beer goggles, but I had a wickedly wild romp with Renee and Matthew.
But… is it a good movie?
Does it matter? I’ve spent many a night in the company of flicks with questionable or loose virtue, so I rarely let quality get in the way of a good time. TCM:TNG turned that sad, pathetic evening into a fun party of one with a hot mess of a movie that didn’t judge. And that was exactly what I needed. So when I hear about how terrible this movie is, and I’m sure it is, all I remember is that one time when it was there for me.
Once in a while I spot it on the shelf and we exchange awkward glances, but it knows it holds a special place in my heart. -Pop