A young woman dies whilst giving birth at her place of work which is a slaughterhouse. Her unscrupulous boss dumps the newborn child in an industrial wastebin outside where he is discovered and rescued by Luda Mae Hewitt who names the child Thomas…And that’s as much as I can bear to type.

I hate prequels. I especially hate horror prequels of films that work because they contain more than just a little bit of mystery which keeps things interesting and makes the audience fill in the gaps.

Prequels are a modern cancer within cinema. Whilst I don’t think they obliterate the kudos of a recognised classic, they still have a bloody good try.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an unnecessary prequel to one such classic. Over explaining everything is the direct opposite of mystery.

This is more of the same multiplex horror cinema culture for dummies. It’s big, loud, gory and painful (on every level) and has the same look as every other other horror film of the era it was made in (it’s a Platinum Dunes monstrosity). It has the cinematic nutritional value of having a Big Mac and fries (except I enjoy that).

Does this film diminish the original TCM? No.

But did my heart sink when I saw Vortex/Henkel/Hooper as part of the credits? Yes. One consolation for them though- the film was massively lucrative at the box office. Maybe this was their payday proper after the bad deal they accepted after the distribution of the original film.

1 out of 5 stars