Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Original 1994 poster
Directed by	Kim Henkel
Produced by	Robert Kuhn Kim Henkel
Written by	Kim Henkel
Based on	Characters created by Kim Henkel Tobe Hooper
Starring	Renée Zellweger Matthew McConaughey Robert Jacks Tonie Perensky Joe Stevens Lisa Newmyer Tyler Gone John Harrison James Gale
Music by	Wayne Bell Robert Jacks
Cinematography	Levie Isaacks
Edited by	Sandra Adair
Production company	Genre Pictures Return Productions Ultra Muchos Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures New Line Cinema
Release dates	October 7, 1994 (1994-10-07) August 29, 1997 (1997-08-29) (US; limited)
Running time	94 minutes (original version) 87 minutes (re-release)
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$600,000
Box office	$185,898[1]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (originally The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and also known as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4) is a 1994 independent American comedy slasher film written and directed by Kim Henkel, and starring Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey. The plot follows four teenagers who encounter Leatherface and his maniacal family in backwoods Texas on the night of their prom. The film is a sequel to Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990), and is the fourth installment in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. Kim Henkel had previously co-written the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) with Tobe Hooper. The events of the previous two sequel films are addressed in the The Next Generation's opening prologue as "two minor, yet apparently related incidents" which happened after the events of the original film.

It was released at several film festivals under the title The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1994 before being shelved for three years. The film was re-cut and released under the title Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation in late summer 1997, after Zellweger and McConaughey had both become major Hollywood stars.

Plot

Four teenagers—Jenny, Heather, Barry, and Sean—are celebrating during their senior prom. Heather finds Barry, her boyfriend, making out with another girl and attempts to drive away in his car alongside Jenny and Sean. After Barry eventually gains access into the car, Heather scolds him angrily. Not paying attention to the road, she crashes into another driver, who passes out in the ensuing confusion. The four decide that Sean look after the driver, while the others look for help. Heather, Barry, and Jenny discover a rural real estate office occupied by Darla, an insurance agent, who calls up her boyfriend Vilmer, a tow truck driver, to help them. Meanwhile, Heather and Barry are separated from Jenny.

Vilmer eventually arrives at the scene of the crash, where he snaps the driver's neck and chases Sean in his pickup, eventually running him over. Meanwhile, Heather and Barry come across a dilapidated farmhouse. Barry goes inside to use the bathroom with the approval of Walter, Vilmer's brother. While waiting on the porch, Heather is captured by Leatherface, who stuffs her inside a meat locker. Meanwhile, Barry discovers human remains in the bathroom, just as he is bludgeoned to death by Leatherface. Afterwards, he removes Heather from the meat locker and hangs her on a meathook.

Jenny returns to the crash site and meets Vilmer, who shows her the bodies of Sean and the driver, and then chases her in his truck, but she escapes into the woods. She is then attacked by Leatherface, wielding a chainsaw; after a long chase, Jenny retreats back to Darla's office, begging for help. However, Walter, Darla's accomplice, arrives and subdues Jenny, and they take her to the family home. After an unsuccessful escape attempt, Jenny falls unconscious and awakens at a dinner table with the family. They are joined by a mysterious Rothman, who criticizes the family and makes an idle threat to Vilmer before leaving. In response, a furious Vilmer crushes Heather's skull.

Jenny tries to escape, but is held down by Vilmer as Leatherface prepares to behead her. However, she manages to dislocate Vilmer's knee and escapes. Fleeing to the main road, Jenny is helped by an elderly couple, but their RV is turned over by Vilmer and Leatherface, forcing Jenny to keep running. Eventually, an airplane operated by one of Rothman's colleagues swoops over head and grazes Vilmer's skull with its blade, killing him. A black limousine appears, and Jenny enters it only to discover Rothman inside. Rothman tells Jenny that her experience was supposed to be spiritual, but that it went awry and that Vilmer had to be stopped. She is dropped off at a hospital, where police question her.

Cast

* indicates cameo

Production

In developing the film, Robert Kuhn stated:

I wanted to go back to the original, and [Kim] did, too. We agreed on that right off. And the first major thing was getting him to write the script. I raised the money to get it written, and for us to start trying to put this thing together. Then we went out to the American Film Market in LA and talked to a bunch of people about financing. At that point I'd raised some money, but not nearly enough to make the film, and we looked at the possibilities of making a deal with a distributor. But I knew there wasn't any hope of us making one we could live with. There never is. Kim would say, 'Hey, so-and-so is interested, and it might be a deal we can live with.' So we'd talk to 'em and I'd ask three or four hard questions, and I'd just kind of look over at Kim and he'd say 'Yeah.' Then I'd go back and start trying to raise some more money. I just started going to everybody I knew and I got it in bits and pieces, wherever I could.^[2]

The movie was filmed on location at an abandoned farmhouse in Pflugerville, Texas and nearby Bastrop^[2] in 1994 on a budget of $600,000.^[3] The majority of the cast and crew were locals from Austin, aside from David Gale, a stage actor from Houston.^[2]

Release

The film had a very rough and complicated release history, including re-editing and re-issue into cinemas (thus the film has different versions and alternate titles). The process occasioned disputes between the filmmakers and distributors at Columbia Pictures.

After a lengthy post-production—wrapped up in 1994—the film screened at the South by Southwest Film and Media Conference in 1995,^[4] and later that year the film saw its first home video release in the form of a LaserDisc released in Japan.^[5] Prior to this, during the film's post-production stage, Columbia Pictures reportedly signed to distribute the film theatrically (along with its home-video release) in October 1995, and agreed to spend no less than $500,000 on prints and advertising.^[6] The company subsequently had the film re-edited numerous times, and changed the title from its original production-title, The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. According to producer Robert Kuhn, Columbia Pictures pushed the film back to await the release of star Renée Zellweger's new film, Jerry Maguire (1996), which the filmmakers had no problem with. Matthew McConaughey's agent then purportedly put "pressure" on Columbia Pictures to not release the film theatrically, which caused complications between Henkel and the company. The film-makers had also considered releasing through Cinepix Film Properties back in 1993.

In a 1997 interview with The Austin Chronicle, Robert Kuhn stated that:

Eventually, the film reached the big screen in a limited release in under 20 U.S. cities^[7] under a collaboration of Columbia Pictures and Cinepix Film Properties on August 29, 1997, in an edited version, and under the title Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. The subsequent home-video releases also occurred through Columbia Pictures. The film was released by Sony Pictures on VHS in September 1998, and on DVD on July 13, 1999. The original Columbia/Tristar DVD release has since been reissued with alternative cover art.

Critical reception

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation received mostly negative reviews.^[8] Mike Clark of USA Today called it "The kind of cinematic endeavor where you suspect both cast and crew were obligated to bring their own beer,"^[9] while Owen Gleiberman wrote in Entertainment Weekly that the film "recapitulates the absurdist tabloid-redneck comedy of the great, original Chainsaw without a hint of its primal terror."^[10] Janet Maslin of The New York Times said: "It was way back in 1995 that this schlocky horror farce, then known as "Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre," first appeared with the unknown actors Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger in starring roles. But even in a film whose principal props include litter, old pizza slices and a black plastic trash bag, it's clear that these two were going places."^[11]

The film did receive some positive reviews, however: John Anderson of the Los Angeles Times referred to the film as "[a] giddy mix of gruesome horror and campy humor," while Joe Leydon of Variety said the film "manages the difficult feat of being genuinely scary and sharply self-satirical all at once... it is adept at keeping its audience in a constant state of jumpiness." He also lauded Zellweger's performance, calling her "the most formidable scream queen since Jamie Lee Curtis went legit."^[12] The Austin Chronicle also gave the film a positive review, stating: "Writer-director Kim Henkel penned the original Chainsaw and this effort shows that he still has a felicitous grasp of the things that cause us to shudder in dread."^[13]

The movie was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for "The Sequel Nobody Was Clamoring For".^[14]

Soundtrack

Der Einziger Weg Cover.

The film's sound-track featured many local Texan bands, and never got a full CD release. However, star Robert Jacks, a friend of Blondie's Debbie Harry, produced a song with Harry titled (in incorrect German) Der Einziger Weg (English: The Only Way; the correct German title would be "Der einzige Weg")—a single written for and featured in the film. The song was released by Eco-Disaster Music in 1997 as a single on Compact Disc, featuring Debbie Harry on the cover with a portrait of Jacks as Leatherface, featured in his three costumes, on the wall behind her.

References

External links

• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation at the Internet Movie Database
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation at Rotten Tomatoes
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation at AllMovie