It took a long time for me to realize the similarities between the movie posters for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 and The Breakfast Club, which was strange as I tend to be fairly observant about things like that and I was a fan of both films at the time. When I finally did realize this, it took me a bit longer to see these films were different takes on the same subject. A good way to describe it is that one is about the pressures one faces trying to live up to the person your family expects you to be, and the other one has Molly Ringwald in it.
I'm not going to spend this article comparing these two films, it really wouldn't be that interesting. Instead I'm going to talk about how this film that is so heavily flawed, is the best sequel this franchise has ever produced. I thoroughly enjoyed some of the later sequels. Some were even arguably better films than Part 2, but as a sequel, this was the only one that got the characters right — specifically the family, who are given the name of Sawyer in this film. I believe this can largely be attributed to Tobe Hooper being in charge of this movie and not any of the others. He and co-creator of the first film, Kim Henkel, actually get the characters, though Kim would not revisit the franchise until two sequels later, and really, that was a different family. That film will be discussed in due time.
This is a very different film than the first one, making it difficult to compare the two. The original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a horror film with some subtle dark comedy, while Part 2 is a dark comedy wrapped in horror and gore. The constant between the two films is the family. We catch up with these familiar characters over a decade later, so naturally their situation will be a bit different and some of the dynamics will have changed. It's the same family though, even if only one is played by the same actor, so let's dig into some good barbecue with the Sawyer family...
Prime Meat
It's no secret that I am a stickler for good continuity in my horror franchises. Obviously I am often disappointed if not left feeling completely betrayed by most sequels in this genre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 does a pretty good job though. When we last left the Sawyer family, one member had been run over by a truck and Leatherface had been injured by his own saw. Unfortunately, no acknowledgement is given to the saw injury, but the Hitchhiker character is presented in all his ran-over-by-a-truck glory.
The Hitchhiker wasn't given a name in the first film, but here his family affectionately calls him "Nubbins" though it's not clear if this is just a nickname. He's not alive anymore. Nubbins is now a desiccated corpse carried around by his brothers, most often by his twin brother. His twin, credited as "Chop-Top", a name related to the metal plate in his head where he was struck with a machete, was in Vietnam during the events of the first film. He is his own character, but has many similarities to his twin, so he basically carries the Nubbins torch... and also carries Nubbins.
Chop-Top seems to share his brother's artistic nature. He claims that music is his life, but he has a flair for the visual arts too. The first film showcased the work of Nubbins, with his bone sculptures and furniture, but Chop-Top creates entire life-sized dioramas in the long corridors of their lair. From people at the beach to a recreation of an iconic scene from Doctor Strangelove, the decor in the corridors is really an amazing visual experience.
Drayton, or the "old man" or "cook" if you prefer, really shines in this film. His character has grown since the first film. He's more involved in the hunting and killing, a hungrier businessman, and he has taken being the public face of the Sawyer family to a whole new level by entering chili cook-offs and the like. Before, Drayton was the one barely holding the family together, now he is running an entire family business from a lair beneath an amusement park.
Drayton plus Chop-Top is a recipe for success. The dynamic between the two (three if you count Chop-Top's channeling of Nubbins) provides some of the better comedic moments of this film. Much of it is going on in the background and you have to listen for it, but the best moments break through into the main action. Chop-Top's imitation of Drayton ranting about chasing that dollar is pure gold.
When Drayton is finally confronted by Lefty, one of the film's main protagonists, we get to see Drayton as he sees himself. In Drayton's mind, he is simply a small business man trying to compete with the big boys, and he knows he's fighting for his livelihood. In the first film, he was a little concerned about the cost of electricity being enough to drive a man out of business, but now he's really got his mind on his money.
There's a certain level of paranoia with Drayton now. Naturally, if you're hunting and killing people for food, you're going to be a little concerned with being found out, but here we see a paranoia not quite grounded in reality. Perhaps the cannibalism has begun to affect him and the others mental health. This is not unheard of, as prion diseases cause mental degeneration and can be caused by such things as eating someone's brain tissue. This is actually addressed in one of the quasi-sequels, but that's a discussion for another time.
It is interesting that they decided to bring back Grandpa for this film. Now at 137 years old, we have to accept that he somehow survived the move to the new location, and even appears more lively than before. Perhaps it's due to his special liquid diet. There's not really much that can be done to evolve Grandpa's character, but the reverence the family shows for their elder is still strong. They sing a little song for him as he's brought to the dinner table, and Drayton is concerned for Grandpa's health, warning his brothers to be careful so as not to "ball up his shit."
The more important role that Grandpa has here, is to provide a link to older generations of the family. The film ends up in an area of the hideout dubbed "chainsaw heaven" where Great-Grandma is kept. In the first film, we saw a deceased Grandma seated next to Grandpa, and while she doesn't appear on-screen in this film, Great-Grandma is in a similar condition. This opens up new possibilities for the back-story of the family. It didn't start with Grandpa, though it may have started during Grandpa's lifetime, it went back at least one more generation. In her position of ultimate reverence here, it suggests that either she brought the family to their cannibalistic ways, or she was just the oldest surviving corpse in the family's possession. Either way, this has been going on for a considerable amount of time.
Those Hard-shelled Peppercorns...
I haven't gotten around to Leatherface yet, and that's because his character development is perhaps the weakest of the bunch. There is some development of his character, but also some things are missing. Emotionally, Leatherface is moving into adolescence. He's out having fun with his older brother and developing an interest in girls. The problem is that this would appear to be his only persona. Previously his persona would change with the face he was wearing. He went from butcher, to housewife, to pretty woman. In this film he only has one face he wears and thus only one persona. I'm not sure if this is just the film makers being lazy or if there are more subtle points being made. This uncertainty makes me list this as a flaw, because I tend to default to laziness being the explanation.
The face changing the persona isn't touched upon again until the fourth film, which is kind of it's own thing, so I won't base any theories upon it, so perhaps there is a simple explanation. Since Leatherface was in a sort of childlike state of mind, the different faces might be a way he plays dress-up. Now, since he is emotionally more mature, he has outgrown that. Alternately, the mask he wears in this film might just be a "little brother" face and he just doesn't change it while these events happen. Again, I'm leaning toward laziness on the part of the film makers.
The mask itself is another flaw. No disrespect to Tom Savini, who did the special effects in this film, he is truly a master of his craft, but the mask in this film doesn't look like it was made of human flesh, it looks like it was made by Tom Savini. It's a well sculpted creation, but too well sculpted. Much of the appeal of the first film for me was that I got the sense that the human remains in the film looked like actual human remains. They got a lot of those right in this film too, but the Leatherface mask just didn't sell it for me.
There was one special effect that really stands out as poorly executed, and that was the chainsaw through the gut. Leatherface obviously isn't thin, but to get the effect to work, they added a lot more girth to his mid-section for that part of the scene and it is grossly noticeable. It also detracts from any sense of realism, as these are not superhuman characters that keep getting back up again after what appears to be a mortal injury, this is just a bizarre family out in rural Texas. To have a chainsaw go through the character's body and have him still keep fighting is an eye roll inducing moment, even for a campy film like this.
The Saw is Family
The family aspect of the original remains strong in the sequel. Through both of these films we see a close, though dysfunctional, family unit in which the individuals genuinely care about each other even though they may argue and abuse each other. This is the last time we see this particular version of the Sawyers, and unfortunately the last time we see this family bond. Future installments in the franchise would completely change the family or at least heavily revise it.
In the next installment, the family is larger and contains some memorable characters, but that becomes the problem as they feel more like a collection of characters than a real family. The fourth film's version of the family is, well... nobody knows. None of the films that followed got it right. Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is the one true sequel. Even with its flaws, this is the continuation, and apparent conclusion, of the story began in 1974. All future installments, even if they ignore all the others that came in between, take liberties with the continuity set in the first film.
By all appearances, the Sawyers meet their doom in the end of this film. However, in a sequel that was never completed that was to be called An All American Massacre, Chop-Top was to have been shown to survive and made to answer for his crimes. It seems unlikely that film will ever be completed so until he appears on screen once more we can only speculate on his fate. The rest were either disemboweled or blown up by a grenade, therefore the next film had no choice but to ignore at least one element of this film to continue the story of Leatherface in Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.