"When he [Fede Álvarez] told me, Listen David, you need to push things. You really need to show the audience some violent kills. You need to be creative. You really need not to hold back on the blood. I really took that lesson to heart." - David Blue Garcia, Director

David Blue Garcia, Director

On February 18th, 2022, Netflix releases the followup to the 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yes! This is a sequel.

In the original, the Tobe Hooper‘s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her brother and friends go to investigate vandalism at her grandfather’s grave. Soon they find themselves picking up a strange man, The Hitchhiker (Edwin Neal), which sets the wheels turning about a family that worked in slaughterhouse in a town that was abandoned by an industry. A dried up town that has no gas at the pumps. In search of a local swimming hole Sally’s friends come upon a house where they start getting brutally killed off by the iconic Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen). Looking for her friends we get that famous “The Shorts Scene,” where Sally walks towards the house that will terrorize her and the audience.

In the original, the Tobe Hooper‘s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her brother and friends go to investigate vandalism at her grandfather’s grave. Soon they find themselves picking up a strange man, The Hitchhiker (Edwin Neal), which sets the wheels turnnning about a family that worked in slaughterhouse in a town that was abandoned by an industry. A dried up town that has no gas at the pumps. In search of a local swimming hole Sally’s friends come upon a house where they start getting brutally killed off by the iconic Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen). Looking for her friends we get that famous “The Shorts Scene“, where Sally walks towards the house that will terrorize her and the audience.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is that film that had trouble finding a distributor. It was edited down for a PG rating but still got an R rating, the film got banned in several countries, and theaters started refusing to show the movie because of the film’s violence. Yet The Texas Chainsaw Massacre became one of the most influential horror movies of all time.

After 50 years, following the nostalgic trend of Hollywood the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we find Leatherface (Mark Burnham) dawning a new human skin mask and breaking out his old rusty chainsaw to get sweet revenge on the new kids on the block. But standing in his way of carnage is Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré), and she wants nothing but REVENGE!!! Latin Horror got to see an advance screening of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and all I can say is “the film captures the terrifying and brutal essence of Leatherface. Horror fans will be pleased with the nostalgic connection to the original and be hyped for the ultra bloodshed the film delivers. This film feels like a genuine horror flick all the way till the end.“

As soon as Latin Horror found out that three Latinos were reviving the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, we knew we had to interview the trio. So Netflix was kind enough to setup one-on-ones with director David Blue Garcia, cinematographer Ricardo Diaz, and producer Fede Álvarez. We got to chat to them about the pressures of reviving a horror classic, gentrification and post-traumatic stress disorder, trying to capture that “grindhouse feel,” planning out the gore and much much more.