Also see After TCM: Cannibal see, Cannibal do
Sometimes dubbed "Leatherface in Love," Tobe Hooper‘s second chapter smartly skews toward a near-slapstick parody of his first flick.
The Texas Longhorns are set to meet the Oklahoma Sooners in the fabled Cotton Bowl, but on the way there, a couple yuppie Longhorns rile the wrong pair of homicidal-maniac brothers along the highway. Only the college kids just happen to be crank yanking a radio station at the time, so their deaths are broadcast clean to Oklahoma (as it WAS a clear night).
The chick deejay (Caroline Williams) freaks out, but nobody but Dennis Hopper believes her story. He plays the Texas Ranger uncle of Franklin and Sally Hardesty, who’s spent 14 years on the Leatherface family’s trail. There’s not a whole heckuvalot of plot getting in the way of Tom Savini‘s glorious grue.
Basically, Leatherface shows up at the radio station with the idea of ventilating Stretch, the deejay, but instead he turns sorta sweet on her — in a sputtering, quasi-masturbatory scene that ribs feminism’s view of the chainsaw as a toothy phallic substitute.
Anyway, toward the final reel, Hopper holsters a couple chainsaws himself and heads out to the subterranean lair of cannibal chili champ Drayton Sawyer (the original’s Jim Siedow) and his killer kin to whup up on them in the style they’re most accustomed.
But Bill Moseley steals the movie as the big guy’s Vietnam vet brother. Ol’ Chop Top has a steel plate in his head, which remains exposed, mostly because he enjoys snacking on tiny toasted morsels of his own scalp. Otherwise, he’s a charmer. And yes, even at 137, Grandpa is still the life of the dinner party as he feebly attempts to crack Stretch over the head with a hammer just like last time.
No breasts. Eight corpses. Coat-hanger fiddling. Mailbox abuse. One french-fry cabin. Loogie hocking. One Sonny Bono wig. Gratuitous hymn singing. Hiney sawing. Mr. Hopper wages holy war: "I’M THE LORD OF THE HARVEST!!!"