This movie starts with a voice-over explaining the plot of the first movie, saying Sally Hardesty survived the trauma of her friends & brother, Franklin being killed by a psycho family. She collapsed into catatonia while the police searched for this crazy family but they were never found. Meanwhile people were talking about it and people were still disappearing around Texas. This is supposed to be a follow-up to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 10 years ago. It starts with a couple of real preppy knuckleheads who are driving through Texas for a big college football game. One is wearing silly gag glasses and shooting at all road signs while the other decided to call a local radio station. Stretch is the local DJ, played by Caroline Williams, and she's playing a very eclectic mix of rock and new wave on the station. They make a lot of noise and say a lot of silly stuff so she asks them to hang up and give other people a chance to call. They don't of course, thus setting up the first guys you can't wait to see get killed.

Unfortunately for Stretch, they stay on the phone so she gets to hear the buzz of the chainsaw and their screams as they get chased by Leatherface. This was an interesting scene, with the preppies driving straight while the Leatherface truck drove backwards beside them. The driver gets the top of his head cut off in a very nasty scene, yuck! I must admit it looked good though.

This brings in the character of Lieutenenant 'Lefty' Enright, who's the uncle of Sally & Franklin, victims from the first movie. He's at the police scene of he crashed car but is chased off by the police. An article about him chasing this phantom family who kills their victims with chainsaws, is written with derision since this family has never been found. Stretch goes to see him with a tape of the killings but Lefty wants no part of her. He goes to a chainsaw place and buys himself a few then goes to the radio station and asks that she play the tape on the air.

So she plays the tape every hour on the air, prompting the attention of the murderous family, who come to the radio station and attack. I must say this was the oddest scene of the film, using a chainsaw as a phallic extension is quite unusual. The guy playing Leatherface, while no Gunnar Hansen, was entertaining in his own right. His Leatherface seemed a little crazed with lust, as he did lots of suggestive things with his chainsaw.

But I think the guy having the most fun was Bill Mosely, who played Chop Top. I'm assuming Chop Top is what became of the Hitchhiker from Texas 1- he had a lot of his same scenery chewing mannerisms though his habits were quite disgusting, like eating the dead skin that surrounded the plate in his head. He starts shouting “Nam flashback! flashback!” so I guess some kind of way he got drafted. He was quite funny in his lunacy and his make-up was disgusting (I mean that in a good way).

He & Leatherface basically tear up the radio station, while he beats the crap out of Stretch's engineer with a hammer. Leatherface lets him think he killed Stretch as they leave the station, taking the engineer's body with them. Stretch jumps into her car to follow them, which leads them to a place called Battle Land, which seems to be a place that celebrates the Alamo. Lefty follows along too but of course Stretch gets caught and has to be rescued.

This is a problem I had with the movie-when we first meet Stretch, she seems to be a strong woman. Hey, she went to Dennis Hopper's hotel room alone-that's brave! But once in he company of Leatherface, she turns into a screaming, cowering woman. There's a nasty scene where Leatherface skins the engineer then puts his face on Stretch. Really nasty.... We get that staple scene that seems to be in all the TCM films-tying the woman up at the kitchen table then having Grandpa try to hit the victim with a hammer to the base of the skull.

Meanwhile Dennis going through their structure cutting down posts and pillars. He finds the body of Franklin, still in his wheelchair clutching his flashlight (WHAT? - Martin) and his vow of vengeance gets renewed. We get an interesting showdown of man with chainsaw versus man with chainsaw that gets pretty nasty. The film ends with a twist on the first movie's ending.

I read a remark where someone said this film was better than the first because this had more of a storyline to it. I don't know if I agree-this one did have more of a story but it's a bit bloodier and more graphic than the first. I thought the first one had more shocking scenes that forced you to use your imagination (and that's always worse than what you actually SEE)

I chose this as a SEQUELCIDE entry simply because we really didn't need a follow-up to the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre-though this one is well acted and has a good storyline.