The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (The Gruesome Edition)

Awesome movie

If you're the type of old school slasher movie fan that has to own the entire collection of fanchises you love, this movie is a must-have! While not as dark or serious as the original TCM, this one knows exactly what it is...a tongue in cheek type of "what the hell are we gonna do next" kind of humor. While Dennis Hopper gives this role his unique touch, you can't help but get the feeling everyone else knew this was a fun project. Bill Mosely's "Chop Top" is NOT to be missed! The movie has been remastered and the picture and sound quality are amazing! For fans of DVD extras, (special features, behind the scenes, outtakes and more), you will not be disappointed!

Great find , excellent add to my collection

Misunderstood by audiences and reviled by critics at the time of its original theatrical release in 1986, Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2" has grown in stature over the years. While the original is the better and more important film of the two, the sequel is actually the one I tend to watch the most. The black comedy and gore are ramped up to the nth degree in this film which caught people off guard back in 1986 as they were expecting more of the minimalistic and bloodless approach of the original film which made it so potent. TCM2 is completely off the rails and one of the wildest rides in horror movie history. TCM2 was released on bare bones DVD back in 2000 but MGM released a special edition DVD edition dubbed The Gruesome Edition in 2006 which did the film's legacy justice. That same edition and HD master was used for the film's bluray release in 2012. For Scream Factory's 2 disc collector's bluray release, they have released what in my eyes is the definitive release of the film. All of the extras from MGM's bluray including the two commentary tracks, the feature length making of documentary, deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer were ported over. New to this collector's edition is a third commentary track, 30 minutes of interview outtakes with the late & great screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson and sadly deceased actor Lou Perryman, still galleries, TV spots, 43 minutes of behind the scenes footage, a special effects featurette called House of Pain, interviews with the actors who played the two yuppies from the beginning of the film, the editor Alain Jakubowicz and stuntman Bob Elmore. Sean Clark also contributes a new episode of his Horror's Hallowed Grounds. Not content to stop there, on disc one you also get a brand new 2K scan from the film's interpositive and on disc two for purists they included the MGM transfer which was approved by the director of photography. How does the new 2K transfer compare? It in my opinion blows the 2012 transfer away! Colors are greatly improved, the print damage seen intermittently in the MGM transfer is gone, fine detail is improved, skin tones look more natural and not as hot and the black crush seen particularly in the 3rd act from the old transfer is gone as well. While I have been critical of some of Scream Factory's past HD transfer attempts for films such as "Mad Max" & "Escape from New York", I can safely say that their new 2K transfer of TCM2 does not disappoint and looks positively amazing. I should mention that the Tobe Hooper early short films included on the region B Arrow Video bluray release which also used the old MGM transfer aren't included in this release. But truly they aren't missed in my eyes and the ample amount of film specific extra content with Scream Factory's release more than make up for their omission. While I usually frown on having to double and in some cases triple dipping my favorite films, it is more than worth it in this case. The new 2K transfer looks positively stunning and the new extras alongside the previous extras make this release truly definitive. Dog will hunt!!

Typically, a sequel tries (to no avail) to outdo its predecessor, with limited success. But sometimes a different take is tried, as is the case here. But the film makers of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" were given a problem from the beginning. More on this later. First of all, the original film, way back in 1974, was a masterpiece of its kind, unlikely to be outdone, as the list of sequels and remakes make obvious, despite the good job done in the Marcus Nispel versions of these films. These are very well-made, but that first one still holds that distinction. For a long time I owned this film (Texas Chainsaw 2) on VHS, and where I didn't think it was very good, I could tell, even on analog tape, that there was something to the visuals I was missing, as a so-so print takes a lot away from it. After some movie talk with fellow movie fans I took the plunge and bought this film on disc (haven't bought or rented very many movies lately; in ages, actually). The extras in the VHS tape were abominable, a waste of tape, really, so I was hoping the disc had something new to offer. It did. I don't need to go on about the story of the film's production, as it is in the extras for you to see, but worth noting in this review, is the final release of this movie is NOT what the writer and director wanted. The production company imposed a quick shooting schedule and yanked $1,000,000 out of the budget, as well as making demands on the writer to change almost everything about what was obviously a very good script. So, the film was being rewritten as it was being filmed, the writer being notified while working on it, that shooting was completed. And where I originally just thought it was a hatchet-job to cash in on the original's success, I was wrong; it was a work of brilliance, coming up with a watchable film after the rug had been pulled out from under them. The story takes place in the northern part of Texas, near the Oklahoma border, far removed from the events of the first film, which was closer to Mexico, as the family moved, possibly to avoid being caught after surviving victim Sally Hardesty's escape, now living a fairly luxurious lifestyle, given where they are living. With one exception, the entire family is portrayed by new actors, but the old dynamic is still there. (spoiler?) The Edwin Neal character, who was killed off at the end of the first film (run over by a cattle truck) is now a puppet and ventriloquist dummy, for lack of a better word, carried around by his possible twin brother (played with wicked abandon by horror film icon Bill Mosely), who was serving in "Nam" at the time; probably drafted, and wounded in combat, hence his severe head injury. Ken Everett is now the grandfather, replacing John Dugan, and he is simply disgusting; the closeup shot of him makes me cringe when I watch, and the family's youngest, Leatherface, is now portrayed by Bill Johnson, as original portrayer Gunnar Hansen passed on the role; the terms of the contract didn't satisfy him, so they got someone else. Johnson's portrayal, at first frenetic and animal-like (think of an angry gorilla), soon tones down, as he develops a crush on the film's heroine, Vanetta "Stretch" Brock, and this is a reversal of his role in the old film; once a genuinely terrifying killing machine, he is now a love-sick, doe-eyed boy who is conflicted. An interesting change of gears, but hard to process. And Jim Siedow is back as Drayton Sawyer, "The Cook," if you will. After all those years of keeping the others in line, he is now very grouchy and extremely short-tempered; remember his usual calm demeanor in the first? Only when things got too crazy did he join in, now he's just as loopy as the rest. And in his own way, he's extremely funny, in high gear throughout. And everybody in the cast and crew simply adored him. Obviously, Jim Siedow was a great guy. Dennis Hopper is over the top as retired law enforcement officer Lefty Enright, a man on a quest, not just to stop an evil rampant in his neck of the woods, but over a personal grudge. The Whiny, wheelchair-bound Franklin from the first installment and his very hot (!) sister Sally were his relatives; he is their uncle, and now he has a score to settle. His final showdown with the Sawyer family is one of the stranger things you'll see, a swordfight with running chainsaws is unique to this film. I don't remember seeing it anywhere else, so that's probably the most original thing in this movie. The set design, true to form is worth seeing, just like in the original film. Where the first was in a farm house, done up to the extreme, the new setting, in their new home, is possibly without peer. Texas Battle Land is a labrynth of mythic proportions. Bottom line, this is a much better film than I remember. I originally thought it was a dud, but, I now humbly say, I was wrong.

La segunda parte de La matanza de Texas, fue concebida desde el principio por Tobe Hooper, como una comedia macabra y sangrienta, cosa que por desgracia gran parte del público no entendió, mas que nada por que la Cannon Films no la quiso vender de esa manera. Estamos ante una locura que tiene como protagonista a Cara de Cuero y su familia, pero sobre todo estamos ante la locura de Denis Hooper, que demuestra en este filme ese animal del escenario que era. Sin duda un filme muy infravalorado y mal-tratado.La edición cumple en cuanto a sonido e imagen, pero sobre todo destaca por traer una verdadera colección de extras, con entrevistas a los actores, audio comentarios, escenas eliminadas etc...Todo por menos 5€ que mas se puede pedir En resumidas cuentas estamos ante una gran película un desvarió total que merece estar en las estanterías de cualquier filmoteca, y sin duda presentada en una edición completa y extraordinaria en relación calidad precio.

Awesome release from Scream that sends MGMs to the slaughterhouse! The 2k scan looks awesome and the 5.1 sound mix sounds awesome. The bonus features are plentiful & they even included MGMs inferior master as well. It’s an odd choice, but if you want an ugly version of it to watch it’s here. Overall, this is a really overlooked sequel that stands well on it’s own because of how different it is compared to the original.

Dizer que "O Massacre da Serra Elétrica" (1974) é um dos melhores e mais importantes longas-metragens não apenas de terror como da história cinematográfica é chover no molhado, entretanto o que nem todos sabem ou concordam é que, apesar de muitas entradas bem ruins e questionáveis, a saga de Leatherface e seu clã de psicopatas canibais texanos possui sim um número relativamente considerável de filmes, no mínimo, tão divertidos quanto a obra-prima original. Criminalmente injustiçado e criticado durante a época de seu lançamento, "O Massacre da Serra Elétrica 2" (1986) felizmente alcançou uma reputação de muito prestígio no decorrer das décadas, tornando-se um clássico cult, cujo legado se tornou tão aclamado quanto aquele que foi estabelecido pelo seu predecessor. Jamais objetivando repetir a mesma proposta hedionda, perturbadora e visceral da fita original de 1974, o saudoso cineasta Tobe Hooper (1943 — 2017) ("Poltergeist: O Fenômeno", "Pague Para Entrar, Reze Para Sair") concebeu um feito que é muito mais do que uma mera sequência e sim, uma deliciosa e sanguinolenta comédia de humor ácido, um projeto que possui uma identidade muito forte e singular e que, apenas por esses atributos tão honestos, já merece o devido apreço. Nunca vou me esquecer da primeira vez que assisti a essa pérola, durante uma madrugada de sábado, no extinto "Cine Sinistro", da Band, em meados de 2002 e definitivamente já perdi as contas de quantas vezes revi esse filme, nunca me enjoo. Sem sombra de dúvidas, esse surto psicótico de mr. Hooper e do roteirista L. M. Kit Carson ("Paris, Texas") me impactou muito positivamente, pois sempre pirei em um bom "terrir"/trasheira de respeito. Todo esse tom mais caricato e burlesco, com destaque para a trilha-sonora desconcertante e sarcástica, que também engloba canções como "Goo Goo Muck" (The Cramps) e "No One Lives Forever" (Oingo Boingo), como o enredo e aspecto visual, além da adição de violência explícita, algo que não existia no filme original, cortesia do "mago do gore/splatter" Tom Savini ("O Despertar dos Mortos" e "Sexta-Feira 13") e claro, os inesquecíveis Dennis Hopper (1936 — 2010), Jim Siedow (1920 — 2003) e o divertidíssimo Bill Moseley e suas atuações deliciosamente exageradas e que caem como uma luva para essa produção, absolutamente tudo isso muito me agrada e torna este longa o meu segundo preferido da franquia, ao lado da imbatível obra-prima setentista. Por fim, essa edição lançada pela Scream Factory é um deleite, apresentando dois discos, uma infinidade de extras, capa reversível, além de um slipcase igualmente estonteante. Sem dúvida alguma, merece figurar na prateleira de todos os aficionados de plantão.

This is a good story that follows years after the original film. One of the best classic movies I like watching.

Esta película tiene un toque retorcido muy diferente de la original pero muy funcional, recomendable para seguidores del género.