Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez has confirmed that the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie that will premiere this year is not a sequel to the franchise. Instead, the producer of the upcoming horror film said it is a “direct sequel” to the 1974 film and will welcome back the original villain.
“It is a direct sequel, and it is the same character,” Alvarez told Slash Film. “It is Old Man Leatherface.”
The less-than-satisfying 2013 movie Texas Chainsaw, originally Texas Chainsaw 3D, was also considered a “direct sequel,” but Alvarez has proven that he can take an existing horror franchise and freshen it up. As a director, he did that in 2013 with Evil Dead. He also created the very effective horror movie, Don’t Breathe, in 2016.
For the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alvarez focused on his role as producer while David Blue Garcia, who usually works as a cinematographer, took the reigns as director after the film’s original directors, Ryan and Andy Tohill, left the project over creative differences. Alvarez says he wanted to take an ageless approach to the storytelling.
“Everything is classic, old-school gags—a lot of the approach that we had with Evil Dead: never VFX, to do everything on camera,” he said. “It’s a very old-school approach to filmmaking. Vintage lenses…It’s very similar to the original film.”
Prior to this upcoming film, the last installment in the franchise was 2017’s Leatherface. The new film stars Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Moe Dunford (TV’s Vikings) and Sarah Yarkin (Happy Death Day 2U).