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Not being a fan of the original movie (I actually find it to be an extremely tedious affair), I avoided the sequels like the plague.  I saw the recent remake and was pleasantly surprised, I had a good time with it.  Still, I had no desire to re-watch the original nor view any of the sequels.  Then, one day, one of my friends bought The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and made me watch it.  Once again, I was pleasantly surprised.  I enjoyed that movie a great deal.  In fact, we watched it twice in a row.

So, a year or two passed, and I read a recap of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 at 1000misspenthours.com.  He didn't seem to like it too much.  However, something mentioned in his recap made me want to see the movie as soon as possible: the car chase in reverse.  That sounded so deliciously stupid I just had to see the movie right away.

So I got the movie and watched it.  All the way through.  And I said, "Wow."

This thing qualifies as a hidden treasure in my book, not because it is difficult to find but because it is so universally hated that you'd never think to give it a look.

The first few minutes really are so bad I can understand why the average viewer might just turn it off right around 6 min, 38 sec.  But, then, a little bit later, comes the reverse car chase.  This is when the movie caught my attention and, for the most part, didn't let go.

Yeah, it goes without mentioning that the chase is incredibly stupid for many reasons.  However, it looks really cool.  Leatherface dancing inside the cadaver costume, the sparks when he saws the car apart, and the overall lighting and mood of the scene are simply beautiful.  The song in the background is pretty good, too.

After that hook, the movie spends some (too much) time introducing us to the characters.  The only one of note is "Stretch" the DJ.  The actress playing her is not a classic beauty, she looks like any woman you might see out in public.  Nice touch.

The movie goes off the tracks when Choptop (or whatever his name is) shows up.  Every now and then, his bats**t insane schtick actually is creepy.  For the most part, he's just the bad comic relief.  He doesn't completely ruin the movie but he does spoil some otherwise good scenes.  He's also so scrawny and pasty it's hard to take him as an actual threat.  Finally, at the end, when he really cuts loose and goes to town with his straight razor, the character comes close to working.  So, even the movie's one really sour note has a good send off.

Leatherface has become a "Lenny" character: a big, strong, and dumb guy who just doesn't know better than to hurt living things.  I'm sure this p**ses off fans of the first movie who think he should be a big, strong, and mean guy who enjoys the hell out of hurting living things.  Like I said, I'm not a fan, so I don't give a crap.  This is probably the main reason I'm able to enjoy TCM 2.

Dennis Hopper is here, too, but his character doesn't really amount to much.  I think maybe Mr. Hopper, in a drunken stupor, wandered onto the shoot one day and Tobe Hooper decided to stick him in the movie.  You could remove Mr. Hopper's character and only have to make minor alterations to the script.

Once Choptop and Leatherface raid the DJ's studio, the movie picks up again.  Stretch follows them back to their hideout and falls down the proverbial "rabbit hole" -- and then TCM 2 should have become one of the best horror movies of the 80s.  It would have been in my book, at least, if not for Choptop and his rantings about "'NAAAAAAAM LAAAAAAAAND".

Some complain that this part of the movie, in the cannibal clan's lair, is just an extended remake of the dinner scene from the original movie.  That doesn't bother me.  I love this segment of the movie because it is beautiful.  The photography, the camera movements, the lighting, the set design, and every aspect of the production are simply gorgeous.  It's like a German expressionist film from the '20s.  The visuals are breathtaking.  And, once we're here, the movie becomes so divorced from any notion of reality that earlier scenes, like the reverse car chase, become easier to take.

There are also some genuinely nasty moments in store.  Most notable is a truly horrific scene in which Leatherface peels off a man's face and forces Stretch to wear it as a mask.  That is simply f**ked up.

Finally, when Dennis Hopper shows up and almost justifies his character being in the movie, and when Choptop chases Stretch and has at her (and himself) with his straight razor, the movie is actually pretty harrowing.  I honestly wasn't sure if Stretch was going to make it.

Taken as a whole, I don't think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 fully comes together, mostly because of Choptop (who is one in a long line of intolerable comic relief characters).  There are strong individual scenes and, simply put, TCM 2 is one of the best looking movies I've ever seen.  The strength of its visuals alone is enough to win me over.  The good outweighs the bad by a considerable margin.

It is shoddy, it is amusingly over-the-top, it is silly, but it deserved better. It's actually one of the few Golan-Globus films that shouldn't have been a fiasco.

I think the problem here lies with Tobe Hooper, his sense of humour (as seen in "Spontaneous combustion", for instance) is not for everybody, and as you noticed with the face lifting scene, it doesn't exclude genuine terror.

I'm discobering Hooper's films lately and I think he should be better considered, even if he is often the one to blame when his films derail.

I'm a major fan of TCM, so part 2 rather left me wanting.On its own merits-it is a good sitting around on a Saturday night movie...and Chop Top himself went on to the Devil's Rejects-which I think is one of the best damn horror movies in years. I love the use of the Allman Bros "Midnight Rider". Rob Zombie has gotta good grip on what makes the "backwoods psycho" genre so great.I live in the backwoods-and I can actually say  that,along with TCM, DR has got the flavor of the madness behind the ordinary pretty on cue. I like Dennis Hopper in ANYTHING as well. He's kinda like a modern day Dwight Frye-his appearence makes even the lamest piece 'o' sh*t worthwhile.

I'm a major fan of TCM, so part 2 rather left me wanting.On its own merits-it is a good sitting around on a Saturday night movie...and Chop Top himself went on to the Devil's Rejects-which I think is one of the best damn horror movies in years. I love the use of the Allman Bros "Midnight Rider". Rob Zombie has gotta good grip on what makes the "backwoods psycho" genre so great.I live in the backwoods-and I can actually say  that,along with TCM, DR has got the flavor of the madness behind the ordinary pretty on cue. I like Dennis Hopper in ANYTHING as well. He's kinda like a modern day Dwight Frye-his appearence makes even the lamest piece 'o' sh*t worthwhile.

Sorry......didn't mean to post twice...my computer is touchy...

The true highlight of TCM2 for me was the old shopkeeper nearly having a seizure at Dennis Hoppers' enthusiastic trying out of his chainsaws.

I'm going to bring down the tone of the discussion and mention #3... I saw it at an age when most things are cool.   But I do recall being impressed with the machine gun toting survivalist vs chainsaw wielding inbreds.  
-Ed