CHAIN REACTION

HOLD ON TO YOUR LIMBS! LEATHERFACE REVS UP AGAIN IN GORE-SPLASHED SEQUEL TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

- NICK SETCHFIELD

FEDE ÁLVAREZ REMEMBERS THE first time a flesh-masked maniac took a chainsaw to his brain. It was a life-altering wound; the kind that spares skin and bone but slices deep into the raw matter of imagination.

“When I was 12, I suddenly discovered this thing called horror,” the writer and producer tells SFX. “Like a lot of things in my life, I got obsessed with it and wanted to watch all the movies. I probably started with A Nightmare On Elm Street 3. You watch that and you go, ‘Hey, it’s fun, this horror thing!’ It was the time of VHS and like an addict you went to the store and asked the guy to give you something stronger. He’d look at you and say, ‘You’re a little young…’ Then he gave me the original The Evil Dead. And that fucked me up.

“Once I’d recovered from that, he said, ‘Well, maybe you’re ready for this,’ and he gave me The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It was like watching porn. Completely forbidden. Your parents will never let you watch it, so it had that incredible taste of the forbidden combined with this terrifying experience. Once you’ve done it you regret it. You’re all shook up, a mix of shame and regret. I can still taste that feeling. I was really young but even today that’s exactly what you’re looking for in any good horror movie, the feeling that it’s not right. Shame on you for watching that film, young man!”