Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995)

“Illuminati Leatherface? Matthew McConaughey? What the hell is this movie?”


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🎥 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

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🧾 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

So part four of this franchise isn’t just bad, it’s pure chaos. A group of teens on prom night crash their car, wander into the wrong part of Texas, and get tangled up with yet another version of the Sawyer family. Leatherface is back, but now he’s mostly screaming in drag, while the family itself acts less like backwoods cannibals and more like rejected cartoon villains. And then — out of nowhere — the movie drops a government/Illuminati subplot that makes zero sense. This isn’t horror anymore. It’s a parody of itself.


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👥 Character Rundown

Leatherface (Robert Jacks) – The worst version of him to date. Screaming, crying, in full drag for no reason, and not even remotely scary.

Vilmer (Matthew McConaughey) – The star of this disaster. He’s got a robotic leg brace, controlled by TV remotes, and acts like he’s hopped up on jet fuel. Completely absurd, but somehow the most entertaining thing here.

Jenny (Renée Zellweger) – The final girl. She’s honestly solid — tries to act like this is a real movie — but she’s trapped in nonsense.

Darla (Tonie Perensky) – The weird girlfriend who flips between helping Jenny and being a psycho herself.

The Teens – Bland cannon fodder. No one cares, no one remembers them.



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⏱️ Pacing / Episode Flow

It starts like every other Chainsaw movie: teens in trouble, creepy roads, weird locals. Then it goes off the rails fast. The pacing is choppy as hell, bouncing between Leatherface shrieking in a dress, Vilmer ranting about random crap, and the sudden Illuminati reveal that feels like it wandered in from another script. You’re left going, “Wait, is this still Texas Chainsaw or did I accidentally flip to a spoof?”


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🎬 Vilmer: The Matthew McConaughey Show

Alright, let’s talk about Vilmer. Matthew McConaughey is in this movie — yes, that McConaughey — and he is absolutely insane here. He’s got a janky robotic leg brace that he controls with TV remotes (not kidding), and he spends the entire film screaming, laughing, smashing things, and flipping between dead-serious menace and Looney Tunes slapstick.

It’s so absurd it’s kind of hilarious, like he’s in his own movie that has nothing to do with Leatherface or the Sawyers. Every time he’s on screen, it’s like: “Oh okay, this is what the movie really is, a Matthew McConaughey meltdown showcase.”

And yeah, it’s funny — I can’t deny it. His energy is so unhinged that it’s entertaining to watch. But it doesn’t fit the Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe at all. This is supposed to be sweaty, grimy, terrifying Southern Gothic horror, not “Matthew McConaughey goes cyberpunk cowboy with a robot leg and a death wish.”

[Insert Absurd McConaughey Clip Here]

So yeah, he’s memorable. He’s outrageous. But he also proves how far off the rails this franchise had gone by the time we hit part four.


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✅ Pros

McConaughey going feral is weirdly entertaining.

Renée Zellweger actually gives a good performance despite the chaos.

It’s unintentionally hilarious, so-bad-it’s-good in parts.



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❌ Cons

Leatherface is a joke, not scary in the slightest.

The plot is incoherent — Illuminati? Why?

The tone is all over the place, can’t decide if it’s parody or horror.

Everyone outside of Jenny and Vilmer is forgettable cannon fodder.

Wasted opportunity to do anything meaningful with the franchise.



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💭 Final Thoughts

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation is less a horror movie and more a fever dream. It’s absurd, loud, dumb, and completely disconnected from what made the original scary. The only reason people remember it today is because it accidentally starred two actors who went on to become huge. It’s funny in a “what the hell am I watching” way, but it doesn’t belong in this franchise.


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⭐ Rating

3/10. McConaughey boosts it a little, but otherwise this is the trash fire of the series.


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning

Okay, here’s where the fever dream really kicks in.


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🩸 Spoilers

So the teens crash on prom night, get stuck wandering the back roads, and — surprise surprise — they run into the Sawyer family again. Except this time the family feels like a bunch of over-acting theater kids instead of cannibals.

Leatherface shows up screaming in a dress, chasing them around, and you can’t even take him seriously. Jenny tries to survive, her friends get picked off, and then Vilmer just takes over the entire movie. McConaughey’s yelling, ranting about conspiracies, smashing his head into car doors, controlling his robot leg with remotes, it’s chaos.

And then — out of nowhere — the Illuminati subplot drops. Yep, apparently the Sawyer family is tied to some shadowy organization running experiments on people for… reasons? They literally send a man in a suit to check in on Leatherface like this is some kind of science project. It makes no sense, it kills whatever horror vibes are left, and it’s just laughable.

By the end, Vilmer dies in the dumbest way possible (he gets his head crushed by a plane propeller, I kid you not). Jenny gets away, Leatherface does another weird chainsaw dance, and the movie just stops. Roll credits.

This isn’t horror. It’s a parody that doesn’t know it’s a parody.