BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: Tobe Hooper’s True Sequel
Mike Sprague
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Forty-four years ago today, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was unleashed into theaters. And recently we have been hit with a bunch of news regarding upcoming and planned reboots of some of the biggest horror titles out there. Off the top of my head, currently there are a number of horror remakes/reboots in various stages of production including Halloween, Child’s Play, and to a lesser horror degree, Neill Blomkamp’s RoboCop Returns.
That said, the realms of upcoming horror reboots are surprisingly bare of some of it’s biggest names. Jason Voorhees and his Friday the 13th franchise are in a stalemate pending a lengthy court case, and Freddy and his Nightmare on Elm Street series are somehow still in limbo. So it’s with this in mind we wanted to take a look at just how Hollywood could go about rebooting one of the top horror franchises out there: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Like RoboCop Returns, which is using an old script for an unused sequel and like Blumhouse’s upcoming direct sequel to John Carpenter’s Halloween, this reboot would do well to follow in those films footsteps and bring us not another remake of the series, but a true direct sequel right from the minds of the original film’s creators Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel.
Enter Beyond the Valley of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
For those who might not know, yes, Hooper and Henkel did pitch a direct sequel to their original film back in the day. It was (as mentioned above) called Beyond the Valley of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The pitch involved a group of stupid kids ending up in a town filled with murderous, backwoods, cannibals and getting brutally murdered.
This is the best way for Hollywood to proceed with the franchise in many ways. One, Beyond the Valley of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is one of the greatest titles I have ever heard in my life. Sure it’s a bit long in the tooth, but it works wonders. In a fun bit of trivia, the title is actually a jab at Roger Ebert’s film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
Little is known about the actual pitch and just how far Hooper and Henkel got into the writing process, but the history of the project seems to suggest it was all a spoof of a spoof based around director Kevin Connor’s Motel Hell. So yeah, Hooper and Henkel set out to create their own spoof of Motel Hell disguised as a Texas Chainsaw sequel. A bit confusing, yes. But a direct sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre via the minds of the men who created the franchise is just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Plus, the idea of a town filled with cannibals works really well.
Who should take the helm of this potential sequel? I’m thinking the best choice is director Alexandre Aja. Sure I know I pick Alex Aja as the director for seemingly every single horror project we talk about here, but in particular, this would be a great vehicle for him. After all the blistering desert heat and brutality of his remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes is still one of the top shining examples of horror remakes done right. And if not Aja, how about – and stick with me here – Rob Zombie? After all, Zombie’s first feature film House of 1000 Corpses is basically a loving remake of Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, just you know, brought to us from the twisted mind of Mr. Zombie.
Regardless of who ends up directing this project, we think it’s time Hollywood went back to the source and gave us another chilling and truly terrifying entry in the famous prototype slasher series. Like Blumhouse’s Halloween, we say damn the sequels and just pick right up where the original film left off. Sure they already pulled that trick in Texas Chainsaw 3D, but let’s all just keep pretending that that film never happened.
Basically, I like to think of this pitch as what if the detective’s from HBO’s True Detective were put on the case of the original farmhouse murders, and what if their investigation lead them to this town filled with cannibals? What if these detectives found themselves lost? What if they found themselves up against something beyond evil. What if they found themselves Beyond the Valley of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Moo-Haha.
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