New 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' will be a direct sequel to the original

A new movie in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is in the works, and it looks set to ignore every other sequel to the original film.

Fede Álvarez, who directed the 2013 Evil Dead remake as well as home invasion horror Don’t Breathe, is attached to the project as a producer.

According to Bloody Disgusting, Álvarez is not looking to direct the film himself and is seeking someone else to take the helm.

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The report states that the franchise could follow the path carved by Blumhouse’s 2018 Halloween reboot in ignoring the continuity of all of the other films in the franchise, except the original, but notes that “plans aren’t set in stone”.

Over the course of multiple remakes, sequels and prequels, the timeline of the Texas Chainsaw films has become so knotted and complex that it’s not all that surprising to see the board being wiped clean.

In fact, the franchise has already pulled the same trick, with 2013’s critically reviled Texas Chainsaw 3D serving as a direct sequel to the late Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic.

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The new project has come about as a result of the franchise rights reverting to Kim Henkel — Hooper’s co-writer and producer on the original films — after Millennium Films made the 2017 prequel Leatherface.

Henkel has also directed a film in the franchise, serving as writer-director on fourth film Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation in 1995.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre followed a group of teenagers falling victim to the blade-wielding Leatherface and his sadistic family of cannibals.

Elements of the narrative were inspired by the true story of serial killer Ed Gein, who also inspired on-screen killers in Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs.

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The film was banned in the UK as part of the ‘video nasties’ panic and was only released in Britain in its uncut form for the first time in 1999.

There’s no word yet on a release date for this new Texas Chainsaw Massacre project.