The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

After the claustrophobic horrors of the original, Hooper's messy stab at outré black humour comes as something of a relief. Deep in the bowels of Texas, the mutant family display their annoyance at a local DJ's blatherings in typically visceral style. Hopper hams it up massively as a psychotic ex-Texas Ranger, hell-bent upon bringing the cannibals to justice, while Williams provides a feisty female lead who (once again) gives the in-bred mental cases a run for their money. Despite the BBFC's perfunctory refusal to certificate the movie for public showing in Britain, it contains little to offend anyone with the slightest sense of irony. Gaudy highlights include: a driver having his head chainsawed in half to lively effect; Hopper picking out the biggest bastard chainsawer in a hardware store; Williams taunting Leatherface about his inability to 'get it up' as he impotently waggles an unstartable chainsaw between her legs. The only truly yucky moment comes when Williams is forced to don facial skin freshly peeled from a corpse's face, but in these post-Silence of the Lambs days even that seems a tad tame. Not a patch on the original (or indeed Jeff Burr's Part III), but amusing enough none the less. Isn't it about time the censors developed a sense of humour?