If we’ve learned anything from sequels that don’t matter, it’s that they’re all made in Eastern Europe, so the fact that Texas took so long to move to Bulgaria surprised me.

Back in the mid 50s, Betty Hartman and Ted Hardesty are driving down a Texas road when they’re lured to a barn by the nascent Leatherface, now just Jedidiah Sawyer, and Betty is murdered by his family. When her father Sheriff Hartman (Stephen Dorff) finds her body, he makes sure that Jedidiah goes to a mental institution. Of course, his family busts him out and now Hartman is a Texas Ranger who is possibly just as messed up as the Sawyers.

This movie sat on the shelves of LionsGate and felt like it was never coming out. I don’t know who was dying to see it — well, I mean, I’ll obviously watch every sequel, so me? — but it finally came out on DirectTV more than a year later.

That said, Doriff is always great and Lili Taylor is one of my favorites. Yet this feels like the movies Chainsaw influenced and not a movie trying to influence future films.

Directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo made Inside and nearly made a reboot of Hellraiser and a sequel to Rom Zombie’s Halloween. Their film The Deep House got some mentions this year.