Yep. I have no idea why they decided to do an Excalibur riff, especially since that movie had been nine years before, it was far from the most topical reference they could have made. I guess that maybe since last film's poster spoofed The Breakfast Club, they needed to do another film parody? It's still an extraordinary trailer though, very nicely made, and a simple gag well executed. To be honest though, it would have fitted the more tongue-in-cheek (well, a cheek that hadn't been cut away to make a mask out of) tone of the last one rather than this film. I should also mention though that a similar gag had been done with the previous Friday the 13th movie to this, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan...
So this was the first of the TCM films made by New Line Cinema after they acquired the rights from the fire sale that was the end of The Cannon Group, wanting a new franchise to run alongside their Nightmare on Elm Street series. This one apparently had a nightmare of a time behind the scenes, as they went through a tonne of potential directors before settling on Jeff Burr, and then hacked the film to pieces over the violence, as the MPAA was really out for blood on slashers at this time. (Makes you wonder why they went with the TCM series then!) They also tacked on a new ending when at least three characters who really by all rights should have been thoroughly dead just turn up OK. The final film was a bit of a flop at the box office due to all of this, so those series plans didn't pan out although they did hang on to the rights long enough to do the 2003 remake (which I thought wasn't too bad actually). It's interesting that at one point, New Line had rights to Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw, and Friday the 13th they picked up just after this. If things had gone a bit differently after Freddy vs. Jason, then maybe?
So the finished film then? It's an OK serious minded slasher, and now that a... not exactly uncut, but far less cut version is available, we can look at it more favourably. It certainly has its moments, including a fun bit with Leatherface trying to use a speak-&-spell, some darkly comic "family values" moments, and Ken Foree from Dawn of the Dead makes for a great hero in here too. If you can see the "uncut" edition, I say give it a go, makes for great video night fodder. One extra bit of trivia about this; one of the cast of this film is a young Viggo Mortensen, and one of directors considered for this was Peter Jackson (then riding high after Bad Taste). Those two would later come together for some significantly more successful films for New Line Cinema...
Oh, one more thing; now the Texas Chainsaw franchise is very confusing due to several different rights holders over the years, so this one isn't to be confused with the most recent release Leatherface which was a prequel to the original, but somehow not canon with this one, but it is with the awful Texas Chainsaw 3D. Oh, and that prequel isn't to be confused with Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, which was a prequel to the 2003 remake. This one is canon with the original, and TCM 2 only. Except Leatherface pretty definitively died in part 2, getting a chainsaw through the belly by Dennis Hopper and then being blown up. Also he has a leg brace acknowledging his injury in the first, so this could be a prequel to 2, except Granpa die- Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed! Look, don't even try to make sense of this chronology, time is just weird in Texas! Honestly, I have no clue in hell where exactly TCM: The Next Generation fits into that mess.
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