20 Horror Movies That Were Way Too Cruel
12. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Most seemed to be on the same page with this one. 2022's Texas Chainsaw Massacre legacy sequel was a generally underwhelming (if technically solid) affair that stood out thanks to its jarringly ugly tone.
Nearly all of the young people in this movie - who are corrupt entrepreneurs trying to redevelop a mostly abandoned Texan town - are exaggeratedly unlikable, and it's almost as if the filmmakers are encouraging audiences to egg Leatherface (here played by Mark Burnham) on, which is pretty disturbing to put it mildly. In a horror comedy, this could've worked better, but this is a straight-faced, dark movie, and the tone is just angry, not satirical, so this left a bad taste behind for many viewers.
To make matters worse, the movie brings back original survivor Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouere, replacing the late Marilyn Burns), only to kill her off in the most avoidable way possible, and there's also an ill-judged revelation that protagonist Lila (Elsie Fisher, star of Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade) is a school shooting survivor.
It was already pretty off to throw in such a sensitive topic and then not really address it, and it also makes the film even more unpleasant. Lila survives, but she's re-traumatized by these events, which culminate in her own sister (Sarah Yarkin) being decapitated by Leatherface right in front of her.