CHAIN REACTIONS Trailer: Stephen King and Takashi Miike Celebrate the Brutal Genius of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

Few horror films have left scars as deep as Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. That movie jacked up my young brain when I first watched it as a kid.

Now, nearly fifty years later, a new documentary from filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe is diving into the cultural carnage the movie created. The first trailer for Chain Reactions has arrived, and it’s loaded with talent that know horror best including Stephen King, Takashi Miike, Patton Oswalt, Karyn Kusama, and film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.

“Every frame has something unnerving in it,” Oswalt says in the trailer, perfectly summing up why Hooper’s 1974 film still makes audiences squirm. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre may have inspired countless sequels, remakes, and copycats, but the original remains a singular vision because it’s raw, unsettling, and disturbingly real.

Philippe, known for his deep-dive documentaries like 78:52 and Memory: The Origins of Alien, structures Chain Reactions around five passionate fans of Texas Chain Saw, exploring how the film seeped into their lives and careers.

Horror icon King, cult filmmaker Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer), Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), and Heller-Nicholas all dissect the nightmare with equal parts admiration and unease.

“I think of it as a role model,” Miike recalls of his first viewing at age 15, explaining how the movie carved out the path for his own filmmaking journey.

While talk continues about who might helm the next reboot of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Chain Reactions makes a strong case that Hooper’s original cannot be replicated.

You can copy the imagery, the chainsaw, the masks, the roadside barbecue, but the grimy texture and vérité style that made the film feel like a waking nightmare is something lightning struck only once.

As the documentary shows, Texas Chain Saw doesn’t just scare you; it crawls under your skin, makes you smell the rot, and convinces you that the horror on screen could actually happen.

Chain Reactions will slash its way into theaters beginning September 19 in New York and Los Angeles before expanding nationwide on September 26.

Whether you’re a longtime fan or someone about to discover Leatherface for the first time, this looks like an essential watch, and the perfect excuse to revisit Hooper’s masterpiece all over again.