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Curry Barker knows you're wary of yet another Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. The Obsession director, who has been tapped by A24 to reboot the classic horror franchise for a new audience, understands that Leatherface and his cannibal family can feel done to death, no pun intended. But the way he puts it, it's not so much that there's been too many sequels and reboots to Tobe Hoopers 1974 grindhouse classic - it's that those reboots haven't quite achieved the series' full potential.

Barker recently sat down with the good folks at Dread Central to discuss his upcoming take on the powertool-centric gore parade, and at one point in the discussion, took a look back at all the remakes/reboots that came before him - namely, the ones from New Line, Lionsgate, and Netflix.

"I really think that the potential for that series has not been fully realized," the Milk & Serial creator stated, "I think a lot of the remakes went the opposite direction it should have gone [...] I’m really excited to do a Texas Chainsaw Massacre that’s not just about a guy chasing some people around with a chainsaw, that has some heart to it. You care about these characters and want to see them survive, and you know, it’s brutal."

The "heart" Barker mentions here is going to be at the center of his upcoming TCM project which, just in case you needed a reminder, is a completely separate enterprise from the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre TV series coming from Stranger Darling director JT Mollner.

Before we leave you, though, we don't want you to get the wrong idea. Though filmmaker Barker feels that the previous attempts at recapturing the Hooper magic haven't exactly tapped into the emotion that they could've, he still has a certain attachment to one of the franchise's previous resurrections.

"I actually think the 2003 remake is actually quite good too," Barker concluded, "But it could also be from… there’s a nostalgia there."

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original) is streaming now (for free!) on Tubi. 

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's freaky forays into frightful filmology with:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.