Many horror franchises have had their timelines twisted, but few are as convoluted as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Much like in its fellow slasher franchise, Halloween, which has retconned itself multiple times, continuity in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies often seems tossed out the window between most of the installments. Leatherface is the only real constant presence, and even he is rarely presented the same from film to film, making the messy timeline even more mysterious.

Leatherface has also only once been portrayed by the same actor in two different movies, that being the towering Andrew Bryniarksi in the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and its 2006 prequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Leatherface's surrounding cannibal family is almost never the same between movies either, completely changing from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 to Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, then changing again from the third entry to Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. This casting consistency represents a real continuity problem, making Leatherface's saga increasingly difficult to track.

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Although the multiple families and inexplicable time-jumps are confusing, the main reason the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise's timeline is so fractured is that the rights to the property have changed hands so much that most of the movies have been made by completely different teams. Only once has the same director directed two Texas Chainsaw Massacres, and only twice has the same production company or distribution studio made two of them. With so many different cooks spending time in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre kitchen, it's no wonder things have become so disjointed.

While there's always an exception to every rule, most successful movie franchises have some kind of steady creative force guiding them. The Star Wars movies pre-Disney had George Lucas, and the Indiana Jones movies had Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was creatively led by Peter Jackson. The MCU of course has Kevin Feige as its captain. On the horror side, the first four Scream movies were all helmed by Wes Craven. Yet, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies are almost always in different creative hands from one installment to the next.

That constant creative changeover seems to be the main reason why the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise's timeline is so confused, as each new set of filmmakers seemed to have almost no desire to build on what came before them. Each apparently thought they could do better, and went their own way. In reality, so many of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies are underwhelming that a desire to start fresh is in some ways commendable. The problem is, when practically every movie in a series is a reboot, the whole enterprise becomes confusing, hard to follow, and perpetually more laughable.

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