Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Ti West's X.

Ti West's X is the best The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remake of 2022 despite Netflix's official franchise installment. First released on February 18th, 2022, David Blue Garcia's Texas Chainsaw Massacre puts a contemporary twist on the abandoned Texas town of Harlow nearly 50 years after Leatherface's original killing spree in Tobe Hooper's 1973 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Yet despite chronologically picking up after the original film in deference to Hooper's movie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not even its best remake of the year thanks to Ti West's X.

Also set in rural Texas in 1979, Ti West's "erotic slasher" X follows a film crew as they arrive at a secluded farm to shoot a pornographic film, which idealistic director RJ (Owen Campbell) believes will be "a piece of cinema." Seemingly blinded by their ambitions to capitalize on a burgeoning home video porn industry, the young group remain largely unaware of a covetous presence in the farmhouse next door in the form of Pearl (Mia Goth). However, as night falls, Pearl's lustful intent turns violent, with Maxine (also Mia Goth), Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), Wayne (Martin Henderson), Jackson (Scott Mescudi), Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), and RJ forced to contend with the horrors of Pearl's jealousy.

Related: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 Kept Original's Message (But Not Its Tone)

Although by no means an official continuation of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, Ti West's X is nevertheless the best TCM remake of 2022. From the grainy immediacy of X's sexually charged atmosphere to its savage overtures to the horror genre, Ti West's slasher acts as a worthy homage to Tobe Hooper's original film. As a result, here's why X is the best Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake of 2022, including why Netflix's own remake failed in this regard.

Why 2022's Texas Chainsaw Massacre Sequel Didn't Work

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022

One of the most perplexing things about Garcia's Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake is how it attempts to retcon almost the entire TCM movie franchise but still makes the same mistakes as the films it is attempting to plaster over. Despite acting as a direct follow-up to Tobe Hooper's 1979 movie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre does away with the sexual, sociological, and psychological undertones of its seminal predecessor and replaces them with a formulaic, paint-by-numbers slasher story that lacks the guile and craft of the tale it is attempting to emulate. Ironically, this is endemic of the majority of other TCM sequels too, with the majority struggling to find a balance between satisfying shock-expectant audiences and a compelling, rooted narrative.

Garcia's new Texas Chainsaw Massacre does, of course, contain ample gore and bloodshed courtesy of Leatherface and his chainsaw, but even these scenes of evisceration and decapitation feel hollow in the context of the film's story. Garcia's new Texas Chainsaw Massacre story sees the town of Harlow contend with social media, Twitter buzzwords, and societal change, but none of these issues are stated with conviction, making it hard to get behind Garcia's messages on contemporary culture. Indeed, some of Texas Chainsaw Massacre's characters are so deplorable and one-dimensional it leaves audiences almost rooting for Harlow's antidote to change via Leatherface - which directly goes against the survival factor Tobe Hooper's 1973 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre so compelling, to begin with.

Ti West's X Is A Great Homage To Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Mia Goth sits in her dressing room in X

In stark contrast, X is perhaps the only The Texas Chain Saw Massacre homage in recent memory that holds a candle to Tobe Hooper's movie's original essence, with X succeeding due to the deftness of its themes rather than the gratuitous violence most modern backwoods slasher entries get hung up on. This is not to say X does not contain its own fair share of savagery, with Pearl's mutilation and near-decapitation of RJ in his own van the pick of the bunch here. The distinct difference between Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022's violence and X's, however, is the handling of their respective graphic material, with Ti West's X lauding each kill sequence as its own art form. Pearl's RJ kill is a dazzling, heady sequence of quick light cuts, while Bobby-Lynne's swamp death is an exercise in dread from a nauseating camera angle. These nuances, even in scenes of gratuitous violence, are what also made Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre such a unique proposition, such as the moment when Leatherface kills Kirk (William Vail) with a hammer opposite a leering, angled wall of masks.

Related: X Movie Ending & What Happened To Pearl & Maxine Explained (In Detail)

Beyond its handling of violence, Ti West's X acts as a great homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre because it nails the film's atmospheric traits and themes that make it such a nuanced (but still terrifying) piece of cinema. X mirrors The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's pervading sense of dread, choosing to make its antagonists two decidedly human if unhinged, proprietors, much in the same way as Leatherface and the Sawyer family are in plain sight throughout Hooper's film rather than appearing from the ether. X also distinctly emulates The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's handling of sociological undertones, showing Pearl and Howard as out-of-time killers in much the same way as the Sawyer family live a backwoods existence in the original TCM movie. West is certainly aware of these parallels he draws to Tobe Hooper's classic movie, evidenced by a pitch-perfect recreation of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's opening van scene, which sees RJ and the porn crew driving a van into rural Texas.

Why X Is A Worthy Entry In The Slasher Genre

A pair of legs walking towards a house in the poster for X

Although clearly designed as a homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, X is also a more than worthy entry for the slasher genre in its own right. West does not stop with the nods to his beloved horror genre from start to finish, with X additionally containing Easter eggs and references to The Shining, Psycho, Braindead, Alligator, and Hardcore. These loving inclusions to the wider slasher genre, as well as scenes filmed in the style of Dario Argento's Tenebrae and Alfred Sole's Alice, Sweet Alice, point to a film that revels in the craft of its medium - and make X's carnage and thrills feel well-earned. As a result, X is a worthy entry into the slasher genre that earns its stripes through a series of carefully choreographed scenes that terrify and compel in a way few modern slashers can.

Next: The Best Slasher Movie In Years Shows Where Horror Franchises Have Failed