That wouldn't necessarily be praiseworthy but, in its own way, it would have marked some kind of milestone. Now that bloody special effects have turned horror movies into studies in clinical pathology, maybe it was time for Hooper, the master, to come back and show the kids how it's really done.

His original "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) caught people by surprise with its cast of unknowns, its low-budget documentary feel, and the presumption it was based on reality (according to Halliwell's Film Guide, the movie was adapted from real events that also inspired "Psycho").

The movie had a raw, naked force, as it told the story of a depraved family of rural cannibals, luring their victims to their doom.

In the years since it was made, "Chainsaw" inspired hundreds of films, including the Dead Teenager movies and all of the special effects extravaganzas with rotting flesh and decaying organs.

"Part 2" has a lot of blood and disembowelment, to be sure, but it doesn't have the terror of the original, the desire to be taken seriously. It's a geek show.

Maybe Tobe Hooper - who went on to make "Poltergeist"' for Steven Spielberg - has grown mainstream, less concerned to shock, more eager to show us it's all a joke.

The movie's about the return of the original chainsaw gang. Old granddad's on a wheelchair now, and no wonder - he's 137 years old. The father, nicknamed Cook, has won the big Texas-Oklahoma Chili Contest two years in a row, even though people sometimes find human teeth in his chili. The boys, Leatherface and Chop-Top, live in a subterranean mortuary beneath an abandoned theme park, where the body parts of their victims hang from the ceiling.

The heros of the film include a former Texas Ranger (Dennis Hopper), who wants revenge for the chainsaw death of his brother, and a disk jockey (Caroline Williams) who spends most of the movie screaming while the perverts threaten her with chainsaws.

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