Netflix released Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Friday, and the newest addition to their growing catalog of horror films is pulling our chain – but not in a fun way.

My love for horror started as most kids' in the '90s did: with an obsession with R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books. Soon after, I saw the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street – at a young age that now seems highly questionable – and it changed my life.

Sure, I was terrified. It gave me nightmares for weeks. But ... I quickly fell in love with it and the entire gory glorifying genre.

So to say I was excited when Netflix announced they were bringing to life the ninth film in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (TCM) franchise would be an understatement.

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The original 1974 TCM film directed by Tobe Hooper is one of my favorites, and is widely considered a cult classic.

In Netflix's new version, we follow a group of Gen Z do-gooders who travel on a bus full of investors to Harlow, Texas with the intentions of gentrifying the small town. The plan is to buy up property so they can make it all cute and Brooklyn-like. Somehow, they end up pissing off our beloved villain Leatherface, who – for some reason – hasn't been killing young people for the past 50 years.

The film tries hard to pander to fans of the original while also attempting to appeal to a new generation of horror fans, but it fails at both. The result is a buzzkill, and not the thrilling kind horror fans hope for.

The best thing about early horror films is that the genre was new but niche, and shamelessly did not cater to everyone.

By nature, it is an exaggerated and, in some ways, playful genre that should be taken with a grain of salt, and some of the best scary films openly embrace the idea. This quality has always set horror apart from most other film genres, but too many modern horror films seem to forget that.

The newest Texas Chainsaw Massacre does what most of the other iterations in the franchise have also tried and failed at time and time again: It takes itself far too seriously.

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Netflix's attempt has written a substantive plot by giving the main characters stories that highlight modern day staples. They use a lot of slang and pop culture terms to flaunt their liberal perspectives while smugly judging the small town they visit. The movie seems to try to frame them as admirable, but they end up coming off like douchey liberals. (And I say this as a douchey liberal myself.)

I wanted to like the update, since the whole "Texas is weird" idea was definitely a part of Hooper's M.O. when he directed the first two TCM films. It's a part of the series' offbeat charm, and ingrained in why people still watch the films after all these years.

Creating a clear juxtaposition between the transplant city kids and the hometown Texans is not a bad idea, but the new movie comes off preachy in doing so.

Unfortunately, the end result is lame and unimaginative. It holds the viewers' hand through whatever social narratives it's trying to push, and instead of succeeding in its attempts to be woke, it oppositely feels stale and boring. And it certainly doesn't make you root for the crew to stay alive.

The best scene of the movie, and the only one worth remembering, is the scene where Leatherface boards a bus full of investors.

As he yields a chainsaw and is covered in blood, the crowd turns to face him. And – in keeping with current times – they all pull out their phones to get a video.

It ends with enough blood, guts and gore to make any horror lover smile with glee – and admittedly gives some satisfaction that those suckers seeking social media attention in a crisis situation are getting what they deserve. But it also successfully possesses a quality that is lost in every other aspect of the movie: it was campy as hell.

I was on the floor dying of laughter when a guy at the head of the snap-happy crowd says, "Try anything, and you're canceled, bro." It is in this golden moment that the movie's failed attempt to be progressive perhaps works in its favor: It brings us back to the classic, over-the-top horror genre that is so "extra," and we can laugh at its expense.

But whether TCM's creators have done this intentionally, and the film is actually self-aware, is questionable. The movie tries so hard to get us to empathize with the main characters' issues, driven by liberal-leaning sensibilities, that it comes off as biased and self-righteous. The bus scene is the only place where it felt like we were – maybe – allowed to laugh at the ill-fated Gen Z crowd that we are meant to "relate" to. The line is blurry, the intent of the filmmakers is befuddled, and viewers are stuck in the in between.

I wish this movie would have clearly leaned towards taking itself a lot less seriously. Sure, not every horror movie needs to be like Peter Jackson's Dead Alive or Edgar Wright's Shawn of the Dead, but the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre surely would have benefitted from making fun of itself a bit.

While the kills and thrills are there, Texas Chainsaw Massacre falls short with its "woke" modern updates and fails to bring anything new to the horror table.