Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The King’s Man, and every new movie you can watch from home this week

This weekend sees the release of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the ninth installment in the long-running horror series co-written and produced by Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez, that sees the homicidal Leatherface turn his chainsaw against business-savvy Zoomers attempting to gentrify his quaint little Texan hometown. If 80-plus minutes of that sounds like too much to suffer through, don’t worry — there’s plenty of options to choose from when it comes to new movies available to stream and rent on VOD.

We’ve got The King’s Man, the latest installment in Matthew Vaughn’s spy-action comedy series, available to stream on Hulu; the Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson romantic comedy Marry Me on Peacock; Julia Ducournau’s psychosexual body horror family drama Titane on Hulu; the martial arts action film Fistful of Vengeance on Netflix; Chloé Zhao’s Eternals on VOD, plus tons of other fantastic films to rent.

To help you get a handle on what’s new and available, here are the new movies you can watch on streaming and VOD this weekend.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

The ninth installment of the legendary slasher franchise, 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre sees Leatherface return after decades of hiding. A group of young entrepreneurs (including Eighth Grade’s Elsie Fisher) arrive in Harlow, Texas and plan to transform it by gentrifying it, much to the consternation of Old Leatherface, who starts another murder spree. Produced by Evil Dead (2013) and Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez (who also co-wrote the story), the new TCM is a lean 81 minutes and was filmed in Bulgaria (but don’t call it Bulgaria Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface doesn’t like it). From our review,

A lot about this Chainsaw is under-realized and messy — perhaps because of the project’s convoluted shoot, which saw the original directors axed one week into production in Bulgaria. The final version of the film, directed by Garcia, packs a lot of characters, subplots, and backstory into its 83 minutes, and very few are essential. Beyond Sally’s return, the movie has Lila coping with PTSD from a mass shooting she survived, Moe Dunford playing a local redneck who reluctantly helps out Dante and his team of idealistic gentrifiers, and a busload of visiting Californians who respond to their first glimpse of Leatherface by pulling out their cell phones and live-streaming. None of these ideas stick around long enough to develop into anything meaningful. The film’s social commentary — including a bit where the new kids in Harlow are offended by a prominently displayed Confederate flag — is more glancing than hard-hitting.

The King’s Man

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Photos: Peter Mountain/20th Century Studios

A prequel to the 2017 action spy comedy Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man follows the story of Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes), an early 20th century British aristocrat who founds a counter-terrorist spy agency in an effort to stave off a war that will wipe out millions. From our review,

The film’s cartoony bits still stick out, because the journey to the line “time to kill Rasputin” (and the detour away from it; Rasputin ultimately isn’t the movie’s main event) is surprisingly lengthy, as Orlando and Conrad clash over what kind of sacrifices should be expected or volunteered by young men for their country. (This was hinted at in the earlier movies when the origin of the Kingsman organization is explained.) Is this the film series equipped to answer or even ask these questions? Is it worth all of the shifts and accommodations just to make a Kingsman prequel in a slightly different register? This is still a movie about a madman manipulating world events to vengefully pit Germany against England, where the bad guy’s face is concealed to lead up to a big reveal, despite having characterization that’s pretty much limited to “Scottish.”

Eternals

Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Photo: Marvel Studios

Chloé Zhao follows the Oscar-winning momentum of her 2020 film Nomadland with Eternals, a Marvel Cinematic Universe installment following a group of ancient extraterrestrial warriors defending the Earth for centuries while hiding in plain sight.

With an ensemble casts featuring the likes of Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, and Richard Madden, a storyline spanning the rise of human civilization, and a finale hinting at major developments for the future of the MCU, Eternals has some sizable expectations to live up to along with some grandiose ambitions of its own. From our review,

Eternals considers where we are, where we’ve been, and how much it’s changed us, if at all. These are largely internal ideas that are not easily translated to superhuman brawls in dim environs, where the beauty of the natural world is just a blank canvas for lasers and punching. Every fight is like a tether pulling Eternals back to the ground when it would rather fly. Each scene expounding on the cosmology of the MCU does more for movies we haven’t seen yet than it does for the one we’re watching.

Movies can be big enough for ideas like this: difficult conversations of cosmic import with no clear answer, angry confrontations with an uncaring god, and whether or not our moral compass should shift as our perspective and reach grows. But a film must create a world where those questions matter, to its characters and to its audience. In a few short lines, Zhao did that with Nomadland. Eternals, however, just isn’t big enough. Or perhaps the Marvel Cinematic Universe is just too small.

Marry Me

Where to watch: Available to stream on Peacock

Image: Universal Pictures

Owen Wilson and Jennifer Lopez star in this romantic comedy about an unlikely couple. Popstar Kat Valdez (Lopez) is about to get married in front of the world, but things fall apart when she learns her fiancé has been cheating on her. Rather than call the whole thing off, Lopez pulls a random man (Wilson) out of the audience and marries him right then and there. As the media obsesses over the surprise new relationship, the newlyweds try to figure out how real the romance could really be. From our review,

Some romantic comedies lean more on the tension of the leads butting heads, like 10 Things I Hate About You. Others lean more on the non-romantic plot, like Long Shot. Marry Me is neither of those things. Marry Me is about two good-looking people enjoying each other’s company, giggling together, and slowly falling in love. Fans of the actual comedy in romantic comedies probably won’t feel that Marry Me scratches that itch, but if you’re in the mood for some low-stakes comfort, this movie checks all those boxes.

Titane

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Photo: Neon

Raw director Julia Ducournau returns with Titane, a psychosexual body horror family drama about a serial killer with a metal plate in her skull who is impregnated after having sex with a car before impersonating the lost son of a bereaved firefighter in a last-ditch effort to elude the police. If that pitch alone doesn’t sell you on the film, nothing will — but it’s worth mentioning that the film did win the Palme d’Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and is widely considered one of the best films of last year (including here at Polygon).

Fistful of Vengeance

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Patrick Brown / Netflix

A movie follow-up to the Netflix series Wu Assassins, Fistful of Vengeance is a supernatural action thriller starring Iko Uwais (The Raid, The Night Comes For Us) and Lewis Tan (Mortal Kombat). Uwais is Kai Jin, a chef with powerful supernatural abilities who must work with his friends to avenge the death of a member of their group. Directed by Roel Reiné (The Man with the Iron Fists 2, Death Race 2), Fistful of Vengeance promises loads and loads of action. The film is connected to the series, but is enough of a standalone that viewers do not need to watch the show first to follow it.

From our review,

Reiné undeniably wants to give the audience the most generously action-packed film possible, with diverse setups and stunts by Uwais’ team and by Kawee Sirikanaerut, an industry vet who played a major role in some of the most memorable action scenes of the last 20 years, in films such as Ong-Bak, Born to Fight, The Protector, Rambo 4, Extraction, and 2021’s Kate. But while the stunts are suitably ambitious, Reiné’s direction often fails them. He has some worthy ideas about how to support action, including using an aerial shot to pan back and forth between two groups of fighters, to give viewers a clear idea of every group’s position in relation to the others in the sprawling building. But when Uwais tries his hand at a traditional one-vs.-many brawl, Reiné can’t escape the familiar problem of extras visibly waiting for their turn to attack and be defeated. Clever choreography or camera placement can help a movie dodge this problem, but Reiné just serves up a static medium-wide shot that captures every flaw.

AI Love You

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

AI Love You, not to be confused with Ken Akamatsu’s 1994 manga series of the same name, takes place in a future where buildings are imbued with artificial intelligence in order to make the lives of humans more convenient. When the personality of one building falls in love with a human woman named Lana (Pimchanok Leuwisetpaiboon), it attempts to win her affections by taking over the body of a human programmer named Bobby (Mario Maurer). Kind of sounds like 1999’s Smart House, only reinterpreted as a Thai sci-fi romantic comedy.

King Knight

Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Photo: XYZ Films

Thorn (Matthew Gray Gubler) appears to have it all. He’s got a loving “life partner” (Angela Sarafyan), a coven of witches who bow and obey his every beck and call, and an isolated compound where he can do just whatever the heck he wants. But when the truth of his past as a popular, preppy high schooler comes back to haunt him, he’ll have to return home for his high school reunion in order to retrace how his life changed so much while rediscovering who he truly is. It’s a weird premise for sure, but a potentially solid one for a dark comedy. Andy Milonakis is in it, and if you recognize that name, you may (a) enjoy this movie and (b) qualify for AARP.

Here Before

Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Saban Films

Andrea Riseborough (Possessor, Mandy) stars in the 2021 psychological thriller Here Before as Laura, a mother grieving the loss of her daughter Josie who befriends a new family that moves in next door. After meeting their daughter, Megan, Laura quickly becomes captivated by her; believing her to be a reincarnation of Josie sent to her as a miracle. As Laura becomes increasingly more desperate to reunite with Josie, her desperation soon morphs into an obsession bordering on madness.

Wolf

Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Focus Features

George MacKay (1917) stars in the psychological drama Wolf as Jacob, a young man who believes himself to be a wolf trapped in the body of a human being. While detained and subjected to a series of therapies intended to cure him of lupine persona, Jacob meets and strikes up a friendship with Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), a woman beset with a similar affliction. Faced with the possibility of love and a future as a human being, will Jacob renounce his identity as a wolf, or choose to live life as a man?

Pursuit

Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Photo: Lionsgate

Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) stars in the action crime thriller Pursuit as Rick Calloway, the son of a ruthless crime boss (John Cusack) and a skilled hacker. After his wife is abducted by a drug cartel, Rick embarks on a merciless streak of violence and revenge to find her, ultimately bringing him to the doorstep of his father’s criminal empire. Not going to lie, it looks pretty cheesy, but if you’re aching to see John Cusack ham it up as a mafioso (and honestly, who isn’t?) you should check this one out.