Welcome to 2026's 31 Days of Heistoween, a daily dose of spooky icons, spine-tingling oddities, and — most harrowing of all — memes. Check back every day from now through October 31 for each daily entry!
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (which I'm writing essays about all month long exclusively for Pop Heist subscribers!) is, famously, a summer movie. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, released more than a decade later, is an autumn movie, and we know that because of one very important detail which dates the movie exactly.
Tobe Hooper's long-awaited sequel — an unhinged horror-comedy that's as big and broad as the original is intimate and esoteric — begins with a pair of beer-drinking teenagers in a car, on their way to a football game. But this isn't just any football game. This is what we here in Texas know as the Red River Rivalry, the annual showdown between the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners. The movie proper, after the mayhem of the Friday night ends with those teens dead, picks up the next day, the day of the game.
Fast forward to 2026, and wouldn't you know it, Texas and OU are playing today, the second Tuesday in October, as they have for years. Happy Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 Day, everyone!
I love this little bit of trivia because it's such a clear-cut Texas sports thing and, as a native Texan, the game has been with me my whole life, way longer than this movie has. I've been watching the Red River Rivalry since I was in diapers (I would've been two months old when the game they're driving to in the movie took place), and I've been watching horror movies almost as long. And here the two things merge in a darkly hilarious way in the middle of October, creating a perfect Halloween moment.
Yes, technically the game took place on October 11 in 1986 and here in 2026 it's taking place on October 10, but so what? It's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 Day! Go watch the game and then watch movie, or watch the movie and then watch the game! Or just watch the movie! It's wild!
Come knock on our door tomorrow for even more 31 Days of Heistoween treats.
If you haven't already, consider supporting worker-owned media by subscribing to Pop Heist's newsletter or leaving a tip. We are ad-free and operating outside the algorithm, so all dollars go directly to paying the staff members and writers who make articles like this one possible.
