Film Review: Leatherface (2017)

Also known as: Texas Chainsaw 4 (working title)
Release Date: August 25th, 2017 (UK – Horror Channel FrightFest premiere)
Directed by: Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo
Written by: Seth M. Sherwood
Based on: characters by Tobe Hooper, Kim Henkel
Music by: John Frizzell
Cast: Stephen Dorff, Lili Taylor, Vanessa Grasse, Sam Strike, Chris Adamson, Finn Jones, 

Campbell Grobman Films, LF2 Productions, Lionsgate, 90 Minutes

Review:

“You take one of mine, and I’ll take all yours, Verna. All of ’em.” – Hal Hartman

So this was created to be a prequel to the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, dismissing all other movies in the franchise except for 2013’s Texas Chainsaw, which was the end of this “trilogy” that no one wanted or liked except Lionsgate.

This movie is terrible but it’s not the worst Texas Chainsaw flick.

Still, it’s abysmally bad with a terrible fucking storyline that is supposed to be the origin of Leatherface. However, it’s so far off the mark that this could’ve just been a seperate movie about completely unrelated characters and no one would have noticed except for the chainsaw being forced in, as some sort of unnecessary plot device.

Anyway, the killer family kills the sheriff’s daughter. With that, the sheriff vows to take all of Mama Verna’s babies away. He succeeds in getting Jedediah locked up. Jeb changes his name to Jackson and he’s just some skinny normal teen that looks nothing like the hulking beast that Leatherface is. However, they throw in a hulking fat kid that acts half-retarded to serve as some sort of red herring that doesn’t work because we know the skinny kid is future Leatherface.

So, teen Leatherface, fat kid and a nurse get kidnapped by a psycho idiot and his psycho girlfriend during a prison break at the teenager psych ward. Leatherface, fatty and nurse babe are held against their will but have a billion chances at escaping but never do. Shit eventually hits the fan, fatty gets killed, the psycho couple gets killed and Leatherface and nurse babe escape in a car for some reason, which leads to Leatherface getting half his face shot off while also being made mentally handicapped by the ordeal.

This eventually leads to Leatherface killing the cop in a really gruesome way that I was actually kind of impressed by. However, he then murders nurse babe too and then goes back to the psycho mansion to suckle his psycho mom’s breasts.

Well, as I ended the review of the previous film in this series… fuck this movie.

Rating: 4/10

Film Review: Texas Chainsaw (2013)

Also known as: Texas Chainsaw 3D (original theatrical title)
Release Date: January 3rd, 2013 (Belgrade premiere)
Directed by: John Luessenhop
Written by: Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan, Kirsten Elms, Stephen Susco
Based on: characters by Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Music by: John Frizzell
Cast: Alexandra Daddario, Dan Yeager, Tremaine ‘Trey Songz’ Neverson, Tania Raymonde, Thom Barry, Paul Rae, Bill Moseley, Scott Eastwood, Richard Riehle, Gunnar Hansen, Marilyn Burns, John Dugan

Mainline Pictures, Millennium Films, Lionsgate, 92 Minutes

Review:

“Family’s a messy business. Ain’t nothing thicker than blood.” – Darryl

This film was created to be a direct sequel to the 1974 original. There would then be a prequel film released in 2017, which established a new “trilogy” with these two 2010s bookends sandwiching the original. Granted, I don’t think anyone on the planet considers this “trilogy” to be their canon.

These new attempts at reviving the Texas Chainsaw Massacre were significantly worse than the two 2000s movies. Although, they are better than the worst sequels of the original four flicks.

Anyway, it should be apparent that this franchise has become a total clusterfuck. I also recently read that there is another reboot in the works. Whatever… keeping up with these constantly rebooted horror franchises is fucking exhausting.

There’s really only one redeeming thing about this movie and that’s Alexandra Daddario, who looks absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, this may be the best she’s looked but I also really like the goth/emo edge her character has.

Beyond that, it’s probably worth mentioning that Tania Raymonde was pretty hot in this too. But then, that’s obviously what the producers were going for and it’s been a major selling point of slasher-y type horror films since the ’70s.

The only sequence I really like in this movie is the opening. This actually features some cameos by previous Texas Chainsaw actors, most specifically Bill Moseley. After the opening, though, everything spirals downward into the second worse storyline in franchise history, which has only been outdone by the film that followed.

So Daddario inherits the killer family’s mansion and with it, Leatherface. Although Daddario and Leatherface have no idea that they’re blood relatives until the last five minutes of the movie and then suddenly they’re the tag team champions of west Texas, killing an evil politician, his cop son and their inbred minion.

In the end, Daddario decides, “Ah… fuck it… I might as well live in the psycho killer house and make meals for my homicidal maniac cousin that spent the whole film trying to kill me and succeeded at killing all my friends.”

Seriously, fuck this movie.

Rating: 4.5/10

Film Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

Also known as: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Origin (working title)
Release Date: October 5th, 2006 (Taiwan)
Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman
Written by: Sheldon Turner, David J. Schow
Based on: The Texas Chain Saw Massacreby Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Music by: Steve Jabolonsky
Cast: Jordana Brewster, Taylor Handley, Diora Baird, Matt Bomer, Lee Tergesen, R. Lee Ermey, Andrew Bryniarski, Lew Temple

Next Entertainment, Platinum Dunes, New Line Cinema, 91 Minutes

Review:

“People may not remember what we say here tonight, but by God they’ll remember what we did.” – Sheriff Hoyt

For Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, I think the two original remakes are both pretty decent, this one being the second of the two, albeit a prequel to the first. The second attempt at a reboot was definitely worse and I’ll probably review those two movies at a later date.

I don’t like this one as much as the 2003 film with Jessica Biel but I do think that the writing, as far as telling the origin story of the killer family, was pretty damn solid and creative.

I’m not sure how much they thought about the family’s backstory in the 2003 movie but this one does interesting things in showing how the patriarch became Sheriff, how the uncle lost his legs, how the Sheriff lost his teeth and some other cool things that called back to details in the previous film that otherwise seemed unimportant. I love when writers do stuff like this, especially when having to add to the mythos that a different writer established.

Beyond that, everything else in this is incredibly derivative and there’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before and done better.

I did like Jordana Brewster and this was the only thing I knew her from other than the first Fast & Furious movie. In the years since, I’ve seen her in a lot and I really, really liked her on the Lethal Weapon television series.

Like the previous movie, I loved R. Lee Ermey in this one too. Man, he’s just such a good psycho asshole. He really ups the ante in this one, especially in regards to becoming the Sheriff.

The thing that was really working against this movie from the beginning, though, was that you knew no one could survive because it was a prequel. So the twist ending, where they want you to think the “final” girl escapes, wasn’t shocking at all. Also, it didn’t make sense unless Leatherface has the power of teleportation.

I understand why they made this movie; the 2003 remake was really successful. But honestly, this chapter didn’t really need to exist. I’m glad that they made the most out of the origin story stuff but beyond that, there’s just not much here. Still, it’s probably one of the better Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies because most of them are all just the same.

Rating: 5.5/10

Film Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Release Date: October 15th, 2003 (Hollywood premiere)
Directed by: Marcus Nispel
Written by: Scott Kosar
Based on: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre by Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Music by: Steve Jablonsky
Cast: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Mike Vogel, Eric Balfour, R. Lee Ermey, Andrew Bryniarski, David Dorfman, John Larroquette (narrator)

Radar Pictures, Focus Features, New Line Cinema, 98 Minutes

Review:

“Excuse me, you mind getting the fuck outta my way, son?” – Sheriff Hoyt

Very few horror franchise reboots are good. This is one of the few that are and because of that, it kind of started a trend where a new generation of filmmakers, inspired by the old, started trying to resurrect the most iconic horror franchises of their youth.

I know many people that actually prefer this movie to the original. I don’t but I also don’t think that those people are insane, either. I think there actually is an argument to be made about it and it’s one of my favorite horror debates to listen to between people that actually know and are passionate about these movies.

I think that in 2003, I would’ve rated this much higher. Seeing it 18 years later, I do find some of the dialogue to be a bit cringe and poorly written. I also find some of the director’s choices in how he shoots certain sequences to be a bit weak and trope-riddled.

The biggest highlight of the film for me was Jessica Biel and not just because she looked fucking magnificent but because she really dived into this and gave a convincing performance. So much so, in fact, that I hadn’t seen a “final girl” this good in a decade or more at the time that this came out. Honestly, I think in that regard, she actually exceeds the vast majority of “final girls” in horror. Granted, it’d be hard to put anyone in front of Jamie Lee Curtis or Heather Langenkamp.

I also immensely enjoyed R. Lee Ermey in this, as the town sheriff who is actually a part of the killer family and directly related to this franchise’s top monster, Leatherface.

Ermey gave a performance on the same level as his best work. He committed to this role so greatly that you really want to see him get what he deserves in the end. When he does, it’s beyond fucking satisfying. Without Ermey and Biel, this would’ve probably just been a standard, cookie cutter, forgettable slasher flick.

Now the rest of the cast is pretty bad and it kind of bogs the film down in the scenes where it focuses on them. In fact, the stuff in the van at the beginning was pretty awful and it almost wrecked Jessica Biel but luckily, they didn’t stick to that too long and the horror started almost from the get go.

This is also plagued by the cinematic style of the time, which I didn’t like back then and still don’t like now. It’s nothing I’ve started to feel nostalgic for as time passes. What I’m referring to specifically is the overuse of color filters, which makes all films look unrealistic and like a music video. This may have started with David Fincher in Alien 3 but it’s something that would be used to death in just about every “hip” film of the mid-’90s to mid-’00s from Fincher’s other movies, The Matrix films, nearly all horror that wasn’t Scream, as well as action flicks and crime movies. It’s not such a big deal when used sparingly but it’s not here. The film is either unnaturally bronze or bluish green in every scene.

Still, the positives outweigh the negatives and this is a movie carried by two solid performances and a version of Leatherface that is the scariest of them all.

Rating: 6.25/10

Vids I Dig 505: Cartoonist Kayfabe: Slasher Superhero Comics! Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, Leatherface, Pinhead & Norman Bates!

Vids I Dig 431: Whang!: The Lost ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ Movie – Tales From the Internet

Taken from Justin Whang’s YouTube description: In 1999, William “Tony” Hooper, son of Tobe Hooper, began work on a spinoff of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre about the character Choptop, played once again by Bill Mosely. Although it has been over 20 years, however, the movie has yet to be released despite being mostly finished.

Film Review: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

Also known as: The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Release Date: October 7th, 1994 (limited)
Directed by: Kim Henkel
Written by: Kim Henkel
Music by: Wayne Bell, Robert Jacks
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Matthew McConaughey, Marilyn Burns (cameo)

Genre Pictures, Return Productions, Ultra Muchos Productions, Columbia Pictures, Cinépix Film Properties, 94 Minutes (original cut), 87 Minutes (re-release)

Review:

This is the fourth and worst installment in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. The reboot after this was a big step-up.

I rewatched this and the third film Leatherface for the first time in over a decade. Leatherface was really bad, this is worse. To be honest, it isn’t as bad as I remembered it but that is only because it has a few positives that none of the other films have. The main thing is Matthew McConaughey.

You can never accuse McConaughey of not giving 100 percent to a role. He played his part here, at about 150 percent. He was turned up past maximum volume and it was extraordinary. Sure, his material, his dialogue and his character were a ridiculous mash-up of awful but he shined with absolute insanity. I love McConaughey in this role and he owned it like no other previous psycho in this franchise.

Well, there actually isn’t another positive. McConaughey was just so good it is the equivalent to three positives.

So what’s bad? Quick answer: everything else. Long answer: initiate rant paragraph. Go!

The film starts with an animated logo that is pixelated and a credits sequence that has unintentional optical glitches. The dialogue was some of the worst I have ever heard and I watch a ton of Mystery Science Theater 3000 reruns. Some of the scenes made absolutely no sense… actually, all of the scenes. No, really… all of them. The acting, apart from McConaughey, was so bad that “atrocious” can’t quite define it. Renée Zellweger is the star of this but she just couldn’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit, especially with McConaughey’s mojo cruising through outer space. The conspiracy theory plot twist was one of the dumbest things I have ever seen play out on film. Leatherface was just a cross-dressing, wailing banshee that didn’t do a damn thing except scream the entire picture. The two other psychos were so uninteresting and unintelligible that they are only memorable because I just watched this. But the worst thing was Matthew McConaughey’s robot leg and how Renée Zellweger immobilized him with a television remote… a television remote! And then he is murdered by a low flying secret society airplane propeller that chops through his head. Then you find out that all along, all this Texas Chainsaw Massacre stuff was some sinister government plot to scare people so much that they had a “spiritual experience” before dying. None of it makes any fucking sense. None. And this was written and directed by one half of the creative team behind the original movie! So it is canon, right? Right?!

Rant paragraph over.

This film is so bad that even McConaughey’s complete awesomeness still puts this behind Leatherface. If you get this far into the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film series, you must be a glutton for punishment like I am. Or you were the kid who burnt their hand on the stove even though your mother told you it was hot. Or maybe you are just curious and want to see the greatest Oscar caliber performance in one of the worst motion pictures of all-time.

I don’t think words can really illustrate the experience that is Texas Chainsaw Masscare: The Next Generation. But words can’t really illustrate the feeling of being shot, you kind of just have to jump in front of the bullet.

Rating: 3/10

Film Review: Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)

Release Date: January 12th, 1990
Directed by: Jeff Burr
Written by: David J. Schow
Music by: Jim Manzie, Pat Regan
Cast: Kate Hodge, Viggo Mortensen, William Butler, Ken Foree, Joe Unger, Tom Everett, Toni Hudson, Miriam Byrd Nethery, R.A. Mihailoff

New Line Cinema, 81 Minutes

Review:

This film series just doesn’t hold a candle to A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th or Halloween. Already, by the third movie, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise was dead in the water – unlike that magical waterproof and buoyant chainsaw at the end of this film. But if there’s something positive to be said, the film series does get even worse after this.

There really isn’t anything in this chapter of the series that is worth seeing. Sure, it has Viggo Mortensen and horror icon Ken Foree in it but they are also in much better pictures.

As far as personality, Leatherface is a completely different character in Leatherface. I guess he was supposed to be New Line Cinema’s take on the character, as they bought the rights to the series from Cannon Films in an effort to milk a new franchise and iconic monster like they had done with five Freddy Krueger movies before this.

The one takeaway from this movie, is how boring it is. How can a film with a crazy cannibal family and a chainsaw-wielding brute be boring? Somehow director Jeff Burr managed the impossible. Then again, he is also synonymous with directing awful horror sequels. I mean, he directed Stepfather II, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, as well as Puppet Master 4 and 5.

Viggo Mortensen and Ken Foree are about the only people with any sort of charisma in Leatherface. The acting is pretty atrocious, all around. The creepy cannibal girl is just bizarre in the worst way, the helpful girl in the woods is pointless and the two main actors weren’t likable. The cannibal family wasn’t even remotely scary, they just seemed like throwaway redneck side characters.

The final battle between Ken Foree and Leahterface is one of the worst fights I’ve seen in a horror movie from this era. I’m not sure how a chainsaw runs and floats in the water with the blade upright. Apparently, no one who worked on this film understands common sense physics.

Leatherface is an awful film.

Rating: 2/10

Film Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Part 2 (1986)

Release Date: August 22nd, 1986
Directed by: Tobe Hooper
Written by: L. M. Kit Carson
Music by: Tobe Hooper, Jerry Lambert
Cast: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow, Bill Johnson, Bill Moseley, Lou Perryman

Cannon Films, 101 Minutes

Review:

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is not as good of a film as its predecessor but I still prefer it to the original. Maybe that is a controversial stance, considering that most fans of the original loathed the sequel, but I don’t care.

I find this one to be the most entertaining of the series and I like that it is a gory dark comedy that parodies itself. Besides, the first film didn’t have the blood and guts one would anticipate with a film featuring its name. This one, more than makes up for its predecessor, if blood and guts are your thing.

I’m not a huge gore hound but the way it is used in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, is fantastic. It is deliberately over the top, almost to mock the critics of the first film that didn’t get the violence they felt they were promised. This movie pretty much states, in the most bold way possible, “Here you go! Here’s your fucking gore!” The scene where Lefty knocks a hole in the wall, only to discover that the whole place is full of human viscera, is enough to make most people wince.

I think it was over a lot of people’s heads that this was satire. It certainly wasn’t marketed that way when it was released and it may have caught people completely off guard or just pissed them off. When I saw this as a kid, I was grossed out, but I loved the humorous approach. And while I didn’t understand that it was a parody, at the time, I appreciated that it upped the ante a thousand times over.

It also develops the psychotic cannibal family’s story more. You really didn’t know much about them in the first movie but now you have a better idea of what they are. You also see Leatherface, as a character, more clearly. The introduction of Bill Moseley’s Chop Top is a great addition to the family and this became one of his most iconic horror roles.

The opening sequence of this film, as nonsensical as it is, is still one of my favorite openings to any horror film. I never understood why the vehicles drove at the same speed, albeit slowly, or why the radio station couldn’t hang up the phone but it still works for me. Maybe it was the awesome Oingo Boingo track that accompanied the violent and bizarre scene.

The music in this film was really good. Well, the rock tunes were. The actual score is pretty horrid. It sounds like a ten year-old with a synthesizer trying to pound away with scary sound effects. It kind of fits the satirical nature of the film though and it blends in well, as the movie progresses.

As far as the sets go, I much preferred the family living in an old defunct theme park, as opposed to the gross farm house from all the other movies. The evil lair was surreal and the scenes of Caroline Williams running through its bizarre halls was infinitely cooler than all the other girls, in all the other films, running through the woods with Leatherface in tow.

The scenes in the radio station also provide a cooler atmosphere than the creepy house.

Dennis Hopper said that this was the worst film of his career but he’s an idiot if he thought that Super Mario Bros. was any better.

I like Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I like it better than all the others in the franchise. Again, the first movie is better, artistically. However, this one is just a lot more fun and insane.

Rating: 7/10

Film Review: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Release Date: October 1st, 1974
Directed by: Tobe Hooper
Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Music by: Wayne Bell, Tobe Hooper
Cast: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen, Teri McMinn

Vortex, Bryanston Pictures, 84 Minutes

Review:

Originally, I wanted to review the first four Texas Chainsaw films as a series, as they are considered to be the original run of films before the remakes, prequels and other alternate sequels started. However, every single film bearing the Texas Chainsaw name, follows its own continuity. Part 2 is one of many versions of a sequel. Part 3 ignores Part 2. Then you have Part 4, which ignores Parts 2 and 3 and establishes a “next generation” of characters. After that, the series was rebooted. Then the reboot got a prequel. Years later, another alternate sequel to the original was made. Now there is another prequel coming out within the next year or so; I’m not sure which of the films it is attached to. Needless to say, the continuity is confusing as hell, so I would rather review each film separately.

Artistically speaking, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the best film in the series, although I can’t call it great. Sorry, it just isn’t. It also isn’t my favorite in the series, that honor would go to the second part, which I will explain when I review that chapter in the franchise.

This film is insane and scary. The atmosphere and the characters create a sense of dread that has never been replicated in the series. The dinner scene is one of the most legitimately frightening moments in 1970s horror. The sets, the cinematography, the characters, the music, the sound, everything just melds together in a good way. The film does the job it set out to do.

The only thing about the movie that I hated, and many will probably agree, is the invalid brother Franklin. He was beyond obnoxious, stupid and annoying. I don’t see how anyone could feel bad about his death in the picture. I only wish it had come sooner and been a lot more violent.

One of the common misconceptions about this movie, is that people remember it as being extremely violent and bloody. It isn’t. Most of the actual gore happens out of the shot or is implied somehow. There is very little blood, overall. The film is just so intense, at the right moments, that it doesn’t need to slap you in the face with blood and guts.

I know I am in the minority, but I have never held this in the same regard as classics like A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween or Friday the 13th. It certainly isn’t as good as Black Christmas, another well-noted horror film from 1974. I have always liked it but it just doesn’t hold a special place for me like the other movies. And out of all the big time horror franchises, this one has spawned the most awful sequels.

Regardless of my criticism, Tobe Hooper made a solid horror picture for 1974. This is considered to be one of the greatest scary movies ever made. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been in 1974 when the world hadn’t really seen something this brutal. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre opened the flood gates for what was to come in the horror genre and that, more than anything else, is why this film is important.

Rating: 8/10