Review: Texas Chainsaw 3D

One criticism often hurled at horror fans is that we take out favorite franchises and characters too personally.  In a lot of cases, that’s true.  Normally I don’t fall into that category, but the Texas Chainsaw Massacre flicks are the exception.  I’ve talked many times on this blog about my deep relationship with the saw.  After so many years as the resident chainsaw wielding maniac at various haunted house attractions, I feel like part of the family.  In fact, Netherworld’s current saw crew (I’m so proud of my two apprentices) have been dubbed Ralphus, Lila, and Cletus Sawyer.  Yep, I’m a Sawyer, so I take my family’s cinematic legacy seriously.  So, did our first foray into 3D have teeth?

Synopsis: “Lionsgate’s TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D continues the legendary story of the homicidal Sawyer family, picking up where Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic left off in Newt, Texas, where for decades people went missing without a trace.  The townspeople long suspected the Sawyer family, owners of a local barbeque pit, were somehow responsible.  Their suspicions were finally confirmed one hot summer day when a young woman escaped the Sawyer house following the brutal murders of her four friends.  Word around the small town quickly spread, and a vigilante mob of enraged locals surrounded the Sawyer stronghold, burning it to the ground and killing every last member of the family – or so they thought.  Decades later and hundreds of miles away from the original massacre, a young woman named Heather learns that she has inherited a Texas estate from a grandmother she never knew she had.  After embarking on a road trip with friends to uncover her roots, she finds she is the sole owner of a lavish, isolated Victorian mansion. But her newfound wealth comes at a price as she stumbles upon a horror that awaits her in the mansion’s dank cellars.

Let’s start off with what this flick did right, which ironically is also one of the things the flick has been catching a lot of flack for; Leatherface himself.  The portrayal in this film is a spot on logical progression of the character from the original film.  While still brutal, twisted, and violent, this is a much more sedate Leatherface. I’ve heard a lot of people bemoan this shift, but it makes perfect sense.  Twenty (maybe forty, but I’ll get into that later) years have passed since Sally, Franklin, and the crew encountered the Sawyers.  Leatherface is much older now.  He’s not going to be the frenetic, almost spastic butcher that he once was.  He’s a little more tired, he’s learned his craft better, and (dare I say it), he’s matured a little.  He no longer just goes running after his prey, he exhibits slightly more measured stalking techniques.  He also sports a pronounced limp due to his chainsaw injury in the first film.  Having personally chased people with a chainsaw on a bad wheel, I thought showing the toll this took on him was a great realistic touch.  Family is a big deal to Leatherface.  He’s dealt with the loss of his entire clan over the years, and recently buried the last living relative that he knew.  That’s gonna devastate the big guy.  They even threw a couple of new touches into the Leatherface lore that added a lot, especially one particularly brilliant one involving him donning the iconic mask.  All of these things add up to a very different Leatherface, and I applaud the filmmakers for what seems like a lot of thought being put into the character, even if that seems to have taken up all of the thought for the whole writing process.  Again, I’ll get into that later.

A lot of the criticism I’ve seen is based around the fact that the story takes Leatherface in an anti-hero direction rather than making him a simple killing machine.  To these people I ask, “have we been watching the same TCM series?”  That’s what Leatherface has always been!  He’s a character that should elicit some compassion from the viewer.  There’s always been an element of the victim in his story.  Leatherface isn’t a morality killer or a revenge killer or a thrill killer like your average machete/razor glove/butcher knife wielder.  He’s always killed for his family.  In his head, he’s helping provide for his kin, protecting them, and fulfilling his role in the family unit.  He has always been shown to care deeply about his loved ones, although they abuse him more often than not.  To different extents in the various TCM films, he’s always been both a villain and a tragic character; like King Kong, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, or Frankenstein’s Monster.  That’s why I don’t understand why people are up in arms about him being portrayed in a sympathetic light.  The character hasn’t changed, the identification point has.  In all of the previous films, the audience’s lot is thrown in with the victims.  In parts of this movie, The Sawyer family is portrayed as the victims.  With the identification of the audience placed with The Sawyers, how could Leatherface, a man who is willing to kill for his family, be anything but a hero?  If you miss the old bloodthirsty maniac Leatherface, I fear that you weren’t paying attention to any of the other movies.  In my mind, Leatherface is dealt with perfectly in TC3D even if that mask did look pretty wonky.  Kudos go out to Dan Yeager for a stellar performance.  I always knew Yeager was a brutal monster.  No, wait, that’s Jager that’s a brutal monster.  Nevermind. 

Unfortunately, that brings me to my main problem with the movie.  It just doesn’t feel like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.  Part of this is that there’s no crazy family…just Leatherface.  This is a statement that may be surprising coming from me considering the kinship I feel with the character – Leatherface alone does not a TCM flick make.  It’s the whole family.  From Drayton and Choptop, to Alfredo and Tex, to Vilmer and Darla, the series has always been about the Sawyer clan.  Hell, Leatherface is following orders from another family member in EVERY SINGLE other film in the series.  Without the rest of the family, it just doesn’t work.  It changes the whole tone of the film.   The singular killer works for a slasher flick, but the TCM movies, contrary to popular belief, are NOT slasher movies.  They’re backwoods horror.  The terror has always come from the cast of characters that lurk out past where the paved road ends, not a single person.  That’s the main reason TC3D doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the TCM series; it’s essentially a slasher flick.  Even the almost universally hated TCM4, which most people consider an insult to the series (but I dig), followed certain formulaic elements.  A group of teens ran afoul of an insane family.  There was an inescapable gritty, grimy atmosphere.  Not only was this missing the family, but it was just too slick, too clean, and too pretty to be a proper TCM flick.  There was a little grit here and there, but it was relegated to Leatherface’s lair.  The air of depravity didn’t permeate the rest of the flick like it did in the other parts of the series.  I get that it is happening in a different canon than 2-4, but when the audience has grown accustomed to a certain style and aesthetic being associated with a title, it’s best to give it to them.

My other problem with the flick is that the storytelling is just plain sloppy.  The most glaring problem is the timeframe of the flick.  Bear with me folks, this is gonna get a little confusing.  Yes, this is a slight spoiler, but it’s only the first five minutes of the flick, so get over it.  We start with a shootout at the Sawyer house in which the family is slaughtered, then flash forward “20 years” for the main story of the movie.  Here’s where the can of worms opens.  It appears as if the first scene takes place shortly after the events of the first film.  Leatherface is wearing his “Pretty Woman” mask that he had on at the end of TCM 1.  This would place the events in 1973.  Twenty years later would be 1993.  There are a few incongruities there.  The first one I noticed was gas being 3-something a gallon.  Second, smartphones become a major plot element.  This would indicate that the “present day” action is taking place in, well, the present day.  That just doesn’t work because of our heroine.  She was a baby in the opening scene, meaning that in 2012 she would be pushing 40.  Yet she doesn’t look a day over 25.  So, if she’s in her mid 20’s in 2012, then the opening shootout happened in the early 90’s.  The problem with that is Drayton Sawyer.  In the shootout scene, he’s middle aged, just like he was in the first movie, albeit played by a different actor.  If 20 years had passed between the events of TCM1 and the shootout, he would be in his 70’s, which he obviously isn’t.  Is any of this making sense?  I’ll answer that for you…HELL NO it doesn’t.  The timeframe just doesn’t add up.  Either they thought the audience was too stupid to notice (which, sadly, many of them will be), or that’s just the epitome of sloppy writing.

That’s not the extent of the awkward scripting either.  In that shootout scene, there are a bunch of members of the Sawyer clan present that we’ve never seen before.  The Sawyers are huge on family values, so it would stand to reason that if they were having a family dinner at the end of TCM1, we would have seen these guys, or at least heard them alluded to.  So, why are they there?  Oh yeah, they needed there to be a Sawyer baby.  That’s fine; just explain why all those guys weren’t there before.  Do the “present day” characters fare any better?  Well, I know it’s ridiculous to expect the chainsaw fodder to act intelligently, but for the love of Nubbins these might have been the stupidest characters in any horror movie of the last decade or so.  Remember when I did the Horror Movie Darwin Awards?  Nearly every character in this flick easily qualifies for one, collectively AND individually. When it comes out on DVD, I may have to do a special round of awards.  In an astonishing show of “how do you screw up a setup that perfect” stupidity, Leatherface ends up in the middle of a carnival, chainsaw in hand, and it ends up being about one minute long and largely non-eventful.  How you take a setup that almost guarantees an epic bloodbath and make it a throwaway scene is beyond comprehension.  It did include one sight gag that make me laugh pretty hard, but it was about 3 or 4 years too late to really be timely.

Aside from my one big acclamation and my big ol’pair of quibbles (is it just me or does that sound vaguely dirty?), the flick is a mixed bag.  That’s most obvious in the effects.  There are some excellent practical effects, which is to be expected with KNB on the case.  I know the flick had to make cuts to get an R rating, so I’m hoping for even more splatter on the DVD/Blu-ray release.  As good as the practical effects are, the CGI effects are equally bad.  I mean, there are some truly AWFUL CGI moments, which sadly includes whatever gore they didn’t let the masters handle.  As far as the much-ballyhooed Bill Moseley performance as Drayton Sawyer goes; his cameo, as well as those by Gunnar Hanson, Marilyn Burns, and John Dugan, is fleeting and unsatisfying.  Besides Leatherface, the other main strength of the flick is Alexandria Daddario.  She gives the well rounded breast…I mean best well rounded performance of the younger contingent of the cast.  She just may have a future in horror.  She can pull off both victim and bad girl.  Plus she’s real purty and has big boobies, which has never hurt anyone’s career.

Random Thought #1:  Speaking of which, there’s one scene in the flick that is the worst nudity tease EVER.  Double sided tape is my mortal enemy. 

Random Thought #2: Hand of the Almighty by The John Butler Trio finally made it onto a film soundtrack.  I love that song.

So, now we come to the difficult question, do I recommend it?  That’s a tricky one.  If you are the type of person that is gonna get your knickers in a twist over the franchise rules not being followed, you might want to skip this one.  There are enough hints of the original to keep you interested, but this isn’t going to satisfy hardline TCM fanatics.  Aside from some serious story missteps, it is a pretty good dumb fun horror flick though.  It wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be, but it wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it might be.  I’m gonna give it 6 Chainsaw Bisections out of 10.  Nathan says check it out.  It may my least favorite of the series (not counting the remake), but the saw is still family.

The 5 Greatest Horror Movie Mash-ups You'll Never See.

Remember how excited you were when you found out that Freddy vs. Jason was finally going to become a reality? I was too. Hell, everyone was. In the wake of that flick, rumors were flying about what team ups and battles we would see next. Pinhead was rumored to figure into Freddy vs Jason. Michael Myers, Leatherface, Chucky, Candyman, and all of the other great slashers were supposedly about to duke it out. Ash was even going to be thrown into the mix. A lot of these pairings did happen in comic books, where character crossovers are common. On the silver screen, however, the idea just fizzled and never came to fruition, which sucks. Bad. I was looking forward to it. I think there could have been a modern equivalent of those great old Universal “House of…” movies where they just threw all of the monsters into one flick.What  a huge missed opportunity!  That could have been a really fun era of horror history. Alas, as is usually the case, arguments over who owned the rights to what and who would make what share of the profits superseded what the fans wanted to see. While Hollywood may have missed the boat on the whole monster mash up idea, I have a few ideas of my own. What do you think? Would you pay to see these?

Evil Dead / Phantasm

Ash and Reggie Bannister are two men who have looked into the eyes of undead, demonic, otherworldly terrors and survived. Two average Joe’s forced to become warriors. Two… well, two heroes who take almost as much ass kicking as they dish out. They make quite the mighty chainsaw swinging, evil blasting, catchphrase spewing team. They’re going to have to, because a new enemy threatens our realm. The Tall Man has gained control of the Necronomicon and unlocked its secrets. He now wields the full power of the deadite legions. Not only is he turning the entire population of small towns into deformed evil Jawa things, but now they’re possessed, powerful, deformed evil Jawa things. Honestly, for this one, the plot doesn’t really matter at all. Ash and Reggie versus the Tall Man is about all you have to say. Plus, the look on Bruce Campbell’s face when Reggie introduces Ash to the four-barreled boomstick would be worth the price of admission by itself.

Hellraiser / Pumpkinhead

Ashley’s husband was the final victim of Skinner, a vicious serial killer, before he was apprehended. During the trial, with the press hounding her for interviews and Skinner hinting at “unfinished business,” Ashley decides to retreat to her mother’s house in rural Louisiana. When Skinner is acquitted on a technicality, Ashley is both outraged at the miscarriage of justice and afraid for her life. Her mother informs her that while the court couldn’t give her justice, she knows someone who can. She takes Ashley to an old woman who lives back in the bayou, who helps Ashley call forth Pumpkinhead to avenge her husband. Meanwhile, Skinner has discovered her whereabouts and is en route to Louisiana to finish what he started. He brings his “toys,” mainly the sharp ones, as well as a puzzle box he stole from an occultist he killed. He opens the box and, as the Cenobites are about to tear his soul apart, Pumpkinhead bursts into the room intent on tearing his target apart. Of course, neither is willing to cede their kill to the other. A battle between the demonic forces ensues and Skinner escapes. With Skinner racing towards Ashley with murder on his mind, and Pumpkinhead and the Cenobites hot on his trail, who will reach their victim first? There will be suffering, but whose?

Motel Hell / Texas Chainsaw Massacre

With the authorities sniffing a little too close, Farmer Vincent and Ida decide to relocate. Settling in Texas, they set up shop, once again making their famous meat products. One day Drayton Sawyer stops in and decides to try out Farmer Vincent’s Fritters. He recognizes that secret ingredient. He’d know that taste anywhere; it’s the same kind of meat he’s been using for his award winning chili. The two cannibal families forge an uneasy business partnership, with Drayton selling Vincent’s famous jerky from his chuck wagon and Vincent selling delicious Sawyer barbecue at his store. All is well until a van load of vacationers breaks down while passing through the area. Both families go after them, and it looks like there’s just not enough meat to share. There’s only room for one cooking dynasty in these parts. The truce is off and the fight is on. It all comes down to Vincent, complete with his pig head mask, and Leatherface in a chainsaw duel. Only one can claim this territory for their particular brand of culinary mayhem.

Reanimator / Bride of Frankenstein

Dr. Pretorius has tried and tried to cajole, threaten, and seduce Henry Frankenstein into returning to his experiments with giving new life to the dead. Unfortunately, it seems that after that unpleasant business with his monster, Henry refuses to take up the scalpel again. Pretorius decides to turn his attention to another promising student from his days at the University, a young upstart named Herbert West. He is delighted to find that Herbert shares his dark curiosities without all those pesky ethics that Frankenstein has suddenly developed. When his new accomplice shows Pretorius his latest project, a mysterious compound he calls his “re-agent,” it looks like the old lightning method is suddenly obsolete. Together, they set off to explore the limits of life and death. Can the two egotistical medical necromancers co-exist? More importantly, what monstrosities will this mad scientist dream team unleash upon the earth?

Human Centipede / Basket Case

Duane and Belial were conjoined twins. They were separated against their will when they were 12 or, as their parents put it, “that deformity was removed from Duane.” Belial was thought to have died, but Duane saved him and now carries his small, monstrously deformed, homicidal brother around in a whicker basket. Together they’ve set off on a mission to kill everyone involved in the separation. They’ve traveled wherever they had to, taking out parents, orderlies, and nurses. They tracked two of the three doctors involved to New York City. At the “urging” of Belial, the two assistant surgeons reveal that the final, head surgeon in charge retired and now resides in Europe. The boys head off to Germany to get revenge on the doctor who presided over their separation; a doctor who was famous for separating conjoined twins. In fact, Duane and Belial’s case brought him fame and fortune. He is none other than Dr. Heiter. The good doctor, having conquered the art of separation, is now interested in joining together. When Duane and Belial confront him, he sees a perfect chance to test his new procedure. He convinces them that if they spare his life, he will right the wrong by reversing the process and rejoining them. They agree and Heiter operates. When the boys wake up, however, they realize that this wasn’t exactly the reunion that they had in mind.

30 Day Horror Challenge Strikes Back Day 7: Favorite villain (human)

My favorite human killer is, without a doubt, Leatherface. Not the remake Leatherface. He sucks. I’m talking Leatherface from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre until The Next Generation. He’s my favorite for two reasons. First of all, he’s a fascinating character. He’s a freakin’ murderous cannibal who wears a mask made of human faces! What else can you say? Well, a lot actually. Based on Ed Gein, himself one of the most fascinating real life characters in history, Leatherface is a psychologist’s dream. Throughout the series we get multiple personalities, suspended childhood, gender identification issues, dysfunctional family dynamics, and about a thousand other psychoses. I tried really hard in multiple abnormal psych classes to get my professors to let me psychoanalyze Leatherface for a project. Unfortunately, I was not successful. Anyone that just thinks Bubba’s (yes, we are on a first name basis) just a backwoods retard with power tools has completely missed the point. I don’t have to tell you that though. You guys are all smart cookies.

More important to me is the second reason. It’s the fact that I have a personal connection with Leatherface. I feel a special kinship with him above all other horror characters. You see, since the saw is family, we’re brothers. Let me explain.

That’s me. There are actually quite a few people who know me as “Chainsaw Nate.” Ever since I was a boy I’ve worked in haunted attractions. In fact, I was only 12 the first time I ever chased someone with a chainsaw. I’ll never forget that moment; the vibrations coursing up my young arms, the roar of the saw in my ears, the smell of gas fumes wafting up at me, the grown woman screaming in terror before me. I was hooked. This was at a place called The Chilling Fields. I worked there for a few years, only getting to run the saw occasionally due to my age. After a season playing Jason at the Haunted Trail, I went to Blood Oaks when I was 17. Here, I was free to explore just what the saw and I could do together. I would chase people out the back door and through the parking lot. I lost count of the people who peed themselves. I learned that, just like in horror flicks, people tend to fall down when a big guy with a chainsaw is chasing them. I’ve made people faint. My coworkers all agreed that I enjoyed wielding the saw just a little too much.

Then in 1999, after Blood Oaks went out of business I went to Netherworld, the greatest haunted house in America. Just ask Fangoria, they rated us number one. Anyway, the owners were dead set against chainsaws. They thought it was a cheap scare. Two years later, they decided to try it out. I think my pestering had something to do with it. They knew just whose hands to put it into. From that moment on, I did nothing else for the next five years. I hate to sound like I’m bragging, but me and the saws became legendary. We terrorized people. I could tell you stories, but we’d be here for days. I kinda became infamous for a couple of things. I could start a saw in each hand simultaneously. I could start a saw behind my back without the person in front of me even knowing I had one. We had five saws, all the same model. I named them all and could tell them apart just by the sound of their motor.

I even sorta worried some of the people at the haunt. I used to talk to the saws and kiss them goodnight at the end of the night. I admit, and this is the first time I’ve admitted this anywhere, I did it partly to freak out some people who are hard to freak out. I also did it because I truly had a relationship with those saws. I compare it to the relationship a guitar player might have with a special guitar. Me and those saws worked together night after night, and I was extremely attached to them. Later, I tore my knee to shreds. How? You guessed it, chasing people with a chainsaw. Now, sadly, long nights of chasing people aren’t a reality any more. I recently moved back to Atlanta and rejoined my Netherworld family. I’ve had to take on other roles, but I still play with my babies from time to time.

There are probably some of you out there who think I sound kinda strange. You wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that. I know the power and romance of the chainsaw. Leatherface does too. When I went to see the remake and Jessica Beal chopped his arm off, I was pissed. When he couldn’t use the saw, I knew that wasn’t the real Leatherface. If I can start a chainsaw one handed, dammit, he can too. We have a lot of other similarities. We have similar body types. We both love barbecue. At least as of part 3, we both wear knee braces. The lure of the chainsaw, however, is what makes us brothers, and why he’s my favorite. The saw truly is family.