Movie Review: ‘TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D’

Let’s take a look down memory lane to see how we got to this point, shall we?  In 1974, Tobe Hooper crafted The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a no-budget creep classic inspired by Ed Gein – it’s raw, cold, bleak, and strange.  About a decade later Hooper put the gang into the 80’s with a 1986 sequel that’s tonally a complete 180 and makes sharp turns from ultra-violence into cartoonish camp comedy.  In 1990 Jeff Burr made Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, whose Excalibur style teaser trailer was better than the actual film.  The less said about 1994’s The Next Generation and Leatherface in drag the better.  2003’s Marcus Nispel directed reinvisioning of the original is hit or miss with people, but I really enjoyed the tough, gritty, dark new Sawyer family and was quite pleased that after about 20 minutes it became its own film rather than following a blueprint.  The film is, above all, brutal as hell and stylish at the same time, which isn’t exactly an easy find in Hollywood.  Jonathan Liebsman’s 2003 prequel to Nispel’s film, The Beginning, fared not as well as it tried to humanize Leatherface and make him a sympathetic character for the audience.  Now, here we are in 2013 with relative newcomer John Luessenhop’s 3D addition to the saga, and rather than connect it to the 2003 family, the decision was to pretend that Hooper’s Part II never happened.  We pick up directly after the event’s of the 1974 original and see the outcome of what happened after original survivor Sally reached the authorities.  It’s an interesting idea; it has zero execution.

Despite the sheriff’s warnings, the hillbillies from town surround the Sawyer compound and have themselves some vigilante justice, burning it and seemingly the entire Sawyer clan – including Jedidiah “Leatherface” Sawyer – to the ground.  A Sawyer child survives next to her wounded mother, mom is put out of her misery, and the child is taken by two of the townsfolk.  After this we fast forward to what’s assumed to be present day and somehow the house has been rebuilt, refurbished, and given the EXACT same layout indoors.  This isn’t explained.  The child, Heather, is now a grown lady.  Alexandra Daddario’s chest might as well be given a supporting character credit as it’s spotlighted constantly.  She’s a lovely girl, and has proven in other projects to be a far better actress than she is here.  Anyway…whatever, there are actually too many plot holes to actually try to explain the story.  The long short: Heather’s given the house in a will, she takes some friends with her, Leatherface isn’t as dead as the town thought, and death ensues.  It’s apparently Halloween, but that plays no role whatsoever.

Those plot holes fly fast and furious, too.  Logistically if this was taking place today, Heather should be in her mid 30’s (she’s playing an early 20’s), Leatherface should be presumably in his early 60’s (he sure hasn’t aged), and Trey Songz shouldn’t have anything resembling an acting career (just awful).  He’s just one of many horrible casting decisions made, and Lussenhop’s complete inability to direct them properly is very prevalent.  Most actors deliver the lines as if they’re confused what they’re supposed to be doing, and just improvising REALLY poorly on the spot.  Lussenhop’s faults as a director don’t end there, but he can’t be at fault for all of it.  The film is shot and edited extremely poorly, and the staging and spacing of the 3D is horribly non-existent.  Decisions like having girls cower in a crashed van that Leatherface has literally just caused to wreck, trying to shush each other as if maybe he won’t come to investigate his handy work…that’s beyond the average “dumb people” kind of horror cliche.  There’s a chase through a packed carnival with about a 6’6″ Leatherface toting his chainsaw around, and the crowd doesn’t seem to be much phased…oh, right, it’s Halloween!  That makes sense now!  No.  No it doesn’t.  He just cut through a fence, WHY ARE YOU SO CALM???!!?

On the plus side, Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero showed up for some nasty prosthetics and effects work, but it’s not like one has to look too far to see their genius at work – weekly on AMC’s The Walking Dead.  If you’re a gorehound and begging for some grue you can find much better with little effort (I’d suggest last year’s Silent Night, BTW). There are two or three well staged scares in the picture that worked really well and to its credit, I really did like how the film ended and would have interest in seeing how it continues.  Doubt that’ll happen.  I doubt I’d like it even if it did.

Ready for the puns???!  This should grab some REALLY bad buzz soon, what I saw was none too pleasing, and this reboot has no teeth.  Lussenhop’s amateur directing ability, mostly terrible casting, an awful script loaded with holes, and some absolutely dreadful native 3D, all add up to what we’ve come to expect from the first week of January: bad news.  Only 4 days into 2013 and this is by far one of the worst films I’ll see this year.