Texas Chainsaw 3D - The Legend Is Back

This movie starts with the 1974 movie. After Sally escaped, police officer Hooper goes to the Sawyer house and tries to arrest Leatherface. However an angry mob gets to the house and massacres the family instead. One of the mob kidnaps a surviving baby. Years later, that baby is now young Heather Miller (Alexandra Daddario). Suddenly she inherits an estate from a grandmother she didn't even know she had. She goes back to Newt Texas with 3 friends (Trey Songz, Tania Raymonde, Keram Malicki-Sánchez) and a hitchhiker (Shaun Sipos). There they encounter Leatherface who's been kept in the basement. Only there are more villains than the chainsaw wielding brute.

There is a flip in this movie. It's tantamount to blasphemy. It's probably why there are so many haters. But I almost feel like it's a badge of honor for a horror movie to flip the accepted view on its head. If you can't destroy the sacred in a horror movie, then where are we going to do it.

The best thing in this movie is Alexandra Daddario. It reminds me why I had her as one of my preferred choice to be Wonder Woman. Now I hate the Gal Gadot selection even more. She holds the movie even better than Jessica Biel. She's super hot. She can act. She has physicality. This is a well acted, well filmed, and an interesting take on the franchise.

Texas Chainsaw is the latest movie in the long-running series and a film that aims to be a direct sequel to the Tobe Hooper original, pretty much discounting the various others that have come along since. To be honest, these movies have such a gruelling premise that it's difficult to go wrong with them; a premise that screams horror and disturbing imagery all the way, so you'd have to be a really bad filmmaker to screw it up.

This film feels very much like a modern horror movie. It's incredibly fast paced, with action going on all the while; a film filled to the brim with chase scenes, quick-fire dialogue and constant movement. It ups the gore quotient considerably, so that we're subject to bodies being chainsawed in half and the like, while at the same time the genuinely disturbing atmosphere of the first film is long forgotten. It's horrible, but not horrifying. There's something cartoon-like about watching Leatherface on the rampage here.

Unfortunately, the story does take some very silly twists along the way, particularly towards the climax, and the ending is very poor. Not only does it feature a horrible bit of CGI effects work, it mixes up and muddles its morals and features some unbelievable behaviour on the part of the characters. I had the feeling things would turn out this way but it's too abrupt and nonsensical compared to what's come before, the tone is all wrong.

Still, it's not all bad. The cast are young and hip, and give some not-bad performances although they don't really wow you. The person making the least impact is Scott Eastwood; you register him as Clint's son from appearance alone, and certainly not from acting talent. Still, Alexandra Daddario is fine as a potential scream queen and it's nice to see her given the opportunity to shine in a leading role after playing support in the likes of PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF. The direction isn't too bad, and the early scenes tying it into the original work well, but this is light, cheesy and forgettable fluff in the end, nothing more.

Any time a classic horror movie is remade or rebooted there's a great chance it's not going to be good. This is not a good movie. The plot is pretty stupid. There is some bad dialogue. Forget about how much you like the original and just watch some people get hacked up for barbecue.

I have a confession: I liked the two remakes by Platinum Dunes. I thought they were entertaining, dumb horror films and dare I say it, actually kinda scary. They weren't masterpieces or anything but I enjoyed them for the most part so when I found out yet another Texas Chainsaw movie was coming out, and even though I wasn't impressed with the trailer, I decided to go see it.

What was I thinking?

I think you are forced to see it in 3D because, well, it says 3D on it but most of the time you forgot you are even watching it in 3D. It adds nothing to this movie. The movie starts off showing clips of the very original Texas Chainsaw Massacre which confused me because it totally obliterates the remakes. Actually it ignores the sequels too as the story picks off from there. It starts off with these hicks burning down the home of Leatherface and his family and one of the hicks takes a baby and kills the mother. Flash-forward to.... how many years later? Is it supposed to be 2012 because the baby should around forty, not in her early twenties as she clearly looks like. Anyway, she finds out she inherited this house and her and her cookie-cutter friends and some hitchhiker who appears nice only turns out to be a thief all go there. Then Leatherface turns out to be in the basement and all hell breaks loose.

This movie is so stupid I don't know where to begin. Well, the actions of the characters are just stupid. Before I get into that, though, there is one good scene in the film when Leatherface is chasing them but it all goes downhill from there. The movie offers up these turn of events that make no sense whatsoever. A cop goes back to the house alone and there is no backup anywhere in sight for one lone cop in a house with a crazed psycho with a chainsaw. Then characters turn bad for stupid reasons and one of them that played an intricate part of the storyline just disappears somewhere, never to be heard from again. Then by the end of the film, I don't even know who to root for the main heroine turns completely idiotic. Oh, and the ending just plain sucked.

This film is bad in so many levels. I kept thinking, "Who wrote this crap?" in so many parts of the movie. There wasn't many people at the theater either and I saw it at a night showing. If that's an indication, there might not be another Texas Chainsaw movie. Oh well.

Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

*** (out of 4)

Heather Mills (Alexandra Daddario) and her three friends travel to a small Texas town so that she can claim her inheritance but soon she realizes that Leatherface (Dan Yeager) is in the basement and her past has a connection to him. Texas CHAINSAW is a film that's probably going to swing fans of the series both ways but overall I actually thought it was the second best film in the franchise behind the original of course. I will say that the producers, writers and director showed some serious balls because much like HALLOWEEN: H20, this film is a direct sequel to the first film. Yes, the events here don't fully match up with the events in that first film but it was interesting seeing the clips from the first movie and how they tied up what happened after Sally got away and then started this new story. Does it all work? Not at all but I still found the film to be a lot of fun. One reason is that Leatherface is returned to his full glory of being something rather scary and I thought there were a couple great jump scenes. I normally don't fall for these jumps scenes but the ones here worked. I also thought the film delivered some very memorable gore scenes but those paying the extra cash for the 3D will probably be cheated. In fact, the few "3D" moments here really take you out of what's going on. For the most part I thought the cast was a lot of fun and this includes Daddario in her role in the lead. I also thought Yeager made for a good Leatherface and perhaps the best since the first film. Speaking of which, it's nice seeing that Tobe Hopper and Kim Henkel were involved and we even have Gunnar Hansen and Marilyn Burns in small roles. I'm sure the ending will lead to some controversy among horror fans. While it's incredibly predictable what's going to happen, I must say I liked it and it made me excitement for a sequel. Texas CHAINSAW 3D is far from perfect but it's a good way to get the franchise back up and running.