Leatherface : Massacre à la tronçonneuse 3

Traveling through the desert together, a brother-and-sister attempting to deliver a classic car to a relative encounters a murderous, cannibalistic family that preys on travelers hunting along the highway and must team up with a stranded survivalist to stave off the family's advances.

This here turned out to be decent and actually quite enjoyable actually. One of the main aspects that works really well to this one is an impressive atmosphere, with the film being rather creepy for the most part. There's a lot of fun to be had with this one in the desert despite being set at night but it makes the film just that much better because the majority of the action takes place at night and that is really tough to pull off, yet it's done nicely here. The initial appearance by the couple changing their car-tire which turns into an attack on the car and then leading into the chase down the highway where they bump into their friend gives this a strong launching pad to where the movie really works in the chasing through the patch of woods by the highway. The dark trees and nearly impenetrable layout makes for a perfect spot to unleash the series of ambushes, stumbling across the traps left out and getting plenty of strong, stellar stalking throughout where the killer comes out of the shadows in rather unexpected locations to catch them in the traps or stalk them with the chainsaw leading for a great time throughout here. With the family dinner scene being rather enjoyable with plenty of gruesome, bloody moments that are far more squirm-inducing than expected and a nasty streak that runs throughout, suddenly machine gun fire bursts into the room, gunning down most of the family leading into the final brawl out in the swamp which has a lot to like. The gore is great as well, especially in the unrated form where the gore is a little nastier and it should please the gorehounds looking for a ton of blood and guts. There are still some flaws here, as there is an 'R' rated version of the film that is so heavily cut that it makes no sense why it was rated 'R.' Almost no violence at all occurs in the main cut of the film which is virtually bloodless and with a low body count to chop up, it doesn't have a lot of deaths to dole out. There are way too few people to get involved in the family which keeps the body-count to a point where it's quite obvious there's not a lot of opportunities to knock people off which is really distracting. There's also the fact that the family again changes around members needlessly, offering up another change in the members and characteristics of the group which is never explained and offers up the kind of questions that shouldn't be made in this kind of situation. Ranging from who's who in relation to each other and what they're pasts were like since they're colorful enough to be memorable, however too much is kept off-screen around them which is rather disappointing. Still, it's far better than expected.

Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

No matter how many sequels, reboots, spinoffs, or rehashes The Texas Chainsaw gets, none will compare to the original. That's a given. But there are some installments in Leatherface's interesting journey throughout the decades that are solid enjoyable movies on their own, such as the 2003 remake and this one. Here I feel like the campiness of TCM2 met the thrills of the original TCM in a healthy middle ground. There are some ridiculous one-liners, but they're placed fittingly unlike the second movie where the comedy felt forced and sloppy. The acting in the movie is above average too, with your standard "now famous but previously in a crappy horror sequel" actor to boot.

The main reason this is better than its predecessor is because it actually has suspense; not a lot of it but it's there. The creepy moments somewhat resemble scenes from the original but none of it feels rehashed. There are characters you can root for, and Leatherface is actually (kind of) scary again. There's also a satisfying climax, fit with heavy metal and cheesy lines that belong in a Marlon Wayans movie. It's just a fun popcorn horror movie with some gore, a couple thrills, and a decent amount of laughs. All in all, a movie is meant to entertain, and for the most part, Texas Chainsaw Massacre III did exactly that. Worth a watch for hardcore slasher fans.

This second sequel to the horror classic is something of a letdown, purely because of the storyline. While the first sequel, dominated by Dennis Hopper's crazed performance, explored the key figures in a novel way, LEATHERFACE is a film that's content to simply emulate the first movie's storyline. Once again we get unwary travellers falling foul of Leatherface and his family, and an extended climax involving a family dinner. It's all way too familiar, and of course lacks the sheer intensity of Tobe Hooper's original classic.

The film's tone is wildly uneven throughout, and even in the would-be horror scenes it's hard to take it seriously. The movie feels like a spoof; it has a light-hearted tone that sits at odds with the grimness of the plot. Still, on the plus side, it's very fast paced, and it features a great deal of crowd-pleasing horror elements that are sure to win the hearts of splatter fans, although as with the original, it's never quite as gory as you think it's going to be (and I'm talking about the uncut version).

One of those crowd-pleasers is Ken Foree, Mr. DAWN OF THE DEAD himself, playing one of the film's would-be victims. Foree is a delight, and they sure play up to his potential, portraying him as a real ass-kicker of a man. I couldn't care less about the two characters who are supposed to be the leads, but Foree hooks you right from the start. The rest of the actors are less than impressive, and in particular the guy who plays Leatherface is just a stock heavy; there's certainly none of the hulking, imposing brutality that Gunnar Hansen brought to the role.

Of course, one of the draws watching this film today is seeing a pre-stardom Viggo Mortensen playing in a decidedly odd type of role, completely different from what you might expect; I enjoyed his performance, even if much of it is played for laughs. And that's the trouble with the film as a whole: we're back to that spoofy tone, that whole non-serious feel that everyone's laughing at the premise rather than getting to grips with the horrifying implications of it. Take the ear scene, for example, or the string of increasingly ridiculous and unbelievable things that happen at the climax (including the fate of one of the characters, which makes no sense whatsoever; blame a substituted ending for that one, after the original didn't go down too well with test audiences). In fact, come the end, I enjoyed this more as a bizarre comedy than as a genuine horror outing.

Review based on the unrated version.

A college-aged couple, delivery driving a car from California to Florida, are sidetracked by a police investigation of a body pit found at a construction site in the Texas countryside. (Camera flashes, illuminating the corpses (in the unedited version, anyway) are a good reference to the first film) The next day, the couple have a bizarre experience with a psycho hick apparently killing a cowboy at a small gas station. While trying to get away and find help, they're detoured onto a side road ... and that's when the real fun begins.

An over-sized truck begins stalking them, then throws a dead animal at them. In the excitement, they drive off the road and puncture a tire. While changing the tire, a hulk with a chainsaw attacks them. Narrowly escaping him, they only end up nearly in a head-on collision with a weekend warrior.

The three of them eventually team up; the couple are just trying to live through the night, but the weekend warrior wants to go after our new friend with the chainsaw.

This has dialogue far superior to the original, and isn't as silly and over-the-top as the underrated Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. It's graphic, but it uses its gore and bloodshed almost as part of telling the story, as well as referencing the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre (through camera angles, props, and bits of dialogue) without going so far as to rip off that film. The music score was surprisingly effective, and did not distract from the movie itself.

David Schow did a great job with this screenplay, for the most part, but film falls into the "undying killer" mode in its repetitive final third, where seemingly every character (Tex, Alfredo, Leatherface, Benny) returns from the dead for one last encore performance.

Unfortunately, the theatrical version of the movie was seemingly edited with a chainsaw, and released in a horribly truncated version, missing several minutes of footage and rendering much of the plot incoherent. Thankfully the unedited/ unrated version has been released on DVD.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 was a pretty good movie, that at least I enjoyed and had fun watching. The movie was rather chilling and was pretty thrilling at times. The acting here was okay, but the biggest name cast member in the film was Viggo Mortensen (Psycho, A Perfect Murder). The rest of the cast was unknown by movie-goers, but they weren't too bad. If you want te be scared and entertained, rent Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. I give it a 7 out of 10.