Texas Chainsaw 3D

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.

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.

People who say this is the worst movie they've ever seen obviously don't watch enough horror. Sure the plot is silly, but it's passable. The acting is pretty good, and the cinematography and special effects are great. Plus you get to see a bit of Bill Moseley, which is always a plus. Try watching Coffin Baby if you want to see what a truly bad horror looks like.

Being the extremely huge Leatherface fan that I am, I have been looking forward to seeing this movie since the first posters came out. Literally have been counting down the days. I rushed to the theater on opening night super excited because the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D facebook page shared a lot of information about the making of the movie and I expected it to be the best one yet. HOWEVER....

I was so unbelievably disappointed in this movie it sickens me.

If someone didn't know anything about the previous TCM movies, they would think this was just your everyday horny teenager horror movie. I believed that the TCM movies were always better than that, but now my opinion has changed.

The movie started out good, and had some good background information to later understand the present scenes. However, once we met the main characters of the movie it was obvious that it wasn't going to meet my expectations. And the fact that Trey Sonz was in this movie(even though his acting skills WERE better than I expected) totally ruined it for me. Also the makers of the movie made a huge error with the the main character's age (should be at least 40.) The killings were not that severe, the only 3D parts were with the chainsaw (which didn't even happen that much), and Leatherface was turned into this sweet character that you began to feel bad for. And don't even get me started on how Heather was acting at the end of the movie.

The whole story line was completely changed. During the first half of the movie it is just like the other TCM movies, but the last half turns into some weird love/family reuniting story which I absolutely hated. Plus the other movies really portrayed the fact that the movie was based off a true story. This new TCM makes it seem more like a fantasy horror movie. It's all just very confusing and makes me feel like a woman with a glass of wine wrote the story line.

See for yourself if you like but if you are a die hard TCM fan like I WAS, then I highly expect you to be disappointed and don't spend money on it. Thank god I got movie theater gift cards for Christmas...

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.