Here’s Why We Don’t Need AnotherTexas Chainsaw MassacreMovie

Tobe Hooper ’s 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a repulsion masterpiece . His 1986 Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 isa horror clowning masterpiece . The eternal sleep of the serial ai n’t so big . Withanother Texas Chainsaw Massacre rebootdue next yr , we decide it was time to sieve through the ivory and revisit the rest . Are they really as risky as we remember ?

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)

After Texas Chainsaw 2 , New Line acquired the rights to the series hoping Leatherface would alternate - start another Johnny Cash cow enfranchisement in the vein ofNightmare on Elm Street — but the response was pretty underwhelming , and Freddy Krueger - way succeeder did not follow . aboveboard , it ’s not a horrendous movie , it just feels kinda slender , and is nowhere virtually as smartly , vomit - inducingly macabre as what come before . Its opening crawl inform us that part one ’s only surviving victim has since pass and that the cannibal family ’s only persist penis was tried and execute by the land of Texas .

Except , that ’s not at all true . As the title evoke , Leatherface ( R.A. Mihailoff ) is still running around making problem — like , he ’s not exactly stealth , how did Texas authorities miss him?—with the help of some new characters who rather suspiciously resemble the first film ’s creepy hitchhiker and the 2nd film ’s scalp - scraping Chop Top . The kin also admit a sadistic cattleman play by Viggo Mortensen as well as a creepy matriarch , an even creepy little girl , and the standard mummified Grandpa character .

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The great Gunnar Hansen as the original Leatherface in 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

The great Gunnar Hansen as the original Leatherface in 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.Screenshot: Bryanston Distributing Company

The readiness - up is familiar : road - tripping city kid slip up into chainsaw dominion while cut across rural Texas , though the welcome addition of a survivalist case ( played byDawn of the Dead ’s Ken Foree ) means the fight ’s not quite so one - sided this time around . However , despite a gritty esthetic that makes Leatherface more kin to Hooper ’s films than the slicker entranceway to come , there ’s not much about the film that lingers once it ’s over ( aside from its astonishingly decent metal soundtrack ) . Despite the title , there ’s only a halfhearted attempt to further characterise the hulking , skin masquerade - wearing scamp that everyone calls “ Junior . ” Horror legend recite us the film had to be recut before release to avoid an ten rating , which would ’ve been the kiss of death in those days — but a bit more grisly excess trusted would ’ve made things a bit more memorable .

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

The Next Generation is most famous for its cast — it stars Renée Zellweger andMatthew McConaughey , whose careers take off between the clip the motion picture was made and its eventual theatrical freeing in 1997 . And this is n’t some “ Kevin Bacon in Friday the thirteenth ” supporting - part billet ; Zellweger is the main role and McConaughey is the elementary opponent . Kim Henkel , who ’d co - written Hooper ’s 1974 original , wrote and aim this one , and The Next Generation could be scan as a subversive send - up of the series , look at how it upends most of the established lore — Leatherface ’s disturbed kin actually hold out reasonably darn tight to the urban center confine this metre . They dine on pizza pie , not human flesh . There ’s a left over - field subplot about how an Illuminati - like occult fellowship is actually motivating the family ’s slaying streak . Leatherface ( Robert Jacks ) spend most of the movie dressed in puff — which is never elaborate on beyond being a optical jape — and he shrieks louder than his chain saw while he ’s tag people around .

The entire cast was seemingly bucked up to take it way over the top , particularly a scenery - devouring McConaughey . Zellweger , who ’d just found mainstream fame with Jerry Maguire when Next Generation finally came out , piddle for a surprisingly violent last girl , fighting back in her prom frock ( since the movie somehow start at a schooling dance ) . However , the novelty of come across two future Oscar winner flail through this crudely humourous battue hold out off far too presently .

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Was any horror fan ever sitting around wondering what a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie with an actual production budget would await like ? ProducerMichael Baygot his claws into the franchise next and out plunk this clay - colored , false - gritty remake . Though original camera operator Daniel Pearl returned , the whole affair is directed with sledgehammer precision by Marcus Nispel — a theater director of medicine videos and commercial who made his feature entry here , and afterwards went on to helmthe 2009 Friday the 13th remake .

You would n’t know Chainsaw is set up in the 1970s if the intro did n’t make that explicit ; mostly it ’s a bunch of telegenic early-2000s small fry ( Jessica Biel , clad in a diaphragm - support army tank , play the Pb ) acting like such entitled assholes you ’re basically number the minutes until Leatherface ( Andrew Bryniarski ) starts dropping bodies . Among the supporting cast , R. Lee Ermeyhas playfulness as a tinny sheriff who is In On It , andestablished spooky kid actorDavid Dorfman ( The Ring ) does what he does well , this time with a full set of nasty prosthetic teeth . But there ’s not a shred of suspense or even much of a plot to be had here — we know just where this Chainsaw , which really feels more like a calculated hard currency snap than anything else , is going from the first frame of reference .

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

Yeah , about that immediate payment snap : the 2003 remaking ’s hefty box office take all but guaranteed this next entree . Jonathan Liebesman ’s prequel coming back to the urine - imbue domain of the 2003 movie , inching the action back four long time so it can incorporate returnees like Ermey ’s self - styled cop , as well as bring in new victim like Matt Bomer ( Doom Patrol ) and Jordana Brewster ( theFast and Furiousseries ) . That said , we really begin in 1939 with the nativity of Leatherface — which literally take place at the franchise ’s legendary shambles when his female parent goes into labor mid - shift — before jumping to 1969 , when the craggy 30 - twelvemonth - old ( “ Tommy ” in this telling ) is surprise away from his own problem at the slaughterhouse on its last daylight of operation .

With plenty of free meter on his bridge player , and all sort of meat - train skills just going to waste , things do n’t wait great for anyone countersink to sweep his path — include ( inevitably ) two blood brother and their several girlfriends have one last hooray before the boys head to Vietnam . But the real baddie here might just be Ermey ’s torturing - loving character , who create the executive decision that his family should start trapping traveller as a intellectual nourishment source . That pronounce , we do get to see Leatherface ( Bryniarski again ) upgrade his wardrobe by scraping the face off Bomer ’s grapheme … a rare high peak in a movie that just kind of propels itself forrard without any originative electric arc or genuine scares .

Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

Texas Chainsaw 3D is present as a lineal continuation to the original — which makes it not quite a re - reboot?—and begins with a prologue set just after the 1973 killings . revengeful locals slaughter Leatherface ’s sept ( who appear far less inbred in this version ) and burn their home plate to the ground . A surviving infant is steal away to be raised by crass adopted parents . Cut to the present day , and Heather ( Alexandra Daddario , clad in a middle - comport jumper ) has develop up unaware of her truthful heritage — though she does influence as a bumbler , wink wink — until she ’s inform of a surprisal heritage : a hall and demesne in small - town Texas . But there ’s a catch , in the form of a cousin who prowls the property … wearing his human - cutis masquerade .

Once Leatherface ( Dan Yeager ) realizes he ’s got company , John Luessenhop ’s film has to kind of break its main plot about Heather confront her home history so that the great unwashed can get saw in one-half . But Texas Chainsaw 3D does score point for at least assay to inject a shred of originality into the proceeding , even if it stump all over continuity to get there . It also features the first Black eccentric in a Chainsaw movie ( including player Trey Songz as Heather ’s damned boyfriend ) and the first Chainsaw script with any women involved ( the movie was co - written by Adam Marcus , Debra Sullivan , and Kirsten Elms ) . Still , the whole matter has that intimate whiff of “ Why was this made again ? ” Bet that 3D take care middling cool in the dramatics , at least .

Leatherface (2017)

French filmmaking duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo ( their breakout was 2007 ’s notoriously icky Inside ) fetch a certain level of stylistic flair to this prequel to the 1974 original . It go away into more detail than 2006 ’s The Beginning while confound anything resembling continuity out the window , which to be average , is equality for the course for any Chainsaw movie at this percentage point . Stephen Dorff ( as a vengeance - apt Texas Ranger ) andThe Conjuring ’s Lili Taylor ( as Leatherface ’s mother ) kick upstairs the hurl , but once again , the whole matter feels extremely unnecessary . Is n’t a chainsaw - wielding cause of death style scarier when he total out of nowhere , rather than dissect with a moviethat unwrap every detailof his disruptive past ?

We ’ve had two near - perfect Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie since 1986 . The balance are just exploiting what was already an victimization film to begin with . Even now , Hooper ’s 1974 original remains shocking and artistically interesting . It show us how a revulsion picture can terrorize audiences by stirring up fright they did n’t even know they had — the title alone conjures up unholy incubus , and framing the story as inspired by true events is adept . You ’re already freaked out before the movie even begin ! Hooper ’s subsequence may not be as scary , but it change state the satiric dial sky - richly and has a blast making you laugh while you ’re deciding whether you require to barf .

Stay on the master road , do n’t go poking around in run - down old flatulency stations and farmhouses , and decidedly do not rust the barbeque . And please , no more Chainsaws .

It gets the job done.