Come Back To Texas

Year: 2003

Director: Marcus Nispel

Cast: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Andrew Bryniarski

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

In the past decade, the horror community has been inundated with remake after remake after remake. These types of films have always been around, even in the 50's and 60's and back, but since the mid-2000's there has been an overwhelming glut of the tepid things. Just on this blog, I've covered a small army of them including Carrie,  Evil Dead, Fright Night, The Last House on the Left, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Prom Night, and The Wizard of Gore, and there's easily ten times that amount on the market today.

With most cinematic movements, it's hard to tamp down a true ignition point. There tends to be several films around the same time that coalesce into the beginning of a new wave of filmmaking, like how the proto-slashers The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas came out within weeks of one another in 1974. Luckily for us, the remake boom has one clear culprit.

In 2003, Michael Bay's new production company Platinum Dunes released their first of many many many low budget remakes - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As if you couldn't have guessed that already. 

I really shouldn't bury the lede in reviews where I stick the poster on the top.

The film was such a sterling success that other studios immediately hopped on the bandwagon and began pumping out updates on their long dormant horror franchises, prominent and obscure alike (and if anybody has any insider information on how the hell Mother's Day got remade, please contact me immediately). What most of them seemed to miss was the fact that Texas Chainsaw was actually pretty good.

But we're not here to talk about the tsunami of crappy remakes. We're here to discuss their pretty good progenitor and the influence it has - for better or for worse - over the narrative and aesthetic stylings of the ensuing decade.

The first of these is immediately apparent. Though the characters in this film have no obvious analogue with the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, they are exponentially more attractive. In fact, if we view beauty as the equation x=log2(3^10) with x being the proportional attractiveness of the current cast over the classic cast, the results would be math.

Sexy, sexy math.

Our Meat for the evening, and by any definition, the film doesn't view them as more than that, are Morgan (Jonathan Tucker, also from The Ruins), a sexy nerd-stoner who combines the most annoying traits of both stereotypes and whose every line of dialogue sounds like vomit dribbling from the gaping maw of a mad drunk; Andy (Mike Vogel, the sexy outlaw from Under the Dome), the sexy rebel - a real stretch, performance-wise; Pepper (Erica Leerhsen of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2), a sexy hitchhiker whose thirst for Andy rivals Leatherface's thirst for blood; Kemper (Eric Balfour of the first episode of Buffy), the sexy hick with a chip on his shoulder; and Erin (Jessica Biel of The A-Team), the sexy girlfriend of said sexy hick - soon to be his sexy fiancée if he has anything to say about it.

The kiddos are driving through the countryside to a Skynyrd concert in Dallas. As if that wasn't tip-off enough, Texas Chainsaw is set in 1973, the same year as the original film. On their way they pick up another Hitchhiker (Lauren German), who blows her head off after shouting about her friends all dying. They pull off at the nearest gas station and are sent to a mill to await the Sheriff. As they wait and wait, they soon realize the nearby house will become their final resting place as Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski), the Sheriff (R. Lee Ermey), and their family send them one by one to the basement workshop to be chainsaw massacred.

To be fair to them, how could this lovely home seem like there might be killers hiding inside?

The great thing about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is that it can be taken on its own. Its plot intersects with the plot of the original at so few points, it actually becomes a distinctly separate movie. This is greatly to its favor, because comparing any single horror film to Texas Chain Saw is like flinging spaghetti at a dartboard and hoping for a bull's eye.

And there are even some cases where the film - I wouldn't say "improves on," but it... extrapolates certain sequences from the Chain Saw structure to great effect. It is debatable whether this film's increase in gore improves the horror (I personally don't find it to do so - it's suitably disgusting and wet, but I find the whole film to be a little too slick to get under the skin), but something must be said for a girl watching a hulking killer attack while wearing her boyfriend's face. And a sequence with a meat hook and a piano is delightful in a sickening kind of way.

The film isn't afraid to up the ante and in today's world of anonymous studio horror, that is a quality to be much admired. Texas Chainsaw allows us to explore the entire deranged town, visit the nearby slaughterhouse, and see just how far gore prosthetic technology has come since the last entry in the franchise in 1994 (or 1997, once Matthew McConaughey got his way).

This gleeful excess is mirrored in the deliriously drippy and wet production design, which seems to have been inspired by that time I walked to class on a rainy day and forgot an umbrella. That or the filmmakers' fervent desire to keep Jessica Biel as soaking wet as possible. It's hilarious. No matter where she goes it rains on her, whether it be literal rain or the inexplicable flooding of Leatherface's workshop. At one point she manages to find a refuge but Leatherface triggers the fire sprinklers because the teen boys in the audience would likely implode if she spent one second without her sopping bosoms flapping about.

And yet this guy keeps his shirt on. Wasteful.

Joke all I might, I do enjoy my share of needlessly exploitative horror. It's always delightful to watch the filmmakers' obvious desperation to sexify even the most harrowing of scenarios. There's enough hot dudes around to not feel particularly misogynistic. But let me expound my theories on sexuality and exploitation in its own essay, I don't want to bog down this post like so much rainwater.

Here comes the part in the positive reviews where I dump all the negative things I have to say. Because, succeed as it might in distancing itself from Texas Chain Saw, this film is a remake and is thus beholden to comparisons. I've already mentioned the movie's distancing slickness, but the cold grey "gritty" aesthetic just doesn't do it for me in terms of this franchise's narrative universe. I associate Texas Chainsaw with oppressive heat and claustrophobia and that is just not the feeling this film gives off.

It's altogether shallow, and the film follows suit. Gone are the first films intensely angry political sentiments. It's understandable. 2003 was a wildly different societal climate than 1974, though the original time period has been needlessly retained (in fact, Erin's irritating moralizing stances, the fashion, and speech patterns actively disagree with the time period). 

There's more gore but less personality, and it's not necessarily a lesser movie because of it. It has different aims than the decades-gone original. But it's certainly a more superficial one.

But in spite of these shortcomings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is certainly worth its salt. Its ability to be genuinely tense and creative paved the way for the battalions of remakes to come. Unfortunately but predictably, other studios followed the route of "slick and grey is cool" rather than "good horror movies make money" but what are you gonna do?

Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The rest, as they say, is history. Let it confine itself to the books while you enjoy one of the most interesting reboots modern cinema has to offer.

TL;DR: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is obviously not as good as the original, but is wonderfully intense and fast-paced.

Rating: 7/10

Body Count: 8

1. The Hitchhiker shoots herself through the head.
2. Kemper is hit in the head with a sledgehammer.
3. Pepper is sliced with a chainsaw.
4. Andy has his leg sliced off, is hung on a meathook, and stabbed in the chest.
5. Morgan is hung on a chandelier and chainsawed in the crotch.
6. Sheriff Hoyt is run over with a police car. 
7. Officer #1 is killed with a chainsaw offscreen.
8. Officer #2 is killed with a chainsaw offscreen. 

Word Count: 1449

Reviews In This Series

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Hooper, 1986)
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (Burr, 1990)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Henkel, 1994)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Nispel, 2003)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (Liebesman, 2006)
Texas Chainsaw 3D (Luessenhop, 2013)
Leatherface (Bustillo & Maury, 2017)

Everything's Weirder In Texas

Year: 1994

Director: Kim Henkel

Cast: Renée Zellweger, Matthew McCounaughey, Robert Jacks

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

In the days since the turn of the century, classic horror franchises have been rebooted left and right. Because of the increasingly bizarre and gnarled nature of 80's horror sequels and their withered early 90's fruits, a fresh start tended to be the only option for those interested in continuing a series. Friday made it through 10 films before getting the remake treatment, each more incomprehensible than the last. Nightmare cartwheeled its manic way through 7 and Halloween solemnly marched through 8 before they were swept up in the craze.

And what of Texas Chainsaw? That beloved 1974 Tobe Hooper magnum opus? The illegitimate spawn of that franchise only lurched their way through a scant 4 before crashing and burning in despair. The film that put the final nail in that coffin is the inoperably perplexing Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, which would lay the series to rest until its ignominious resurrection in 2003.

After Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, I didn't think any single film could possibly be more incomprehensible and irritating than that entry's indiscretions in the face of continuity. I was dreadfully, horribly wrong. For, you see, The Next Generation begins in a terrible, putrid place and goes even further downhill with every minute that ticks by. But let's start at the beginning. That fetid, rotten, terrible terrible place...

High school prom!

Even worse, the classic "flash photos of a corpse" opening is recreated while a mom takes prom pictures. If there's a better way to smear feces all over the legacy of the original Texas Chain Saw, it's... well, it's the rest of the film.

After a prom sequence so brief it feels more like a Vine than exposition, four teens set off unnecessarily on a drive through the Texan wilderness. This slate of queasy Meat includes Heather (Lisa Marie Newmyer), a whiny, jealous girl with an obsession for the macabre; Barry (Tyler Cone), her boyfriend and an overwhelmingly colossal douche, the type of person who'll feel up his girlfriend's best friend right in front of her; Sean (John Harrison), a bland stoner; and Jenny (Renée Zellweger, the first of two inexplicable future celebrities in this turkey), a nerdy, virginal waif with the personality of a paper bag.

This is all established with dialogue as subtle as a meat hook, including - I wish I was kidding - "everyone knows he's a pothead and you guys are just friends!" After they get into a crash in the woods (echoing TCM III, though once the movie settles comfortably into a groove, it opts for a beat by beat riff on Part One), the kids wander their way through the First Act - a veritable avalanche of teenybopper horror tropes.

Including, but not limited to every single character being so venomously obnoxious you actively root for them all to die.

The woods are so foggy, it feels like a forest fire is raging just offscreen, the soundtrack could be sold as Now That's What I Call 90's Alt Rock Garbage - Volume 5, and the only even semi-effective scare involves a plastic garbage bag blowing in the wind. I'd say it's a metaphor for this film, but that's not being particularly fair to the garbage bag.

So the friends get picked off and - shock of shocks - Jenny is brought to dinner with Leatherface and his new family. At this point I am reluctantly resigned to accepting the fact that every time a Massacre is finished, a new cannibal family sprouts around the chainsaw-wielding killer like kudzu. At least his Family of the Week is fairly easy to keep track of.

There's Leatherface (Robert Jacks), of course; W. E. (Joe Stevens), who incessantly quotes famous authors because why not, even deranged cannibals can pick up a library card; and Darla (Tonie Perensky) a trashy realtor who flashes passersby for kicks and is dating into the family to fulfill her monumentally kinky S&M desires with Vilmer (Matthew McConaughey, who has since endeavored with all his might to make you forget this fact), a crazed tow truck worker with a remote-controlled robot leg. I assure you that wasn't a typo, although I pray it started off that way when the script was being written.

This is pretty much what McConaughey will do to you if you bring up this film in mixed company.

Once the teens reach the house, the film kicks back in, repeating the scares and kills from Part One with voracity. One might think that director-writer Kim Henkel, the co-writer of the original film, would manage to provide some unique insight or twist on the formula, but one would be wrong. One must learn sooner rather than later that it is not wise to grasp at straws when it comes to horror sequels. Or else One will wallow in an endless swamp of bitter disappointment.

The second act is saved only by the efforts of McConaughey, who fully commits himself to the role with the then-unpolished but ample talent that would later earn him his Academy Award. He shines among his drab family and at least he draws attention from the least powerful Leatherface performance in franchise canon - Jacks all too frequently falls back on shrieking in terror in lieu of a physical performance. 

And, yes, Zellweger too has since won herself some accolades, but here she is a wet mop, though admittedly she does bring an Every Teen quality to her unconfident performance. But you know who is a fan of Every Teen? Nobody, that's who. Not even other teens.

Not even Cher. But she's just mad that Jenny stole her dress.

The set design is, in a word, depressing. Gone are the rooms filled with animal bones and macabre skeletal furniture in favor of... a few overturned chairs? This is a horror film, not the Big Lots showroom. And the makeup is disheartening. The 90's were a treacherous, neutered time for horror films in general, but one would think the designer could have provided Leatherface with a mask that looked less like a slice of bologna. And don't even get me started on the Grandpa makeup!

Oh yes, he's back, and undeader than ever!

The only viable comparison I have come across is this kid at the Days of the Dead convention whose head was too small for the Michael Myers mask, puckering it into an absurd smirk.

Behold, the face of true evil.

Luckily the third act ramps up the garish absurdity to 11 and snaps off the dial. Between the leg remote fight, the abrupt appearance of an Illuminati leader with three nipples who licks Jenny's face, and the prim elderly couple drinking Bloody Marys in an RV, this film has to be seen to be believed. I was told going in that the film was unpredictable, but it delivers far more ludicrous plot development than any film could possibly contain within the known laws of physics.

It's loud, messy, over the top, and Leatherface is decked out in Rosie O'Donnell drag.

I told you. Unpredictable.

But the sheer insanity of the whole thing is the only element of the entire film with a whiff of originality to it. The film's watchability owes a great debt to its camp factor (aside from the two pre-celebrities, nothing else recommends The Next Generation) as it skyrockets, aiming to top each and every moment with yet another and another and don't forget the cherry on top.

It's the film that killed the series, but I can't say it didn't do so in style. I couldn't possibly ask anyone in good conscience to watch The Next Generation, but at least it earns its keep as a delightfully bad romp through one of the strangest horror franchises in the annals of cinema history.

PS: It delights me to no end to think that somewhere out there, it was someone's job to provide the sound for Vilmer's robot leg as he whirred around the room. Hollywood is a beautiful place.

TL;DR: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation is shrilly bad, but delectably wacky.

Rating: 5/10

Body Count: 6; not counting the copious audience brain cells that withered and died while watching this.

1. "I'm Not Hurt" Boy has his neck snapped.
2. Sean is run over repeatedly by a tow truck.
3. Barry is hit in the head with a mallet.
4. W. E. is hit in the head with a sledgehammer.
5. Heather is impaled on a meat hook, set on fire, and has her skull crushed with a robot leg.
6. Vilmer has his head split open with a plane propeller. 

Word Count: 1448

Reviews In This Series

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Hooper, 1986)
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (Burr, 1990)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Henkel, 1994)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Nispel, 2003)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (Liebesman, 2006)
Texas Chainsaw 3D (Luessenhop, 2013)
Leatherface (Bustillo & Maury, 2018)

Sweet And Sour

Year: 2000

Director: Lasse Hallström

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina

Run Time: 2 hours 1 minute

MPAA Rating: PG-13

If you're a fan of my non-horror reviews, you're lucky I have myself a Sergio. If he wasn't around making me watch whimsical and/or hard-hitting dramas, I certainly wouldn't be watching them on my own, making me quite the one-sided film historian. 

Today's entry in the "movies you're surprised to see on this blog" front is Chocolat, a 2000 quasi-romance film and nominee for that year's Best Picture award. There's no doubt why it lost. Gladiator, that year's winner, certainly appeals more to the Academy's sensibilities than this delicate fable, but it's certainly a light and enjoyable viewing experience.

Perhaps best known for being mentioned and overly pronounced in that scene in I Love You, Man, Chocolat is in fact the kind of movie that Paul Rudd would have secretly enjoyed but felt embarrassed about after the fact. It's tender, heartfelt, faux-French flavor makes it a good snuggle movie. Even if it does evaporate from the tongue soon after it's finished, it's a sweet treat.

Juliette Binoche - pictured 14 years before being devoured by Godzilla.

Chocolat spins the tale of Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol), who arrive one day in a picturesque French village to open up a chocolate shop on the first day of Lent. They are met with disparagement and derision from the hyper-religious mayor of the town, Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), who is perfectly content living life as his forefathers did, rigidly regimented and devoid of temptation or (what he perceives as) sin.

The stick up his ass is enormous, but not quite large enough to reach the entire town, some of whom make fast friends with the warm-hearted Vianne in spite of their leader's protestations. Among their number are Armande Voizin (Judi Dench), the estranged mother of the mayor's secretary, Josephine Muscat (Lena Olin), a mousy woman trapped in an abusive relationship with the local barkeep Serge (Peter Stormare), and Roux (Johnny Depp), a member of a tribe of river dwellers who travel from town to town but meet the scorn of the villagers.

As she befriends the town's outcasts (if this were a Ryan Murphy movie, they'd already be touring the continent singing cover songs), the villagers slowly learn to trust this easygoing visitor. But Serge and Le Comte are prepared to make life very difficult for her and her daughter, intent on preserving the sanctity of their town (and Serge's woebegone marriage).

Hold on, maybe Ryan Murphy DID get his sticky little fingers on this.

Perhaps Chocolat's most striking design element is its use of color. It's unsubtle and hits with the force of the chorus to "Wrecking Ball," but lo and behold is it ever appealing to my tastes. The villagers dress in muted grey and brown tones until one by one their lives are altered by this woman bedecked in red. As her warmth reaches them, their costuming begins to brighten and color enters their lives once more.

It's obvious but effective, and honestly who needs all these films tiptoeing their way around their thematic material, daintily sidestepping their narrative purpose? There's certainly a place for that, especially in the corners of cinema that act as High Art. But I say if you're making a statement, there's no harm in being bold and going for broke, waving your banner high.

In this film, this fable filled with broad characters and timeless themes about indulgence, love, and temptation, a bombastic color scheme can certainly find a home. I'd argue that this American-British co-production could have fared slightly better if it were actually a French film, unafraid to truly push the boundaries. But I admire a work of cinema that - not to mince words - indulges itself.

It's like a rainbow stomped on a Dracula movie.

Chocolat is a bit twee and about twenty minutes too long. And Johnny Depp is oversold in a brief appearance as the least interesting counterpart to Binoche. But the film knows how to wallop and takes on an intriguing, kinetic darkness in some of the more dramatic scenes, especially those between Josephine and her violent hubby.

All in all I enjoyed the experience and for those in the mood for some lighter fare this chilly Halloween season, maybe you should dig through the back catalogs and enjoy some hot Chocolat.

TL;DR: Chocolat is a light fable with bold use of color.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 754

Don't Mess With Texas

Year: 1990

Director: Jeff Burr

Cast: Kate Hodge, Ken Foree, R. A. Mihailoff

Run Time: 1 hour 26 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

"They just get dumber and dumber, don't they?"

This line from Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is meant to be about the victims that wander in the way of the treacherous Sawyer family, but it's quite accurate in describing the franchise itself. It's a true marvel how ineffably, ludicrously dumb the filmmakers in charge of horror sequels tend to be, but the people behind Texas Chainsaw III just about take the cake, ripping continuity to shreds and replacing it with goreless, gibbering claptrap.

Although in retrospect, we all should have seen it coming when New Line Entertainment picked up the property in the late 80's. Sure, it's the company behind the beloved Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but New Line in the 90's was like quicksand for horror franchises, sucking up everything good about them and spitting out dreadfully bizarre and bizarrely dreadful films like Freddy's Dead and Jason Goes to Hell.

Heck, even the teaser trailer tried to warn us it was a piece of crap.

Texas Chainsaw III "tells" the "story" of Michelle (Kate Hodge) and Ryan (William Butler of Friday the 13th Part VII), an annoying couple who are taking a road trip from LA to Florida by way of Texas. After a run-in at the Last Chance gas station and an unfortunate trunk-chainsawing, they get into an accident on a back road, flipping weekend survivalist Benny's (Ken Foree of From Beyond and Dawn of the Dead) Jeep and sending their own car careening into the forest.

After an interminable amount of Noises Off antics in the forest (up to three crazed hillbilly cannibals and up to four crazed victims appear and vanish between scenes at the whims of some unknown but certainly unmerciful god), Michelle arrives at a house in the woods (for the first and only time shot somewhere other than Texas - in this case Valencia, California though it looks more like the swamp planet Dagobah) just in time for the obligatory dinner party sequence.

As always, our Final Girl (insofar that she survives and is a female) gets to meet the family. And here's where things get hairy. If you recall from my previous entry in this franchise, Part 2 ended with the entire clan being blown up by a grenade and/or chainsawed and tossed into a turbine. I'll give the filmmakers a pass on bringing back Leatherface (R. A. Mihailoff) because a beloved franchise does need its main villain. But evidently the Sawyer family is like a Chia pet - just sprinkle some blood and new families will sprout around you, as many as you want!

You want three new brothers? Sure thing! Here's Tex (a pre-Aragorn Viggo Mortensen), Tinker (Joe Unger), and Alfredo (Tom Everett), each more unexciting and derivative than the last. You want Grandpa back? No problem! Here's his corpse to tide you over. You want a little girl (Jennifer Banko) in spite of the fact that there's no possible combination of sexually healthy humans in the film that could have borne her from their coition? You want a Mama (Miriam Byrd-Nethery) in a wheelchair with an electrolarynx? Screw you, you lunatic, but you got it!

The true modern family.

I haven't even mentioned that the family now lays traps in the woods like they're the frickin' Most Dangerous Game of the American Southwest and that Leatherface now has a leg brace as well as the ability to drive. Not to mention the film completely overestimates the importance of the chainsaw, elevating it to totemic power within the family.

For all this we're given no explanation. No delicate tiptoeing around continuity. Not even a gentle nod. The new world order for the Sawyers simply exists. And your ability to enjoy this movie is contingent on your ability accept this turn of events. But hey. I'm an easygoing horror fan.

I've laughed my way through Jason's dead child body teleporting from the New York sewers back to being a full-grown man at Crystal Lake. I've endured Freddy Krueger miraculously sprouting a wife and daughter and being given his dream powers by ancient worm demons. I've cheerily skipped through Michael Myers' induction into the Cult of Thorn. 

But Texas Chainsaw III just plain pisses me off. It's one thing to make a dumb horror sequel. It's another to create a film that dares to spit in the face of continuity itself, then devotes all its resources to a slavish imitation of the aesthetic of the original film, all the way down from the heat dripping off the frame to the insert shots of the sun to the armadillo in the road. And then attempts to dispel any potential claims of plagiarism by sticking earrings on that armadillo.

The cherry on top? That doll is named Sally.

This is infuriating to any hard-won fan of the franchise. But if one could manage the Herculean task of looking past that anger and being completely objective... The movie still is a piece of crap. But at the very least an amiably daffy piece of crap.

This is the first film where the acting slips below the slasher threshold, landing firmly in camp territory. Mihailoff's Leatherface is supremely unimpressive either way you slice it (be it chainsaw or what have you), but Mortensen's Tex is a delightful nutcase with an accent like slow-churned molasses. And Everett filters the Hitchhiker impression that provides the character of Alfredo through an accent that can only be described as "Elvis with a penny up his nose." And man oh man can Ken Foree be a bad actor when he wants to be, shouting his lines with little to no concern upon whom they fall.

There's just slightly enough gore to wet a neophyte's whistle, though even in the five-minutes-longer unrated cut, the grue is rather subdued. But the hamhanded dialogue more than makes up for it with its Screenwriting 101 tricks (use a random token from Act 1 to pay off a kill in Act 3, mirroring character situations before and after they make a change), which spill out from the screen like a magician's handkerchief.

Or, if you prefer, neckerchief.

And luckily for bad movie enthusiasts, the Final Girl is one of those "shout at the screen" types who always turns back after running seven feet and yells at her boyfriend to hurry up fixing the tire while continuously taking away the flashlight she's holding to aid his repairs. And did I mention that all of this is scored with a soundtrack that feels like a Trapt album run through a garbage disposal?

The finale especially is pure dumb fun, with one moment of humor (Leatherface plays a Leapfrog-style kids' game) that lands with intentionality. And at least two of the deaths are chainsaw related, which is far more uncommon than would seem possible in a franchise that has built its entire mythology around the implement.

So perhaps it's not quite as soul-poisoning as I first made it out to be. But the fact remains that this is the first film in the franchise that outright defaces the original masterpiece with its sheer ineptitude. There's certainly plenty more crap to come, but we must never forget this sad day in 1990 which finally felled the savage beast that is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

TL;DR: Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is dumb and terrible and spits on continuity but at least it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Rating: 4/10

Body Count: 6; not including an armadillo. Or Benny and Leatherface, who looked rather dead last time I saw them, but were revived without a scratch thanks to tampering from Lucifer the studio.

1. Gina is hit in the head with a sledgehammer.
2. Sara is chainsawed to death.
3. Ryan is chainsawed and hit in the head with a hammer.
4. Mama is shot three times with a shotgun.
5. Tex is stabbed in the back and set on fire.
6. Alfredo is shot in the chest with a shotgun. 

Word Count: 13

Reviews In This Series

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Hooper, 1986)

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (Burr, 1990)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Henkel, 1994)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Nispel, 2003)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (Liebesman, 2006)

Texas Chainsaw 3D (Luessenhop, 2013)

Leatherface (Bustillo & Maury, 2017)

Girls Gone Gone

Year: 2014

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris

Run Time: 2 hours 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It is both a blessing and a curse to not have read the source novel for a new film, especially as a reviewer. On the one hand, I have no context for Gone Girl's successes or failures relative to its original narrative, as well as the perspective which most fans will have that I lack. But on the other, I can take the movie completely on its own terms, devoid of any pre-existing judgements.

At any rate, I saw Gone Girl and it was pretty good. I have absolutely no desire to read the book at this moment in time, so perhaps it failed as an advertisement, but it took the number one spot this weekend, so who am I to talk? I'm not even number one on this blog.

This picture of Ben Affleck is number one. Actually, while we're on the topic, let me boost my Google search numbers real quick: Sexy. Shirtless. Underwear. Go-go boots. Penis.

The story, as adapted by Gillian Flynn from a novel by Gillian Flynn, goes like this. Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), by all appearances, are a happily married couple. But after an economic downturn, they both lose their jobs and it begins raining on cloud nine. Boo hoo, why don't you dry your tears with the opulent Missouri mansion that you somehow still get to live in.

White people, I swear.

Anyway, one day Amy disappears and Nick must find her, dead or alive, to prove that he isn't guilty of murder most foul. As a media circus paints Amy as an angel and Nick as a violent wreck, we soon learn that neither of them are as they seem. They both land in the bitter, cynical, manipulative, and unhappy-in-marriage end of the spectrum. Basically they're perfect for each other.

And I'm gonna cut off here because I've been told that mysteries don't work as well if you give too much of the plot away. Though, for those interested in being in the know, there's a 600-page tome full of spoilers available for eight bucks on Amazon.

OK, OK. I know that joke was garbage, don't rub it in. Oh Ben Affleck, you and your Pecs. Abs. Girlfriend. Beard. Gay. Batman.

As with most films adapted from novels that aren't Psycho, there are numerous potholes simply from crossing over - namely the bloated plottiness of the second and third acts and the arch, overly written dialogue of the first. The latter, sprinkled among copious flashbacks, leaves Affleck and Pike stymied. While he strains to spit out lines so wooden they could kill a vampire, she adopts a mildly bemused expression and clings to it like a security blanket.

Luckily, Gone Girl and its performances quickly begin to loosen up, and at least the utter non-chemistry the two actors have during the first act works in the favor of the film's underlying themes. And once Affleck eases into the script like a non-heated pool - first with one tentative toe, then all at once, he brings an easy humor to his character that lights up the film like a firecracker.

This is the most literal interpretation of one of my statements that I have ever found in screengrab form.

And once the film gets on track it stays there, bolstered by strong performances on the sidelines by Carrie Coon as Nick's twin sister and Neil Patrick Harris as Amy's pining ex-boyfriend. But what makes or breaks the film is the slick direction by David Fincher, which adamantly does both. With a strong sense of personality, much of Gone Girl stands out among its decidedly underwhelming 2014 peers.

Fincher is known for being stylish and precise in his set design, dialogue, cinematography, and composition, as most recently seen in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network, but while his aesthetic complements the wintry inhumanity of an icy thriller and the slick modernity of technological progress, here it feels almost antiseptic. The visual schema makes every character, movement, and event feel like it's part of a well-oiled machine, in diametric opposition to the mechanics of the story, which details the consequences that intelligent people face when a carefully planned-out life has a wrench thrown into it by messy reality.

The chilly aesthetic doesn't necessarily ruin the film, but rather keeps it at arm's length. And a particular reluctance to indict a husband quite as much as his wife (among other elements that I can't spoil in good conscience) lends the film an unrelenting air of quiet misogyny. It's not present enough to make the movie a truly vile experience, nor is it necessarily a bad way to tell the story.

In a perfect world, a movie that vilifies a woman would blend into the background because it's just one way to portray a character in a wide array of potential roles. But in today's political climate, especially regarding sexism in Hollywood, Gone Girl contributes to a poisonous attitude. It is just another tile in a mosaic of hate - not necessarily actively hateful, but not something we need at this moment in time.

What we do need is a nice, relaxing bubble bath.

All that said (and I do have to say my piece before supporting a movie with such a toxic depiction of a female character), Gone Girl is quite good at what it does. It is a wild mystery thriller married to a psychological portrait of a marriage gone wrong and a man daring to challenge his public image. It is stylish and cool, and the set design, especially a scene in an abandoned mall, is impeccable.

I don't know if I would call Gone Girl a "fun" watch, but its extensive run time speeds by in the blink of an eye (unless your bladder is exploding - my advice: don't drink an entire Icee during the previews) and it provides consistent entertainment from start to finish. While I may have my issues with some of the bumps it hits along the way, it is still a remarkable film and one of the better efforts in a year in which there's nothing much impressive going around.

TL;DR: Gone Girl is a perfectly serviceable mystery thriller, but not a transcendent masterpiece.

Rating: 7/10

Should I Spend Money On This? It's certainly less likely to make you teeth-gnashingly angry than Annabelle. If you bladder can withstand the punishing running time, why not give it a shot?

Word Count: 1098

Census Bloodbath: Texas Battle Land

Year: 1986

Director: Tobe Hooper

Cast: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow

Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: UR

Is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, coming out 12 years after the original film, one of the longest sequel gaps in recorded history? Actually, yes. It comes in at around number 21, beaten out by none other than the 46 year gap preceding Return to Oz, among a few additional elder statesmen of film franchises. But although it's not the most impressive hiatus in cinema history, I'd like to argue that it's one of the most impactful.

1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre saw Tobe Hooper as a hungry young filmmaker, eager to rattle the walls of the nihilistic and beaten-down 1970's with the oppressive heat of Texas. But as the years passed, the times drastically changed. Hooper failed to recapture the grubby magic of Texas Chain Saw in Salem's Lot and The Funhouse, saw creative control of Poltergeist wrested away from him by producer Steven Spielberg (exactly how much control he ceded is still the topic of furious debate and a topic far too complex for a mere frail parenthetical), and hit rock bottom with his high budget space vampire flop Lifeforce.

As Hooper's life-force (so to speak) was draining, the country itself was beginning to perk up. The economic downturn that permeated the previous decade had begun to reverse itself and the populace began to turn to rampant consumerism once more. Nuclear fears, Reagan's presidency, and the AIDS crisis were still occupying people's minds, but the nation had taken an upward tack that would spring them forth into the blissful 90's.

Even more significant to the film we are discussing today is the massive face-lift the horror genre had received since the original Chain Saw. The slasher boom had come and gone, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter with the advent of the supernatural, heralded by A Nightmare on Elm Street and its soon-to-be comic superstar Freddy Krueger. The enduring popularity of the slasher formula ruled the silver screen, seeping into films to the point of exhaustion; by the mid-80's even ghost and exorcism stories had to have a supple teen cast picked off one by one and even movies completely outside the genre fell victim to this insidious disease.

The genre ushered into being by Texas Chain Saw soon found no use for its brutal, unappealing, nihilism and squalor, so Tobe Hooper was faced with a tough decision. A sequel to his immensely popular film could reboot his career, but there was just no space in the market for something so grim and intense. This post is getting a little long in the tooth and I haven't even mentioned a single character yet, so I'll cut to the chase. Let me direct your attention to the poster at the top of this post, then to the image below. Seem familiar?

Unless you have the attention span of a Drew Barrymore character, it should.

I hope it has become immediately obvious that Hooper decided to adopt a comedic tone with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. It's by no means an outright comedy, but it is light years more lighthearted than its predecessor. Filled to the brim with pop culture references (among other mentions, we get Rambo 3, the censored Beatles baby massacre cover, and enough rock and roll bands to fuel the cocaine market for a small country), silly props, and even - I kid you not - a couple puns. That's 100% more wordplay than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

It's an interesting decision but by no means a bad one. Trying to recreate the original film's mood would be like Will Smith having a kid - it wouldn't turn out as good and nobody would want to see it. Especially with the amount of story beats that are copied from the original, it's a definite bonus to have a new tone to chew on - it keeps things lively and entertaining.

But for all the repetition this film has (including an almost word for word recreation of the dinner party scene), there is a heaping helping of brand new elements that keep the films firmly planted in its new wacky atmosphere. Our new Final Girl (if any Chain Saw chick could truly be considered one) is Stretch (Caroline Williams - a genre veteran with appearances in Stepfather 2, Halloween II, and Hatchet III to name just a few), an Oklahoma rock 'n roll DJ with a passion for just about anything other than being stuck in a rinky dink booth surrounded by old records.

After a pair of prank callers (Who are two of the most poisonously douchey characters in the history of cinema. Never have I wanted a set of opening scene characters to die more and I lived through the anthropomorphic nuclear waste that is Harold and Edna of Friday the 13th Part 3.) are chainsaw massacred while phoning into the station from North Texas, Stretch teams up with Lieutenant "Lefty" Enright (Dennis Hopper), the uncle of Sally and Franklin from the first film (Though later he acts like an older brother, so who can be sure? Not Hooper, if the amount of pot he smoked in the 80's has anything to say about it.).

Lefty has been searching for the mysterious cannibal family for over a decade and uses Stretch as bait to draw them out into the open.

A brilliant plan - that sequined jacket is visible from space.

One thing leads to another and Stretch is trapped underground with the villainous Sawyers in their new abode - an abandoned theme park. Returning by popular demand are a rather svelte looking Leatherface (Bill Johnson), his even more withered grandfather (Ken Evert), and his father the Cook (Jim Siedow, the only returning cast member). And although Leatherface's brother the Hitchhiker found himself on the wrong end of a Mack truck last go-around, he finds a surrogate in Chop-Top (Bill Moseley, another genre veteran also in Texas Chainsaw 3D, Halloween 2007, Army of Darkness, Silent Night, Deadly Night III, and perhaps most notably, Evil Bong), an equally crazy Sawyer brother newly returned from his stint in Vietnam.

Despite the immense shift in tone which, despite not being an outright laugh riot, is quietly successful in its own way, Hooper is up to his old tricks but with a little more stylistic panache. That is to say, this film is more overtly styled than Texas Chain Saw, not that the aesthetic is any better. Although comparing the visual schema of that film and its sequel is like comparing apples and ball gags - they're both highly effective but serve entirely different functions.

In this film, Hooper indulges in a color scheme beyond brown and grey, splashing vivid reds, blues, and greens across the frame in broad swaths. Especially in the terrifically manic nightmare theme park set that contains the third act, this creates a sense of carnival thrills and spills, rather making up for everything that 1981's The Funhouse isn't.

The Funhouse could have definitely used more chainsaws. Or more Dennis Hopper. Or more... anything that isn't me crying tears of boredom.

And in spite of everything, there are moments when Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is actually scary. Because the franchise is so palpably deranged and twisted, these moments rely more on character dynamics than jump scares so it's a tremendous boon that the replacement actors are almost entirely top notch. Johnson obviously can't do quite as much with Leatherface as Hansen could, but his performance darn near cuts it close, adding an extra dimension to the character in what could have been a tremendously clumsy love subplot using naught but his eyes and tongue.

Likewise, Bill Moseley is an excellent addition to the family, revamping Edwin Neal's frenzied Hitchhiker for the modern age and seamlessly straddling the twin tones of comedy and horror, milking each one for everything they're worth. And the gore (of course there's gore now, it's 1986 for crying out loud) is spruced up by maestro of the macabre Tom Savini. It's perhaps not his best work, but Savini on autopilot is still Savini, which means that the effects could still run circles around the dime store VFX artists of whatever the hell else came out in 1986 (which includes Sorority House Massacre and Killer Party - not exactly firm competition. Supple, maybe. But not firm.)

On the other hand, we have Dennis Hopper. Though nobody who's ever seen a single work of cinema would consider his performance "great" (unless, that is, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is that single work of cinema), he brings a focused lunacy to the role that is captivating. This is a character that exists in quite a different universe than the rest of the film, brandishing chainsaws and screaming epithets at nobody in particular, oftentimes while standing alone in locations quite far from the action. He throws himself into the role headfirst, shaking up every idea one might have about the craft of filmmaking for better or for worse.

It's a legitimately tough call on that one.

So really, there's a lot to like about the film. However, it loses major points for its frequent reverting to tried and true story beats and the slower moments are a mite too slow, dragging the film like a half-open parachute. And although there's plenty to chew on about the effects of Vietnam and long-term poverty, the political fire isn't in Hooper's eyes as much as it was when he was 12 years younger.

But in spite of all that, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a rousing success, plying the audience with legitimately great performances of iconic characters, legitimately ludicrous performances from a well-known actor, and enough Savini-honed nightmare fuel to keep the whole thing going down smoothly.

Killer: Leatherface (Bill Johnson) & Co. Pretty much everybody kills everybody else.

Final Girl: Stretch (Caroline Williams)

Best Kill: Buzz proves that his name is appropriate by getting his skull cap sawed off.

Sign of the Times: A picture can say a thousand words. Two pictures can prove my point.

Scariest Moment: Leatherface lunges at Stretch from the station's record vault.

Weirdest Moment: Leatherface puts L.G.'s face on Stretch and ballroom dances with her in a meat locker.

Champion Dialogue: "Oh great grandma in chainsaw heaven, please don't hoodoo the boy."

Body Count: 8; Although y'all know several of them ain't gonna stick.

1. Buzz gets the top of his head sliced off with a chainsaw.
2. Rick "The Prick" is killed in a car crash.
3. L. G. is bashed in the head with a hammer and has his skin removed.
4. Drayton gets his butt chainsawed and blows himself up with a grenade offscreen.
5. Leatherface is chainsawed in the stomach and blown up with a grenade offscreen.
6. Lefty is blown up with a grenade offscreen.
7. Grandpa is blown up with a grenade offscreen.
8. Chop-Top is sliced in the torso with a chainsaw and falls into a turbine.

TL;DR: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is perhaps even more insane than the first film, though absolutely not as effective.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1861

Reviews In This Series
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Hooper, 1986)
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (Burr, 1990)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Henkel, 1994)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Nispel, 2003)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (Liebesman, 2006)
Texas Chainsaw 3D (Luessenhop, 2013)
Leatherface (Bustillo & Maury, 2017)