Cool poster, naff film.Now i love the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre but thought the 2003 "remake" was lame- nothing new added there, it was just the same old thing we'd all seen minus the terror, but with a bigger budget for styleand gore. However when this new movie in this "revamped" franchise came i was quite intrigued as it's the origins story. Would we fnd out just how the Hewitt family came to be, their fall from sanity, their rise to stardom as Texas's most screwed up family? Kind of...but still to an all to predictable level (thanks, Hollywood! Youv'e done it again!)
Instead of taking this rather cool premise and explain to use how the infamous Hewitt family came into existence and how they transformed into the blood-thirsty cannibals we all know about, the film largely skips on everything and just gives us yet another repetitive and cliché teen horror movie, which i was very disappointed about. The film starts off well, the first 40 minutes showing us how Thomas Hewitt aka Leatherface is born prematurely in a decaying Texas slaughter house; deformed, retarded and silent, dumped by his obese and mentally incompetent mother in a bin and then picked up by wandering lunatic Luda Mae who adopts him into her family of socially outcast and mentally insane freaks, where the young boy is nurtured into the savage killer the movies are infamous for.
Rather than show us how this is done, Thomas and his families past is instead shown lightly through the scenes explained above and crudely edited newspaper cuttings and reports in the opening credits, which i thought was a complete rush-job. Where the film could have really given us an interesting and cool insight into what really happened and how things came to be, they skip passed everything just to rush to yet another cliché plot of more unlucky kids backpacking through Texas who meet their fatal end. The movie does give us explanations into how "Sheriff Hoyt" really became "Sheriff Hoyt" and how Old Monty became demented and bound to a wheelchair but that's just not enough to explain how the family became wacko in the first place. Their dinner table grace-like pledge that every person which crosses their path shall be rightfully theirs as an offering of meat from God is almost laughable, seemingly coming out from nowhere and not making any sense, again a rush-job to explain as fast as possible why they do what they do- which doesn't sit well with me.
I really wanted to see how Thomas Hewitt became so infatuated with killing but nothing is explained, it seems he was just born with the urge to butcher, which doesn't make sense. We understand that he is mentally retarded but i would have at least liked to learn and understand why he becomes so engrossed in his art, and why he decides to wear the faces of his prey. I had a bit too much faith in them giving us a proper psychological account of how he fell from grace so it was very disappointing to not find out about his real past at all, but i imagine this was purposely kept to a minimum because fans just didn't want to know much and wanted to keep him mysterious and scary; giving a soul to a killer makes us sympathise with him when Leatherface and his family is supposed to be the true archetype of evil. Once that is over 30 minutes of quickly-edited scene setting is over in it then cuts to the dumb-ass teenagers driving through the Hewitt's territory, and what follows is yet another chase, hide and kill horror movie to which we have seen plenty of.
Visuals here are on the most part excellent, the cinematography really capturing the rank, dark brooding and menacing stink of a Texas summer, the colour hues perfectly suiting what would be the odour and look of a rotting and decaying meat in the open sun, which is what the movie's look and style has always been about. The Hewitts, visually, look fantastic as usual and carrying on from the 2003 movie work great as a new re-imaging of a classic demented redneck family. R. Lee Ermy is wickedly dark as Sheriff Hoyt and Andrew Bryniarski is gruesomely powerful and menacing as the iconic Leatherface, the character is well portrayed and just how we remember him. The way he is shot is artistically well done, his stark and brooding silhouette is expertly composed against the scenery and so every time he comes on screen the overall effect works in a powerfully awesome way. That is i reckon the best thing about the film- the artful way everything looks. Acting from everyone else is largely forgettable, the teens especially who do their half-assed job with minimal effort. The gore effects are probably the other best thing about the film, enough carnage and blood-splattered, limb-flailing chainsaw-induced kills to keep the target audience entertained, and i for one as a self-admitted gorehound found myself enjoying that at least. So in essence i guess you get what you pay for. I love the original TCSM but these two re-makes have been the same thing, and i would have liked a different angle rather than them re-tread the same movie. Still, this film and it's 2003 predecessor are still miles better than the sub-par and at times horrendous sequels to the original movie, so it does have that going for it, in that sense this is definitely for the fans- though i'm a fan that just wanted something else done with the subject matter.
Still, the film does do what it is expected to do so well so people after decent torture porn won't be short-changed; it's not tense, suspenseful or scary in any way but does offer another round of hardcore butchering for everyone's favorite demented Texans, so fans will be very pleased. It gives us no real informative explanation into how they turned out to be what they are which is what i was hoping for, so there is not much here in terms of interesting story and exponential saga prologue.
If you liked the 2003 remake (which i didn't) then this is definitely for you as it's essentially the same thing- big budget predictable horror which only has a very distinct style which makes it stand out from the rest. This is just another by-the-books re-imaging of a horror classic for the Hostel generation; visually fantastic yet completely empty and brainless. This is decent enough mindless genre entertainment with high production values yet no real substance which is what there should have been, and what i foolishly hoped for.
Verdict: All flash and no substance. By-the-numbers and predictable with fantastic visuals, but not much else. Just like it's remade predessesor. 5/10
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