Okay, covering this entire franchise one film at a time almost immediately became a mistake. The second one was interesting, but I’m already getting into the ones people don’t even remember existing, yet still have some kind of bullshit, undeserved “cult status.” I know that I can just drop this plan because it’s not like I have any kind of following to hold me accountable to stupid shit like this, but when I claim I’m going to do something, I typically try to follow through, even if I’m the only one who demands it. So with that, here’s Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.
This one is pretty forgettable, mainly because they decided to mostly abandon the comedic tone of the second film and go for a more straightforward horror movie. The plot is pretty basic: a young couple comes across some weirdo at a gas station, and they end up at the Sawyer house fighting for their lives. That’s fine, but only if there’s at least some great gore or something. But the studio was so adamant about getting an R-rating that the gore is so toned down that the film only offers the empty promise of something truly disturbing.
That’s the problem with all the sequels and remakes and prequels of this series. It is impossible to recapture the tone and surprise of the first film, so each subsequent film sets out to do something slightly different, but never as good. At least the second film said, “Fuck it, let’s make a comedy.” That film leaned all the way into it, and that’s what makes it memorable. These other films, either due to studio interference or bad filmmaking or both, don’t go all in and just end up in some weird, boring direction.
Franchises with villains like Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers are successful because they (mostly) stick to a basic formula, for better or worse. With Massacre, no one knows what to do with Leatherface. It’s a great name and a striking look, but is he a sadistic cannibal with the mind of a child, or is he a superhuman monster that can’t be killed? Too often, like with this film, they try to make him like Jason and the others. But why do that when Leatherface is the only one of the group that doesn’t work alone?
Texas Chainsaw isn’t a series that has to copy the slasher genre. I like watching some of these movies because they can be different. If I want Jason, I’ll watch Jason. The original Leatherface was fucked up enough already to be scary; I don’t need him to to rip cars apart and come back from the dead. I just want him to be part of a fucked up family.
You do get the fucked up family here. The only returning member is Leatherface, making this the first movie to start expanding on the Sawyer family. It’s nice to have a rotating roster of fucked-up weirdos and all, but as the series goes on, it gets less and less plausible that all these other crazies were just hanging out somewhere else during the events of the previous movies, just waiting for their turn to swoop in and take Leatherface to their murder-house.
The crazy family dynamic of the original is here again, but it’s just not disturbing this time around. You can’t recreate that kind of magic, I guess. It’s fun to see a young Viggo Mortensen as part of it, I suppose, but he’s not going all in like Bill Moseley before him or McConaughey after him. The addition of a sweet little girl felt like a weak attempt to be edgy. I didn’t care about anyone, and I didn’t find any of them particularly memorable.
In fact, I was ready to dismiss this one with a one paragraph review just to be done with it, but then I watched the special features (yes, I bought the fucking DVD just so I could write about this one). The silver lining of a lot of these failed franchise sequels is that they develop enough of a misguided cult following to warrant plenty of special features on a DVD. And since so much time has passed, everyone involved is much more honest than usual in these behind the scenes featurettes.
With Leatherface’s DVD, director Jeff Burr is very open, even talking about being fired from the production and hired back within days when the studio couldn’t get anyone else to take on the movie. He also talks about how the studio limited him at every turn because of the desire for an R-rating (to the point that even the “unrated” cut is surprisingly tame). The most interesting revelation has to be that the ending of the film was written and filmed without Burr’s knowledge. He only learned of the ridiculous ending (in which Ken Foree is revealed to be alive with barely a scratch even though he had been clearly killed by Leatherface, and Leatherface is alive as well even though he was clearly killed, too) at the premiere. Apparently the studio found out Foree was testing well, so they wanted him alive for future sequels, which is also why they revived Leatherface. Though why they suddenly cared about continuity is beyond me.
Behind the scenes stories like that are much more interesting than what ended up on screen. I like this series overall, but the haphazard nature of each sequel makes it difficult for any of them to stand out. Leatherface at least stands out on DVD because all involved are willing to acknowledge it was a failure. And it’s interesting to hear what they intended compared to what we got to see. I might be grasping at straws to find enjoyment out of this one, but as the series goes on, that becomes harder and harder.
Random Thoughts
The opening narration references a trial. I really wish they showed footage from the courtroom.
“He’s a little touched. Been that way since he lost his job at the slaughterhouse.” I like how losing a job at a fucking slaughterhouse is used as the excuse for this family in multiple films.
This is definitely leaning back into the horror after the comedic second movie.
“It’s Armageddon, bitch-face!”
Leatherface rips off the trunk of a car with his bare hands. This is definitely the beginning of turning him into a superhuman monster like Jason rather than a child-like murdering basket case. I’m glad the fourth movie went the complete other way with it. We have enough giant boogeymen in the horror world; why can’t we let Leatherface be the weirdo of the group? I’ll take him screeching in a wig over him ripping cars apart with his bare hands any day.
“Militant lumberjacks…see ‘em all the time.”
So Ken Foree gets run over because he runs out of bullets? Even if he had gotten a shot off, he still would’ve been run over. He lives, but it’s still stupid.
“I like liver. And onions. And pain!”
Michelle couldn’t bring herself to kill the armadillo with the rock at the beginning of the film. But she’s able to hit Leatherface with a rock at the end of the movie. Character development!
Ken Foree being alive and pretty much unscatched at the end is fucking hilarious. While it was explicitly shown, he was pressed up against a running chainsaw for quite some time, and he stopped screaming at one point. Did he just get used to the pain? Was he playing dead while being attacked with a chainsaw? He must have some zen-like pain control.
No comments:
Post a Comment