The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - Answers to Questions You Never Asked

I may be writing about these movies sporadically, but I watched every single one of these fucking things over the course of one week, which I would not recommend. Of course, this made me sick of the basics of these movies pretty quickly, but I could still appreciate when it was done well (which wasn’t often). But it wasn’t until watching this one that they started to annoy me for wasting my time.

It doesn’t matter how repetitive this series gets, if the filmmakers can find an entertaining and effective way to show some violent carnage, then I will be at least partially on board. What I have never wanted from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series is an abundance of answers. Blame George Lucas or the information age in general for our incessant need for backstory and explanation. We can no longer accept a mystery when it comes to fiction, and that’s a shame.

This stupid prequel assumes we want to the origins about everyone from the murderous family, and maybe some people do want to know, but I don’t. I’m not against prequels, in general (I’ve written copious amounts of praise for the Star Wars prequels, for fuck’s sake), but not every story needs an origin. This applies to horror more than most genres because the unknown is scary.

When I saw the inside of that house in the original film and met that fucked up family for the first time, I didn’t want to know more about them. In fact, just trying to think about their day to day life and what led them to their current state made my head hurt, as it should. This is why the original is so fucking good. It gets into your head by giving very little explanation beyond, “These fuckers are fucked up, right?” To explain the why behind any of it would remove the horror of it all.

But when studios run out of ideas but still want to make a profit, an easy solution is to simply ask, “How did these characters become like this?” Thankfully, this is just a prequel to the remake, so the film doesn’t have any lofty goals of explaining the origins of that iconic family. Instead we get answers to a lot of questions we either already inferred the answer to or never asked to being with. 

For instance, do we need to know that Leatherface worked as a butcher at the meat processing plant to understand that’s why he likes to cut people up like meat? (Not to mention the meat-packing factory has been mentioned from the beginning, so if you hadn’t made that connection by now, then you have some cognitive issues.) And remember the guy missing his legs in the remake, now we see how that happened! And you’ll be shocked to find out that R. Lee Ermey isn’t actually the sheriff; he’s just pretending to be! Thank you, prequel, that one was keeping me up at night because I kept thinking, “How can this man of the law be engaging in such blatantly unlawful behavior?” Imagine my relief when I discovered that he killed the real sheriff and was only pretending to be a member of law enforcement! I never would have assumed that’s how it happened.

Once again, I watched these too close together, which is probably why I’m so particularly angered by the pointlessness of this one. What is even more annoying is that the series kept going in this direction for two more movies! This bullshit was not a hit, but the desperate dildos who couldn’t let this franchise die kept going back to the backstory well. The next one, continuing the inexplicable titling fiasco of this franchise by going with Texas Chainsaw, isn’t a prequel, but it does delve into the family history in a very stupid way, but I’ll get into the weeds with that one soon enough. 

I only bring it up because this focus on backstory is a misstep for the franchise. I’m not going to say these movies shouldn’t exist, because they do exist and we just have to deal with it. But if you’re going to keep making them, then at least stop and think about what a fan of the original might want. Preferably, I like when a series takes a left turn (like Part 2 being much more overtly comedic), but I’ll accept a rehash of the first film if the focus is on recreating the atmosphere. But these newer movies are more about jump scares (which makes no fucking sense when a chainsaw is involved because it should either be constantly running, in which case there’s no sneaking up on someone, or you just hear Leatherface trying to start the fucking thing; it can’t just be full bore out of fucking nowhere) than atmosphere. They don’t care about creating psychologically damaging situations for the viewer; they just want to splatter you with gore while explaining Leatherface’s motivation. It’s insulting, and, worse, boring.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - "Nothing Wrong with Us."

This is a bit embarrassing, but I think this was actually the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie I ever watched. In my defense, I am very late to the party with this franchise, as I was almost exclusively a Friday the 13th kid growing up (even with that, I wasn’t hardcore into it until recently; I just wasn’t all that into horror when I was younger). Because of this, I assumed this remake was simply a slicked up version of the original with more gore and better special effects. I dug this when I first saw it, and it is still my favorite of all the remakes of the classics from that time (which isn’t saying much, since most people hate the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street remakes).

When I finally came to appreciate the original film in all its simple, quiet brilliance that explodes into the most nightmarish household imaginable, it made me reevaluate the remake. I still like it, but for new reasons. 

Originally, I just liked the straight up horror of the film. Young people get stranded in the middle of nowhere Texas, stumble upon a creepy ass house (more on that later), horrible violence ensues. I thought director Marcus Nispel crafted a fine slasher flick, even if it felt a little too Hollywood at times (for instance, Jessica Biel just looks out of place in the film because she looks like a beautiful woman from 2003, not 1973). I enjoyed the addition of R. Lee Ermey (basically playing a slightly more psychotic version of his character from Full Metal Jacket), and Andrew Bryniarski makes for an appropriately hulking Leatherface. 

Nothing about the movie blew me away; I just found it to be a good time, especially since I didn’t hold the original sacred. Watching it again, now with the original one of my favorite horror films of all time, I still enjoyed it because it wasn’t strict about its faithfulness to the original. 

The original film has a documentary style realism to it that adds to the horror. You feel like you’re seeing a home video of a road trip gone horribly wrong. The music is minimal. The house is unassuming from the outside. It’s creepy as fuck. 

The remake is none of those things. It very much feels like a big budget update of an independent film. The music is traditionally creepy. And the house looks so fucked up from the outside it makes you want to scream at the characters, “Stay the fuck away from that place! Are you fucking blind, you way-too-hot-for-the-period characters?” 

The house is almost a dealbreaker for me with this remake. I’m all for doing things differently (which is why Part 2 is my favorite of the sequels), but that house in the original is so effective, it feels wrong to give the outside of it a haunted house makeover. That doesn’t mean I dislike the image of it. I actually think it looks amazing, especially placed in the middle of a field by itself. The house is suitably imposing. But the point of the original is that it isn’t imposing. 

The house in the first film is approachable in an emergency; the house from the remake is not. Apologies to any friends I might go on a road trip with, but if they go missing and the house from the remake is the closest place to search, then they are fucked because I’m steering clear of that obvious murder house. 

As I stated in my article about the original, the dinner scene haunts me. And it is haunting because from the outside of the house, no one could reasonably assume all that fucked up shit is happening in there. The house from the remake should be raided by the police for its appearance alone. They could just show a Polaroid of the exterior to a judge, and the judge would approve of the warrant without any other info. 

My nitpicky qualms about the house aside, this is actually an upper tier entry in the series, though that’s not saying much. They weren’t trying to capture the essence of the original. They just wanted to take that story and make a brutal, gory version of it, and they succeeded. The main downside to this remake is that it was successful, which led to way too many further sequels and prequels being greenlit, which I will unfortunately be covering in the weeks ahead.

Random Thoughts

I'm working my way through the entire series (did you know there are NINE of these fucking movies?!).

R. Lee Ermey is a nice addition to the family, but that's just because I enjoy watching him fuck with hippies.

Ermey's presence here truly elevates the film. Tobe Hooper claims the original was meant to be more comedic than people perceived (which is why he leaned into so much with the second one), so it's fitting to have him as a bit of sadistic comic relief.

Speaking of which, they have to be driving the most '70s van ever: Foot print gas pedal. Alfred E. Neumann poster. "Shit happens" bumper sticker. "Hippie chicks rule" bumper sticker. Lady silhouette mud flaps. Skynyrd on the radio. Peace sign sticker. Piñata full of weed. Hula girl on the dash. Troll doll keychain. Forrest Gump himself would be ashamed to be around so many gimmicky pop culture accessories.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation - Some Movies Don't Deserve to Be Cult Classics

Yeah, I’m still doing this. I immediately regretted watching all these fucking movies then claiming I was going to write about each one. And I know that literally no one is asking for this, and I could just drop it, but I’m not going to. That written, some of these articles are going to be mercifully short, because I just don’t have much to say about most of these movies. On the bright side, the delays brought on by my life and general laziness have made this series of articles get closer to Halloween, the only time it makes sense to write about these fucking movies. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the one with McConaughey. 

The most recent Texas Chainsaw movie inspired me to watch and write about all of them, but The Next Generation played a factor, as well. I had seen this years ago, and I remember thinking it was better than it had any right to be, but still sucked. Upon revisiting the series, I saw that Shout! Factory (also known as Scream Factory) released a special edition of the film. But just this one. Part 2 and Leatherface hadn’t received this cult treatment. So this one must be special. 

But it isn’t. At least, it isn’t to me. Yes, it had Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey in it, so that’s interesting. McConaughey goes appropriately nuts, and it’s pretty great, but there’s nothing here to make this some underrated classic. 

The most interesting part of the film is the reveal that the crazy family is actually a part of some strange experiment meant to provide a spiritual experience for the victim. But it isn’t explored nearly deeply enough. If the entire film had been about that, rather than dumping in some silly exposition scene at the end in a lame attempt at a “twist,” then maybe this would be worth revisiting. 

For many people, it is enough. The film also seems to be proud of its decidedly non-threatening version of Leatherface, but this is nothing new. Leatherface has been a troubled, child-like monster from the beginning, and he was already made downright goofy in Part 2. The cross-dressing is new, I guess, but in general, no new ground was broken with the character. 

Despite all these issues I had with this just okay sequel, it would have been redeemed for me if it was a fun watch. And it isn’t. For a failed horror sequel to gain cult status with me, there needs to be some honest enjoyment from watching it, and this film gave me none, aside from one goofy ass moment in which a character stops for pizza right in front of some cops while she has kidnapped victims locked in her trunk. A few more scenes like that would have been great. But instead the film wants to be both subversive and derivative, and that just doesn’t work.

Despite my overall negative feelings about this movie, it’s still upper tier in the franchise simply for being a little bit weird. From here on out, the franchise plays it pretty seriously, and I think this should be a little fun after the perfect horror of the first film. This is why I like Part 2 so much even though that movie is a sloppy mess. Hooper knew trying to recreate the shocking horror of the first one was impossible. If only everyone else after him knew that too.

Highlander II: The Renegade Version

 

I’ve hesitated writing about this stupid movie. Not because it’s so bad (though it is), but because it’s so famously bad. If you come across lists of worst sequels, Highlander II: The Quickening is bound to show up, often at number one. This shitshow of a sequel is almost universally despised, so what could I add to the cacophony of hate that’s been around since the film was first released years ago? Not much, honestly, but the weird thing about Highlander 2 is that I want to like it, and that compels me to at least get into why I can’t.

First off, I have to admit that I technically did not watch The Quickening (I did watch bits and pieces to refresh my memory of the dumbest parts); I watched Highlander II: The Renegade Version. This is the cut that attempts to fix the nonsense of the theatrical cut, and it’s still infuriatingly bad. In case you’ve forgotten, the theatrical cut revealed that the immortals from the first film were actually aliens from a planet called Zeist that were exiled to Earth to do battle until only one remained, then the winner would be given the option to become mortal and live out their days on Earth or return to Zeist. 

This begs a plethora of questions:

 Why is it a “punishment” to be sent to another planet as an immortal?

Why do they speak English on Zeist?

If sending back lackeys from Zeist restarts the contest, then does the contest ever technically end?

If it’s possible to just portal yourself onto Earth, then why didn’t Michael Ironside do it years ago?

MacLeod claims that he was sent to Earth “500 years ago” but Ramirez was sent back at the same time as him, yet Ramirez is hundreds of years older in the first film…how?

But the biggest question of all is, why did they feel the need to complicate things with this convoluted, overly sci-fi plot?

Now, The Renegade Version attempts to correct some of this, but it’s impossible. Yes, the Zeist stuff is messily edited to make it instead be Earth in some ancient past. So they aren’t aliens sent to Earth; they’re ancient beings sent to the future. I guess that’s better? But all my questions from the theatrical cut remain; they’re just tweaked into being about time travel instead of alien shit. 

In both cuts, I still don’t understand why Christopher Lambert chose such a ridiculous old man voice for the beginning. And the whole subplot about the shield MacLeod helped create to combat the sun? What? Okay, it’s a future movie, so they felt the need to go with something apocalyptic, but why is MacLeod one of the guys designing the shield? Oh, and how the fuck is a subway able to go 700 miles per hour? Okay, I need to stop with the questions because there’s no end to them. 

It really boils down to the fact that there simply was not a good way to extend the story of the original. I’m sure the writers felt the same way. Why else would they say, “Fuck it, let’s make ‘em aliens”? They had to make a big swing otherwise it makes no sense why MacLeod would still be immortal or why Ramirez would be able to return. 

The next sequel (that completely ignored this one) at least figured out the best way to explain how the story could continue was to explore MacLeod’s past a bit. But that one fucking sucks, too (so does Endgame, but I think that’s still the best sequel). I truly cannot think of another series that has been so tainted by its sequels. 

What sucks for me is that I love the first film so much that every few years I forget how shitty these sequels are and think, “Maybe they are better than I remember. I should give them another chance.” Which is why I’m writing this as a reminder that the sequels need to be disregarded. 

It just sucks because I want to like this and all the other Highlander films. And even if there’s a bit of a “it’s so bad, it’s good” quality to this, and Michael Ironside is hamming it up the whole time, I still need to let this one go. When it comes to this series, at least for me, there can be only one movie, and it’s the original.

Random Thoughts

I love info at the beginning of shitty sci-fi movies. In this one, before the fucking credits start, we’re told that it’s 2024, and the ozone layer is destroyed and an electromagnetic shield has been put in its place. We’re dealing with an immortal group of people here, why just jump to 2024? Skip farther ahead to a time in which this ridiculous shit might make a little more sense. I get them thinking the ozone layer could be gone by now (all you heard about in the late 80s and early 90s was the ozone layer [why don’t we hear about it anymore? Is it good now somehow? Is it gone? I need to do some research…]), but an electromagnetic shield? How does that work? I like the idea that humans can fuck the world even faster than science predicted, but the optimism that we would also invent a solution is just silly. 

I just remembered that MacLeod became mortal at the end of the first film, so they can’t jump too far into the future. My apologies to the shitty sequel.

That part about a small group of people just blindly believing that the ozone layer has magically returned hit home, though. If only our current crazy motherfuckers were only a “small group” and not roughly half of the goddamn population.

Okay, I looked up some shit about the ozone layer. Turns out, the world was a better place in the late 80s because, as a planet, most of the countries agreed to put a stop to producing CFCs. And they actually fucking did it, and the ozone layer is in pretty good shape these days. No way this gets done in today’s world. How could we fix the ozone layer today when a sizable portion of the population would deny its very existence? Okay, time to stop this. I’m watching Highlander II: The Renegade Version, this is not the time for thought of any kind.

The first movie started at a wrestling match and featured the music of Queen. This one starts at the opera and features the music of Stewart Copeland. Not bad, but a step down culturally in both aspects, in my opinion.

“Break ranks! Get more men!” I’m not a military strategist, but this doesn’t make a lot of sense. And if there were more men available, why weren’t they there already?

Michael Ironside is great, but he’s also a step down compared to Clancy Brown.

That flashback battle scene is some weak shit. Just stuff blowing up and dudes running around. It’s like they showed up on set that day and decided to improv a battle sequence.

Being exiled into the future is better than them being aliens, but it’s still pretty fucking stupid. 

Holy shit, I forgot how terrible Lambert’s old man voice was in this.

“I’m Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. And I cannot die. Now let’s fuck in the street like two drunken hobos.”

The Psychic Cook looks like a rad show.

“This doesn’t look like Kansas, does it?” How would he know that reference? How would he know what the fuck Kansas is?

It makes no sense at all, but Michael Ironside driving a train nearly 700 miles per hour is easily the highlight of this horrible movie. This is the first time I noticed they included a fake baby falling with the other passengers. This movie is sneaky dark at times.

Ironside drives the train, then he gets a cab? Is he just checking out all the modes of public transportation that he’s missing out on in the past?

And then there’s the goofy scene of Connery on the plane. This movie goes from dark dystopian nightmare to goofy fish out of water comedy with the immortals trying to figure out the future.

Pretty sure that scene of Connery trying to bang the lady next to him on the plane was actual behind-the-scenes footage.