Texas Chainsaw is one of the first movies in a “classic” franchise to do the direct sequel, ignore every other movie thing that each franchise (including this one again in 2022) seems to be doing these days. And just like those other franchises, like Halloween, they seemed to be doing it because they’ve exhausted all other ways to keep this franchise going. In other words, the filmmakers had to come up with something new.
So they decided to make the cannibal family from the original (revealed to be the Sawyer family in subsequent films [get it, “SAWyer”? Fucking brilliant]) victims rather than villains. That’s right, that fucked up nightmare family from the original film deserves your sympathy. Let me explain (if you’ve already seen it, skip the next paragraph).
The beginning of Texas Chainsaw shows clips from the original film followed by what happened directly afterward. The police show up, as do other Sawyer family members. During a standoff, a group of local vigilantes show up, eager to finally have a good excuse to get rid of the Sawyer family. The vigilantes, of course, open fire killing nearly every family member, except for Leatherface, a baby, and an unseen woman who takes in Leatherface, hiding him from the town. I have severe problems with this for multiple reasons.
First and foremost, the Sawyer family are not victims. Do they deserve vigilante justice rather than law and order justice? Yes. Yes, they fucking do! This family had to go. In the words of the old wizard from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “Look at the bones!” Sure, all the convenient extra Sawyers who magically appeared out of nowhere technically didn’t do anything that occurred in the first film, but it’s safe to assume they knew what was happening in that house.
The logistics of the entire situation bother me, too. So the entire town knew about this fucked up family, but it took one girl finally getting away to spur them to action? Why wait for this if they knew what was going on? And where did all these extra Sawyer family members come from? And then there’s the main character’s aunt.
So Leatherface is taken in by an aunt who lives in a mansion. She hides Leatherface away in the basement, letting him do his fucked up hobbies. Where was she in the first film? Was she okay with all the cannibal shit? Was her husband (whose family is where the money comes from) aware of all this, too? And then there’s this stupid Sawyer family necklace. Daddario has it burned onto her from her dying mother, and she sees pictures of her dead aunt wearing it along with other Sawyer women. So they had a family symbol and got together for photo opportunities and shit? The family from the original film? The family that had a half-dead grandpa hanging out around, waiting to be helped to execute people? The family with the house with all the human bone art? The family that seemed to be exclusively employed by the local meat-packing facility that recently closed? They had a rich benefactor living her best life the whole time?
Okay, okay. What the fuck ever. There was a rich aunt who lived. Fine. As she nears death, she realizes she needs a family member to take care of Leatherface, which is why she has her lawyer reach out to Daddario upon her death and let her know that she has inherited the house and all of its contents. Conveniently, everything Daddario needs to know about the fucked up situation is in a letter that she ignores until the very end of the movie, but whatever. What the fuck ever.
Anyway, Daddario eventually learns about the whole family history through a conveniently placed box of evidence, and she embraces her Sawyer family roots, using Leatherface as her personal murderer in the end. This is after she witnessed Leatherface murder ALL of her friends, but whatever. What the fuck ever. The movie posits that she is genetically inclined to all of this.
Daddario works in the meat department of a grocery store (you know, typical job for a young woman that looks like Alexandra Daddario), and she uses her job as a way of collecting bones to use in her artwork at home. So she’s just like Leatherface. It’s just in her blood to work with meat, make shit out of fucking bones, and eventually be cool with murder.
It’s all very stupid, but the murdering of her friends gets me the most. She personally witnessed Leatherface cut one of her friends in half. And by the end of the movie, she’s calling him fuckin' “Coz.” Look, I’m cool with my cousins, but if any of them cut one of my best friends in half with a chainsaw, then that’s crossing a line, family or not.
I know these franchises aren’t meant to be taken seriously, especially when you get to the seventh movie. And I even like the whole direct sequel idea to clean up all the sequel and remake mess and start fresh. But turning the Sawyers into victims and making it some kind of genetic trait to butcher things and play with bones is just too stupid for me.
Of course, all of this could be forgiven if this movie was a good time. But I just didn’t like or hate these characters enough to get any kind of reaction to their deaths, except for one comic death, but that one was an anomaly. Maybe if Daddario was commanding Leatherface to kill people for a longer portion of the movie, it could have been fun, but probably not. The horror aspects of the movie were just too bland to overshadow the stupidity.
Texas Chainsaw is obviously my least favorite movie in the franchise thus far. At this point, there are more films I dislike than like in the series, but this was the first one to piss me off with its stupidity. If there’s a silver lining to that, it’s that this is one of the most memorable films in the series for me, simply because it elicited such a strong negative reaction, and sometimes that’s better than no reaction.
Random Thoughts
I had to stop my ranting at some point in the main article, but there is one plot element I still need to address. It is revealed that Daddario’s boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend. In fact, they start banging in a barn on the property when they come across Leatherface. Both of them die before Daddario finds out about the affair. But when she comes across the two of them as they all try to escape Leatherface, her boyfriend and friend are half naked. If a madman was chasing me with a chainsaw, I would undoubtedly be distracted. But if I came across my wife and my best friend half naked together while I was fleeing the madman, I’m pretty sure I would still have the wherewithal to ask, “What the fuck were you two doing?!”
This isn’t just a random element of the plot; it’s a missed opportunity that could have helped explain Daddario’s murderous side at the end of the movie. Just have her discover the affair, and while she’s at her angriest with both of them, Leatherface shows up, and she lets them die rather than intervening. Her discovery of their betrayal coupled with her learning of the town’s treatment of her family (no matter how justified), could conceivably lead her to a psychotic break that allows her to accept that she has a cannibalistic chainsaw-wielding cousin instead of her just being okay with it for no reason other than finding out she was illegally adopted.
“Do your thing, coz.” In a colossally stupid movie, that line stands out far and above as the dumbest.
The recap of the original at the beginning is ruined with modern “scary” music and jump scare sounds. But at least it lets the audience know from the get-go that the filmmakers completely missed what made the original film great. “Just wanted to let you all know from the start that we are going to royally fuck this up.”
The timeline here is ridiculous. Daddario should be 40. Leatherface is in his 60s. Just change the present date to the 90s.
Although setting it in the 90s would make my favorite moment in the film impossible due to lack of smartphones. Okay, fuck a realistic timeline, I guess.
If only she had immediately read the letter she was told to read five times…
The IMDb "goofs" page is pretty great since a lot of it is just pointing out all the stupid plot elements instead of typical movie mistakes. For instance, the main characters are called out for leaving the newly inherited mansion in the hands of the cartoonishly hokey drifter they just met.
Hats off for the gruesomeness of that cut-in-half kill. Fucking disgusting. Although this might only be in the unrated cut. I watched both (why do I do things like this? I've never seen so many classic movies, yet I've seen this three times now), but can't remember if that moment is in each cut.
Texas Chainsaw, starring Alexandra Daddario…'s midriff.
The deputy even gives her a new shirt later, but she leaves the bottom buttons undone so her midriff is still exposed.
Then that shirt gets ripped open (the movie makes it seem like it was done so Leatherface can see her scar, but the scar would be visible without ripping the shirt open). Daddario must have had an "everything but the nipple" clause in her contract, and the filmmakers pushed it to the limit.
My favorite moment is when that cop kills the freezer girl, and the mayor immediately says, "It's okay! It's okay! Didn't happen!" If there were a dozen more goofy ass moments like that, I could get behind this movie.
Leatherface is described as having "the emotions of an eight-year-old." You know how all eight-year-olds go through a chainsaw/cannibal/skin mask phase.
"He killed all my friends, but I just found out I'm a Sawyer, and he's family, so I guess I'm cool with that now."
The sheriff lets Leatherface kill a man, then lets him go?! I get that the vigilante shit at the beginning was wrong, but does that make cannibalism right? I don't care how badly a family has been fucked over by the locals; if they're constantly luring people to their home to kill and eat them, then they have to fucking go.
She reads the fucking letter at the very end, after she learned everything in it the hard way, and at the expense of her friends' lives. Goddamn! When someone tells you multiple times to read a letter, read the fucking letter!
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