Leatherface

Simon Abrams started his review by saying, “A good prequel or sequel to the proto-slasher "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is not unimaginable.” Series co-creator Tobe Hooper didn’t quite get it with “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2,” nor did the makers of surprisingly decent “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.”Abrams said, “These near-miss efforts make it tempting to recommend abandoning poor Leatherface, the hulking, mute, flesh-mask-wearing chainsaw buff. After all, Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel's original film will always cast an appropriately large shadow over post-1974 horror.”

However, the attempt that the makers of “Leatherface,” a new prequel to the franchise released on Video On Demand today, is not only a bad one, it’s poorly executed. “Leatherface” tries to show fans what made the man we know the killer he is famous for. Abrams said, “Sadly, the makers of "Leatherface" didn't put enough thought into a sleepy story that could easily be titled "I Was a Teenage Leatherface."”

If you’ve seen any of the past films of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” or any post-1974 horror film taken place in the countryside, then you know the land of “Leatherface.” There’s a sick family led by heartless mother Verna Sawyer, played by Lili Taylor, and they come together killing trespassers. The film begins at the birthday party of poor pre-teen Jed, played by Boris Kabakchiev, now asked to kill a random local. Jed doesn’t kill the man using the chainsaw that’s gifted to him, but he also doesn’t completely refrain from murder. That puts him up against Verna, and Texas Ranger Hal Hartman, played by Stephen Dorff, although for completely different reasons: Verna wants Jed to kill, and Hartman actually wants to stop him.

Cut to about a decade later, when Jed is forcibly separated from his family and put in an insane asylum. The residents at this hospital are re-named for their own safety, and it appears that Jed has grown to become Bud, played by Sam Coleman, since he fits the physical attributes of a young serial killer: overweight, awkward, wears coveralls, doesn’t speak, and scared of women. Abrams said, “So it's no surprise when Bud becomes, after a short period of heavy foregrounding, a supporting character in what appeared to start out as his own story. After all, what kind of hillbilly killer gets to be the star of his own film?”

Bud goes along during a maniacal hospital escape committed by desperate killers Clarice (Jessica Madsen), and Ike (James Bloor), and short-tempered teen Jackson (Sam Strike). Jackson could take or leave every murder, but Ike and Clarice do a lot of it. Their selected prisoner, kindhearted nurse Lizzy, played by Vanessa Grasse, starts an unsuccessful hesitant love for Jackson. Along the way, Verna and Hal are following close behind the escape patients.

Despite this completely difficult story, “Leatherface” isn’t really a character-driven film. Abrams noted, “Screenwriter Seth M. Sherwood instead delivers a series of opportunities for co-directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury ("Inside," "Livid") to make slick but indistinct tableaux of violence and suffering. Bustillo and Maury don't seem to care about their meat puppet protagonists beyond figuring out the best angle to film actors play-stabbing other performers in the neck, or determining how to undercut their tedious thriller's giddy teens-gone-wild mood with extreme close-up and sub-David Fincher orange-brown filters, as in the emblematically lifeless sequence set in a road-side diner.”

The latter scene is really a let-down because it never stops showing the emotional split between its clearly confused pacing and showing and its tough substance. You might think this is good to show a murdering pattern that’s shown in the right way of immoral rebellion against society. However, you can’t blame Bustillo and Maury for showing in violence for the fun of it, since they give us plenty indications that violence is also the worst thing ever. Just look at how it doesn’t show a victim’s huge eyeball as he bleeds. Or look at how the filmmakers pause for a short while to show another poor victim begging for her life just before she’s shot in the face. Abrams said, “Surely this should exonerate Bustillo and Maury from killjoy charges of soulless exploitation!”

That doesn’t happen a lot. Previously, Bustillo and Maury have successfully given shocking, over-the-top gore without ruining their films’ reasonably nice look of fear. However in “Leatherface,” gore, jump cuts and really disturbing images are the only things the show character. Abrams ended his review by saying, “So when Leatherface does, eventually, start to become the famous sociopathic killer we know him to be, it doesn't feel like a loss of innocence, nor does it feel like a gross triumph for misunderstood misfits. It's just a trite ending to a introductory story that never really needed telling.”

In all honesty, the only thing I like about this movie is Stephen Dorff’s character. He was the only good character that you cheer for. The others were just cardboard cutout, cookie-cutter stereotypes that you have seen in every horror film. I don’t recommend this film at all, avoid it. You won’t like this one at all, especially if you haven’t been a fan of the past movies in the franchise. Just stop making movies in this franchise, you’re beating a dead horse by trying to recreate the magic that Tobe Hooper got done right once in the original movie.

Ok, now that we got that done with, stay tuned tomorrow for my take on the “Friday the 13^th” remake.