![]() "Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III" (1990)Ĭourse correcting back to horror after 86’s gonzo sequel, this third installment is beholden to ’80s slasher norms and sacrifices originality for a back-to-basics genre approach.After all, didn’t anyone see the first movie? He’s a really bad guy! Yet Daddario’s strong lead performance, some squirmy gore and memorable setpieces make this a solid, if silly, watch. Twists and turns, including crooked cops and secret identities, nearly tip the plot-heavy affair over, but ultimately it’s Leatherface’s forced turn from heel to hero that drags things down. After all of the Sawyer family is killed in the film’s opening - outside of Leatherface and a baby, whose age and identity pull at the logical fabric of the timeline - years skip by to find Alexandra Daddario and a group of friends head to a small Texas town so she can square away an unknown inheritance. Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett CollectionĪ strange film that attempts to turn Leatherface into a sympathetic anti-hero, “3D” is another direct sequel to the 1974 original. But overall, Leatherface doesn’t distinguish himself from other masked slashers in this chapter, which seems destined to live on only as a popular YouTube clip named “Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) - Bus Scene,” traded among teenagers who just want to watch three minutes of hardcore and stylish mass murder. In the pro column, the newest addition to the series is handsomely shot and has some wonderfully deranged setpieces, including a true chainsaw massacre on a party bus, a tense game of cat-and-mouse in an ambulance and a battle between Leatherface and an old foe that is nearly a parody of 2018’s “Halloween” sequel. In a way, the hipsters invading Leatherface’s small town do make the perfect fodder for killing, as even the most woke audience would root for their demise. While the original had a sturdy message about industrial innovations chewing up and spitting out small town America, this sequel tries to take on gentrification, school shootings, cancel culture, social media dependency and Confederate flags, all via some of the most obnoxious characters put to celluloid this decade. ![]() The newest “Massacre,” designed as a different direct sequel to the 1974 original, is hobbled by having a lot of BIG IDEAS it wants to get across in less than 90 minutes. Image Credit: Yana Blajeva / Legendary, Courtesy of Netflix ![]() “The Next Generation” will only stand the test of time as a movie star curio, a bar trivia answer better mentioned than seen. But you can’t take your eyes off of McConaughey, whose acting is so broad it can be seen from other planets. Along the way are secret societies, barely any violence and stretches that can’t hold a candle to the original trilogy. In a film where the camera and script are equally out of focus, Zellweger and her prom-bound friends are pursued by a berserk McConaughey and Leatherface, now dressed as a woman and screaming uncontrollably. Image Credit: ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collectionįorever known as “the one with Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey in it,” “The Next Generation” is an amateurish disaster buoyed only by a “seeing is believing” level of outrageousness. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation" (1995). ![]() Despite an impassioned performance from Stephen Dorff as a Texas Ranger hell-bent on revenge and some gnarly gore, “Leatherface” plays like a fan fiction that isn’t as entertaining as the series’ most out-there work. Several patients at a mental institution hit the road in a script that feels like a smeared photocopy of 2005’s influential Rob Zombie movie “The Devil’s Rejects.” There are very few hints that this is a “TCM” chapter until the last 10 minutes, which starts a wild scramble to connect the rest of the movie to the overall saga. ![]() Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/courtesy Everett Collecti / Everett CollectionĪlthough it’s a more stylish chapter than several of the low-budget titles above, this prequel to the original film is dreary and out-of-step with the rest of the franchise. ![]()
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