After a little introductory material concerning how the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (hulking Andrew Bryniarski) ended up the skin-wearing brutish freak we all know and love, as well as how insane Hoyt (the inimitable R. Lee Ermey) became the local lawman, it becomes ‘second verse, same as the first’ (well, actually this is set before the first film…I mean, the remake…well, you get the idea) as we encounter a new bunch of young hotties (led by sexy Jordana Brewster, as well as a Vietnam vet, and his potential draft-dodger brother) who will possibly become victims of the sicko Hewitt family. Oh, and we also find out what happened to Uncle Monty’s legs…and it’s a helluva moment, too. Lee Tergesen plays a biker whose lover becomes a Hewitt victim, and he essentially becomes Scatman Crothers in “The Shining”, without the…er…shining.
Although I rather enjoyed the good-looking “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake, this Jonathan Liebesman prequel is essentially just a reinterpretation of the remake (instead of “Sweet Home Alabama” on the soundtrack, we get “All Right Now” by Free, I kid you not!), with a lot of the near-exact same shots (remember that shot of Biel’s butt as she approaches the house? We get that here…about ten times throughout! I swear the camera was left on the ground throughout the whole film!), but with a larger role for the scene-stealing R. Lee Ermey. By that, I mean his character has more importance to the story (he’s the ringleader), but unfortunately, he’s not given much to actually do (apparently a relative died during filming and scenes were filmed around him whilst he went home. This probably explains a lot, he does seem to disappear for a time on screen), especially towards the end (I did love his line after he kills a local sheriff, unprintable here). Furthermore, the new cast of characters aren’t interesting at all (Brewster’s hot, though, hotter than Jessica Biel from the first film), and since the story’s much the same, it made it even more difficult to care about any of it. It does, however try and tie in a whole Vietnam subtext thing, with Ermey (a real-life Vietnam vet) berating one of the characters for being a draft dodger (the film almost works as a comedy, thanks solely to Ermey). Unfortunately, that doesn’t work out as well as it should have.
The cinematography and production design are really terrific, though the shaky cam/epileptic editing thing is way past annoying, and the whole thing is plagiaristic and unnecessary. I do think that this film has the best “block the door to keep the baddie out” scene I’ve ever come across, though, with an enormously large woman used as a doorstop! Hilarious, stuff, and there’s some quite gruesome moments too. But overall, this was a disappointment, and if you’re looking for any motivation for why these sickos are the way they are, well, unfortunately the film only skims the surface. Talk about false advertising!
OVERALL SUMMARY
Disappointing, but it’s not the worst horror film of recent years (Liberman’s own ‘Darkness Falls’ was much, much worse), and in fact, better made than many in the heyday of the slasher flick.
