Texas Chainsaw

TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion

…because film is largely subjective

 

by Frederick William Springer III

 

Texas Chainsaw

Release Date:  4 January 2013                                                                       Runtime:  92 Minutes     

Review Date:  26 February 2013                                                                     Rating:  2.5 (of 6)

     I guess I should preface this by saying I know that there are diehard lovers of the original film.  I am not among them.  The best thing about that film to me was John Larroquette’s narration.  I wasn’t too impressed with the sequels as I remember—the 4^th was atrocious (though I think I enjoyed the 2^nd upon first watching but on subsequent viewings it no longer held whatever charm it had initially).

     That being said, nothing irks me more than the pompous pretention of people making a new film in a series, inserting it somewhere in the timeline and deciding to ignore all the ones that transpired afterwards or in between.  This was done with Halloween: H20 which ignored everything after the first 2 Halloween movies (H20 was the 7^th entry) and with Superman Returns, likewise, taking up after the 2^nd film in that franchise (of which there were 4), discounting the others.  I can’t understand the logic as you’re immediately alienating that very fanbase you wish to court.

     Texas Chainsaw is supposed to take place after the original film, not only ignoring the 3 sequels but totally disregarding the reboot of the series just 8 years ago as well.  So, this new one is supposed to take place minutes after the original film’s conclusion, of which they show a bunch of clips, and then it cuts into this new film and it’s not supposed to be jarring that there are new people playing the roles that don’t look like those playing them several seconds earlier.

     That aside, they show a clip in Leatherface’s (known here as Jed) house where there’s only like 4 family members present—I don’t remember the exact number from the original, but that seems about right—but all of a sudden now, they cut to their opening of the film with new footage and there’s magically at least 8 in the house and we’re supposed to believe that. 

     Unfortunately, if you turn a blind eye to these transgressions and approach this as a totally new flick, even then, it’s not that good of a film.  I apologize now as the sheer amount of problems presented in this movie makes my take on it seem like a rambling mess as I try to filter it through my mind, so buckle up or get off now.

     The original was released in 1974 and then this film establishes, after the intro flashback to the original, that we’re in 2012 per a headstone.   You’re talking 38 years later.  However…well, I guess I should dive into the plot first:  moments after the original film, Leatherface and his entire family are supposedly massacred by the town hillbillies, except for a baby later renamed Heather, who we can make believe was just a day old for sake of math.  Subsequently, now present day, her Grandma’s (that was apparently dissociated from the family as she wasn’t in the house) estate finds Heather and leaves her everything. 

     So let’s assume the massacre happened when Heather was a day old in 1974.  It’s now present day so she should be 38 years old.  There’s no way this character looks anywhere near 38 and in fact the actress that plays her (Alexandria Daddario) was only 25 at the time of filming.  It would also mean that the hillbillies that massacred the family, let’s assume for all intents and purposes here, that they were all freshly minted 18-year-old adults—a lot of them were a lot older, but there may have been some that were 18, just for math again—it’s 38 years later, so they should all be 56.  Maybe you can buy 1 of these actors being 56 but that’s a stretch and, remember, that should be the youngest among them.  So again things don’t jive.  These are the MAJOR plot holes plus I’m sure it wasn’t a legal adoption by any means when baby Heather was stolen and taken in, so how she was tracked down by grandma’s estate later is flimsy, though they do credibly explain it but I still don’t very much buy it.

     And then you have the fact that Heather inherits this estate and she’s going there with her friends.  On her way, they pick up this hitchhiker, complete stranger they don’t know, but once they get to the estate, go inside, relatively quickly determine they need to go shopping for dinner, she decides to leave this complete stranger who they have no idea who he is ALONE at the estate when she hasn’t even taken stock of the valuables in the house yet.  Like, what kind of thinking is this?  I mean, unless you’re trying to show that this character is about as slow as her retarded Chainsaw Massacre cousin, it makes absolutely no sense.

     And also, after this bomb was dropped on Heather—she didn’t know she was adopted, she wants answers—she gets this estate and the guy in charge of the estate says, “here’s a letter from your grandma, I’m sure she explains everything, read it,” but instead—I don’t know about you, if this kind of bombshell was dropped on me, that would be the first thing I do, I’d read the fucking letter—she just puts it aside and goes about her business.  So, again, are you trying to establish this character as mentally fucking slow as her retarded chainsaw wielding cousin?  It makes no sense as nothing about the character prior or after makes you think she’s unintelligent or some go-with-the-flow, no-cares hippy. 

     Then, other than that, there are the little things, of which there are many.  I’m always astounded by abandoned properties that have been deserted for decades and decades (for perspective, long before 1974 in this case) and yet still have electricity.  Uh, that doesn’t seem realistic to me, the electric company tends to shut off power when bills aren’t being paid.  And I guess one can argue that, after all these years, perhaps the meat packing factory was still in the family, grandma still paying the bills and kept the power running, but that’s a stretch and kind of asinine.

     Also, if Jed was locked in the basement when his caretaker died, how'd he survive with no food from the time between grandma’s death and cousin Heather’s arrival?  And if Heather had opted not to help, why was grandma okay with Jed starving to death, alone and forgotten, in the basement?

     When an officer is exploring the estate where something macabre has obviously happened, blood everywhere, sharing the walk-through live with his superior and the mayor via cell phone video, why didn’t anyone call for or send back up?

     Also, the mayor's son (which was supposed to be a surprise reveal but was obvious from his first appearance with the mayor early on) would be seeking vengeance so it’s unrealistic that by the end scene after the end credits, transpiring sometime after the events of the picture, he still hasn’t.  Or is this the set up for a sequel?  It seems quite sorry that Clint Eastwood’s son had to resort to appearing in this film.

     And then, furthermore, just to knit-pick now because the rest was so ridiculous, Heather’s blouse gets pulled open—one can assume the buttons were broken off but we’ll ignore that part—she just escapes being tied up, running away, trying to get the ropes off of her hands, her life still in danger but somewhere along the line (offscreen) she happens to find the time to button her blouse back up.  That doesn’t seem too realistic.

     Now, after the bombshell and tragedies going on all around her, I can see Heather going a little loony, but even so her biological family was kind of fucked up and probably deserved to die anyway, most if not all shown as murderers, kidnappers and accomplices in the original, so the fact that she decides she’s now going to be the caretaker of the Chainsaw Massacre just seems kind of, again, stretching the realms of realism.  Especially since, hello, he’s the one who just killed ALL of your friends!  And savaged YOU TOO, until he realized you were a relative.

     I’m also left wondering where this grandma came from, that she had so much money when it seemed like the rest of the family did not.  This also totally obliterates the original sequels as there were family members that were alive and well and even in the same house if memory serves (I may be mistaken regarding the latter). 

     The only silver lining: If you ever wondered about seeing a little more of Alex Roussea from Lost, there are a couple nice (albeit totally and blatantly gratuitous—as in, almost uncomfortably, cringe worthy even to a full-blooded male with hormones coursing through his veins) tracking shots of her ass.  However, clothed.  Surprising a film such as this has absolutely no nudity.  Haha.

     But ultimately my review is negative.  I know they were pushing it as a 3D movie, I only saw it in 2D, but I highly doubt that makes the difference.  I really want to give it a 2, but if you’re a horror person I can see giving it a 3, something you might like to give a chance for yourself being that it’s part of an established franchise, so we’ll reconcile with a mid-ground 2.5.