>>REVIEW
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
New Line Home Video, 2007
Fanboy disclaimer: I love this series. I believe Texas Chainsaw Massacre (TCM 2) is the greatest film of all time, for a myriad of reasons (allusions to the Vietnam War, Chop Top, Oingo Boingo). It deserves a graduate thesis of its own. The first film is an acknowledged classic, credited for the split of horror into two factions – grindhouse and psychological thrillers. While considered the former, it actually had little violence, instead terrorizing its audience with art direction, choreography and a documentary-styled approach. The third film is only worth seeing on DVD for the unrated gore and the fourth, The Next Generation, is an unmitigated disaster, although you can’t blame director Kim Henkel. The studio butchered the film and he’ll never be allowed to get his hands on it to make a proper cut. The remake wasn’t as bad as fans expected, and the special edition DVD is worth watching for the deleted scenes – one case where they could’ve made a much different, better movie.
Now this. The one thing you can give The Beginning is its odd nihilistic bent, characteristic of genre films these days. The draw for TCM fans is the supposed "origin" backstory of Leatherface. If you didn’t blog about it with a frenzy when the film first came out, prepare to now.
It’s 1939, and a slaughterhouse worker in backwoods Texas passes out, giving birth to a deformed baby on the floor. Horrified by this bloody puppet (resembling the Quaid mutant in Total Recall), her boss throws it in the trash. Later, a crazy woman eating meat scraps from the garbage outside the slaughterhouse finds the baby, names it Thomas, and takes it home to the Hewitt family.
Dad is R. Lee Ermey, forever known as the Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket (in one scene, he grabs his junk in homage). That’s it. Next thing you know, Leatherface is all grown up, working in the same slaughterhouse of his humble beginnings as a dumpster baby. Now it’s 1969, and this Texas town has become desolate, forcing the slaughterhouse to close. Leatherface doesn’t like the news. Neither does dad, who, after a quick murder, has become the Sheriff Hoyt you later see in the remake.
Enter four doomed teens – Chrissie (so that’s where Jordana Brewster’s been), her boyfriend Dean (Taylor Handley), returning inexplicably for a second tour of duty in ’Nam (Chrissie wants him to stay home and make babies), his brother Eric (Matthew Bomer) and Eric’s girlfriend Bailey (Diora Baird). After a run-in with a sexy biker, there’s a car crash, Sheriff Hoyt comes by and mayhem ensues.
The DVD release features the "unrated" version and there’s some nasty and disturbing gore – evisceration, beatings and a meat hook to the clavicle. But – three people get dispatched in the same way. This is inexcusable. Where’s the variety, the implausible yet inventive gore? The film is at pains to show how Leatherface became his chainsaw-wielding self, but still. The deleted scenes were excised for good reason, although the making-of documentary is lengthy and detailed. The buzz is back – kinda. |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.