![]() ![]() Rob Zombie made that mistake with his version of Halloween in that he gave us too much back story on the character of Michael Myers as opposed to Carpenter's approach of the mysterious Boogeyman (I'm not counting the sequels, but comparing Halloween to Halloween). I'm even less interested in origin stories, particularly with horror film icons. ![]() Even with the name Leatherface in bold letters to open the film, this is a poor paint by numbers horror film that is banking on the many past glories (and failures). What makes this so difficult to understand is that these people act manic all the time, leading to a sort of cancelling themselves out. It's amazing how stupid characters can be written in a film and I understand that many of these individuals are deranged, but I don't buy the idea that has the concept of self preservation at one moment, but they don't at another integral scene. It will be solved before they even leave the hospital. The characters are all boxed in stereotypes and the filmmaker's poor attempts at making a plot twist backfires horribly. Leatherface is your basic modern era horror film that tries to be coy with the reveal of who ends up being the legendary Sawyer, which is all this film has going for it. They go on a death race to nowhere while being chased by the same sheriff (Stephen Dorff) as we try to figure out which of these fugitives is going to wind up being the legendary killer Leatherface. A riot breaks out and Lizzy is taken captive by Ike (Bloor) and Clarice (Madsen) as Jackson (Strike) and Bud (Coleman) go along for the ride. We do a time jump and discover an asylum that is full of unscrupulous employees except for the new nurse Lizzy (Grasse). I do wonder why none of the family members were arrested for the crime. Eventually the Sawyer clan, led by the matriarch Verna (Lili Taylor) push their meat harvesting activities too far and end up killing the sheriff's daughter and the wee Leatherface is taken away to an asylum until he is old enough to do whatever he was going to do. Who knows? The film follows a young Leatherface from his early days of getting a chainsaw and gutting a fella at his fifth birthday party, which is slightly more painful than a trip to Chuck E. Now why do I say at least? Mainly because I see listings that associate this with the films in the franchise from 1974, 1986, 1990, and 1994 (that being The Next generation, a film thrown in the trash until stars Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey hit the big time). Leatherface is a prequel to at least 2013's Texas Chainsaw 3D, a terrible film in its own right. And when you're about to land at the bottom of the barrel you do an origins film. How many times has this series been rebooted, re-imagined, or recycled? That would be a daring assignment to figure out with probably no real satisfaction at the end, just a slippery slope into further mediocrity. Of all the horror franchises that are out there, the one that has been literally treated like a victim in its films is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. ![]()
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