Texas Chainsaw is stupid. With a bit of dumbass sprinkled in. And a pinch of derp. Let me just put this out there... of all the Horror Movie staple characters (Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, etc.) the only one who ever really creeped me the funk out was Leatherface. But that fact that I was more scared of Leatherheads is a testament to how not frightening this movie was. I'm going to try to break this down without losing you, but if I just trail off or decide to talk about a different movie... you'll probably understand why.
This newest instillation of the Texas Chainsaw series is actually a follow-up of the first movie. No, not the Jessica Biel remake of the first one or the prequel to that remake... but the actual first one. The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre made back in 1974. The film begins by showing all the death snippets from the classic, then showing the events immediately following the last scene of the movie with the derp'd up redneck hick-ass gun-toting townsfolk of Texas outside the murder house where the Sawyer family is holed up, armed up the ass, hiding Jedediah (Leatherface). The Sheriff is calling to take ol' Jed to jail and as the family is about to comply, the townies in their hillbilly nature start throwing Molotov-moonshine cocktails and blasting the family up. The Sheriff only just stands there watching this ironic turn of events. I say ironic ironically, of course because any chance of the writers of this film being purposefully ironic would be the most ironic thing of all. But the unironic ironic turn of events have now led to this family being massacred at the hands of those pissed off at the Sawyer's little short-bus-ridin' Chainsaw murderer. This is some messed up stuff right here because now it looks like the townspeople are evil. Oh, and they steal a baby and dropkick an innocent, helpless woman in the face. But, that's neither here nor there.
Flashforward... uh... I'm not sure how many years because this little detail seemed to have been overlooked on purpose. The events in the first film transpired in 1973, so that would make the stolen baby 40 even though she's only 26 in the film and it would also make Leatherface like 75 (a detail that takes a lot away from the frightening factor). But, let's just pretend these dimwits knew exactly what they were doing and I'm just the asshole for noticing. The grown-up baby, Heather, who has no knowledge of her real family or the past, has now received word that her "real" grandmother has died and left her a house in Texas. So, her and her fuckwit friends take a trip to Texas to check out the house. Oh, and along the way they hit a hitchhiker with their car and take him along but he's not actually a hitchhiker he's just a douche. But, that's neither here nor there.
So, once they reach the property, the estate lawyer hands over the keys and a letter written by ol' granny that gives details about the house. But these geniuses are too smart to look at the letter, of course. After some drinking and smokin and sexin the hitchhiker goes down to the basement to steal shit. I'm not talking money of course, but silverware. Apparently, this half-brain has a good silver guy who pays good money for fine china. Anyhoo, he finds out that Leatherface lives down there and ends up getting beaten to death with some sort of hammer-like object. This leads to a chain of events in which these friends are all killed off one by one. Except, of course, Heather. She escapes him five or six times, which is strange because each time she's chased, her brain apparently evacuates all knowledge of how to run properly or jump over fences that are less than a foot high or how to dodge oncoming traffic. But, that's neither here nor there.
Well, she goes to the police to let them know all her friends are dead. Guess who's still Sheriff??? Yep. Same one from earlier? Guess who's Mayor? The hillbilly mudslinger who led the riot against the Sawyers in the beginning? Well slap my ass and call me Sally! Once the Mayor finds out who this girl really is, she, of course, finds out what this town did to her and who Jed really is... you guessed it... her cousin. Leatherface is this chick's cousin! Apparently, Granny was keeping him hidden and feeding him scraps of bread and cow and boot all these years. So, instead of being reasonable about the whole situation, the Mayor decides he's got to take some action and kill this chick because she's found out what a douchenozzle he really is! Oh, and the Sheriff is apparently helpless about all this, not able to wield a weapon correctly and letting the Mayor lead a pack of inbred trailer-trash in, once again, another coup, to which the Sheriff is helpless, once again, leading to a lot more murder under his watch. But, that's neither here nor there.
This is where the movie takes a huge right turn! Once she explains to Leatherface that they're related (because the common sense he understands is: oh, she's my cousin, that means we're related, that means I shouldn't kill her. But not: oh, look, a human being, I should disembowel him with my fifteen different brands of chainsaw and piss on their corpses), Heather and Leatherface team up to fight the town! It becomes a buddy movie! I see the TV spin off now! "This week on Heatherface, Heather and Jed go on a double date! But when Jed accidentally kills his date with a chainsaw to the face, it's up to Heather to clean up the mess!" The fact that the people behind this film make it so that these cousins are now allies and totally let Heather forget the horrific ways her Cuz just destroyed her best friend's/boyfriend's internal organs or how he, ya know, cut off the faces of people he killed to sew them together to make a new face for himself is, ya know... derp! But, that's neither here nor there.
I thought it was quite fitting that every time Heather tried to get away from anything she would trip, or fall, or stumble, or get hit by a car. It was the perfect metaphor for the way this movie went. Every time it would look like the writers would find a sweet path to take the movie, they'd trip and do something completely asinine. Then, when they mostly had their bearings back, they'd get hit by a car and totally screw any possibility of a coherent and even mildly scary movie. It was nice to know that I wasn't the only person cracking the hell up during most of the film. Each time something "scary" would try to happen, me and the entire theater would erupt into laughter. If there's one good thing I can say about this film, it's that we already have one of the best comedies to come out for the next couple of months. Don't see this film because if you do, a little bit of the intelligence you have now will float away never to return. I saw mine go halfway through. But, that's neither here nor there.
D-
The family name was " Sawyer".
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