Hello Movie Maniacs
Time for a history lesson
In 1974 a relatively unknown filmmaker decided to cast amateur actors and created a film that can be considered as the origin point of slasher cinema. The film titled The Texas chainsaw massacre was deemed so violent that it was banned in a number of countries due to its content. With time the roaring success of its prime antagonist The Leatherface, led to creation of a number of iconic slasher villains such as Freddy Krueger, Jason, Michael Myers etc.
The legacy of Leatherface
The Texas chainsaw massacre in itself spawned almost eight movies including sequels and prequels. The success of slasher cinema has time and time again lured film makers and production houses to try and capture the same success as the original. Keeping up with the tradition Netflix has brought to us the latest iteration of Leatherface in a movie titled Texas chainsaw massacre.
A basic plot
The latest offering from Netflix is set in today’s world where a group of youngsters visits the site of original story in order to sell the abandoned properties and make a good profit. There they encounter a woman and his atypical son, still living in one of the houses much to their annoyance. Convinced that those two are living in violation of the ownership of the property, they call the local police which sends the already sick old woman into a stroke, and she dies enroute to the hospital. Her death sets of a chain of violent events starting with his son sawing off his dead mother’s face and wearing her facial skin to become Leatherface.
A massacre of Logic
The latest iteration of the iconic slasher movie has nothing new to offer and some sequences in the second half are simply baffling. For instance, the bus driver instead of backing the bus and running away, drives towards a dead end, and then inexplicably walks out with the torch leaving the door open.
(Spoiler alert) Another sequence that baffled me was that in the climax where one of the sisters picks up the chainsaw but instead of slicing the monster, uses it like a club to uppercut him into water.
The writers also brought in the only surviving character, Sally Hardesty from the original, only to have her get sawed without putting up much of a fight. Now that is some lazy writing after building up a character as a tough hero.
An actor’s nightmare
To be honest, the majority of performances in this movie are so lackluster, that any decent actor would find watching this movie akin to being tortured in cellular jail. Even Mark Burnham (The actor who played Leatherface) had better facial expressions than every other actor, and he was wearing a facial skin throughout the movie.
The Final Verdict
The moment the dance of violence begins, the script starts weakening. It is one of the worst slasher movie one can ever see or maybe one will ever see. It would have been better if Netflix would have left Mr Leatherface asleep.
The Thumb rule of watching a slasher movie
When it comes to slasher films, I have a formula to judge its quality. The number of times I press the skip forward button is inversely proportional to the quality of movie. In case of Texas chainsaw massacre my right thumb is sore.
Of all the Texas Chainsaw movies only the first one was good. The rest are crap.
The more they make, the more they destroy the fear associated with that character