Texas Chainsaw "3D" - Review

Texas Chainsaw 3D is a complete mess from beginning to end. I had heard it was bad but stayed away from reviews knowing some day I would watch it. I am having a hard time finding even a single redeeming value about this "film". I feel like I have lost an hour and a half of my life that could have been better spent doing other things. Unfortunately, I can't take this experience back so I may as well review it. This is a long review as it's pretty hard to cover all of the flaws in this movie without getting into some length.
The film opens with a quick montage overview of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For a quick moment I thought to myself, maybe I should just watch that, but I pushed those thoughts out of my head and forged ahead. This film picks up directly where the 1974 film ended. This sets the film up to exist in a brand new universe where none of the sequels exist. The sheriff shows up at the Sawyer household which is now inhabited by several family members. Here is the very first problem with the film. I have seen the original chainsaw. There were four people in that house and there were no women and no babies. Did they all decide to rush over to the the sawyer house for a family breakfast after they had just slaughtered a group of innocents and let one escape? If they had been there

the whole time we surely would have seen them in the first film. This is the first indication that the makers of this movie could care less about actually making a follow up to the original. In this scene we also have cameos from some Chainsaw alum, Bill Moseley from part 2 and Gunnar Hansen from the original. The house is then firebombed by an angry mob killing everyone inside. This is a symbolic way of burning down the house that Hooper built. That's not what they meant by putting the cameos in and killing them but that's how I felt. "We know any fans out there recognize these guys from the other films. Forget all that we are burning this to the ground!". That's what I took from this. Of course there is a baby inside the home and it survives and is secretly adopted/stolen by some mob members.

Now we move onto the next problem with the film. The timing. The original films takes place in 1974. This new film is centered on the stolen baby who is now all grown up. I didn't pick up if they ever say her actual age but she looks to be in her early to mid-twenties so let's say it's been 21 years. That would make it 1995. Only, it's clearly present day. So does that mean she is 38? Good genes maybe? It doesn't make sense and the filmmakers don't care. They never even address it. It's not like it would have been that difficult to set this thing in the mid nineties. I have no choice at this point but accept this huge continuity flaw and continue onward. So, Heather, as her baby snatching parents called her, received an inheritance from her cannibalistic family as she is the only surviving member. In classic horror movie style it's time for a road trip. Heather and her friends decide to drive down to Texas to claim the inheritance and have a little fun.
There is a long stretch now of typical modern slasher tropes. A hitchhiker. A mysterious house. A giant locked door in the basement. Characters who are complete assholes and have been setup to die. Why have likable characters when you can fill your film with douchebags. A van breaks down repeatedly while attempting their escape. Leatherface runs through a carnival with a chainsaw while Heather jumps onto a ferris wheel allowing him to run to the other side and wait for her to come down so he can kill her...that's not a trope it's just ridiculously stupid. That was a pretty condensed version of the middle of this film because it's just so forgettable. Everyone is dead and there is still over 30 minutes left to this thing. What could possibly be left to do? Can't we just roll the credits and call it a day? No, instead the filmmakers decide to take this film into even more ridiculous directions.

Did you know that Leatherface is actually kind of an antihero? Neither did I. The filmmakers actually make Leatherface the good guy in the third act of the film. I have seen the original Chainsaw film that this apparently follows and Leatherface is not a good guy. He fatally chainsawed a man in a wheelchair. He stuck a girl on a meathook. Hell, just a few minutes earlier he sawed a man in half while he was stuck on a meathook. He is not a good guy. He's messed up and came from a messed up family but he's not a good guy. Basically, Heather finds out about the firebombing of the house and decides the angry mob were a bunch of murderers. Yeah, but so was your biological family so why not call it a draw and go home? She has the opportunity to just skip town but doesn't. Instead she ends up in the hands of some of the evil townsfolk who decide to tie her up with the intention of killing her. Of course Leatherface shows up to save the day. He frees his cousin, and then immediately gets the crap beat out of him. Heather kills one of the men with a pitchfork while Leatherface murders the other guy in a glorious badly done CGI death. I am not listing names because I don't remember them and honestly don't care. This family bonding experience (she even calls him "cuz") is all witnessed by the sheriff, who walks away calmly deciding to let Heather and her homicidal chainsaw wielding face wearing brother who viciously murdered all of her friends, live in peace.

So where is the real evil? Is it the murderous cannibalistic Sawyer family? Is it the angry mob who firebombed a house of "innocent" people? It's the filmmakers. They are awful. They made an awful movie in a franchise already brimming with bad sequels. The continuity makes no sense. The characters are awful and their decisions make no sense. There are so many plot lines and themes running through this thing and not a single one works. The slasher half of the movie is dull and boring. The revenge half of the movie is dull and boring. The whole thing is a mess and I can't recommend this at all.

0/5