"Texas Chainsaw Part Who the Hell Cares," starring MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY and RENEE ZELLWEGER

You know, if you're a serious horror fan, it's quite a commitment. I wouldn't even want to see the sum total of everything I've spent on this hobby over the years, from DVD's to VHS tapes to convention tickets to posters to memorabilia. This is where horror is different from other genres; you don't see your average fan of, say, romantic comedy movies lining their walls with images of their favorite characters and scouring the web for spoilers on upcoming releases. More than any monetary expenditure, however, is the expense of time - the TIME we spend watching movies, attending conventions, and discussing cheesy '80s slasher flicks with fellow fans on the internet.

And I spent my 2011 Christmas night watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. Yup. Fortunately for everyone, I don't have a big, boring nostalgia trip to take you on first, because this was my first viewing, so let's just warp right ahead to the Wikipedia research phase.

TCM: The Next Generation was originally released in 1994, written and directed by Kim Henkel (who co-wrote the original film with Tobe Hooper). Much like the original film, it had a microscopic budget (in this case $600,000, lower than the thid film in the franchise and MUCH lower than the second) and was filmed to be as authentic as possible. Namely, in the most remote, backwoods sections of Texas. Originally titled Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the movie hit the film festival circuit, promptly flamed out, and sat around for three years until its two main stars became huge Hollywood properties. More on them later. Eventually, the producers cut the movie down by nine minutes and were finally able to release it theatrically in its current incarnation, which is what we're about to look at.

While nobody would confuse the setup of any TCM movie as being particularly realistic with the exception of the first one, this one is...a pretty big stretch. We're immediately introduced to Heather (Lisa Marie Newmyer) and Barry (Tyler Shea Cone), two arguing beefcake-y teenagers at their HIGH SCHOOL PROM (holy Christ) who make their way into a car and continue arguing while they speed away from the prom. After they get a respectable distance away from the school, they discover that another couple is stowing away in their back seat, for reasons that might have been explained but I won't bother to because I wasn't paying particularly close attention. Oh, and Jenny, the female of this second couple, is played by Renee Zellweger.

Now, she became a big star after this movie came out and all, but personally I've just never seen what the big deal is with her. I've seen her in maybe six or seven movies, and really don't remember her for much of anything, other than almost having sex with Rex Manning and winning the Oscar for one of the worst performances ever on film. AIN'T NO MAN BETTER THAN ME. If anyone wants proof that the Weinsteins bribe the goddamn Oscar committee, Miss Zellweger's Oscar is the smoking gun. At any rate, she's your star victim of this film, so enjoy her Randy Orton-like charisma for the film's duration. Or don't.

There's something else I should point out about the film that I gleamed from the opening ten minutes. Rob Zombie did a reboot of the Halloween series that was heavily criticized for being too hick-influenced, completely lacking in subtlety, and beating its nonstop parade of profane dialogue down the audience's throats. Because Zombie's relative strengths appear to be grittiness and making the audience uncomfortable, it's been pointed out that he would have been much better suited for a TCM remake. Well, here's your Rob Zombie Texas Chainsaw movie, since Barry's dialogue contains no less than 15 uses of the word "fuck" in the introduction alone. And guess what? It sucks. Lesson learned for the day - Rob Zombie sucks. Even when he's not technically directing movies.

Well, the introduction comes to an end when our fearsome foursome (the fourth one, by the way, is named Sean, is Jenny/Zellweger's boyfriend, and is played by John Harrison) have to take a detour, go down an expectedly middle-of-nowhere-ish road, and get in a car accident. The driver of the other car is still alive, and so our quartet makes their way to this film's version of the Last Chance gas station - in this case an insurance office manned by Darla (Tonie Perensky), who likes to flash her fake boobs to passing cars. You can't make this stuff up. After an extended (read: never-ending) sequence, Darla calls in her husband Vilmer to take care of the wreck.

Soon enough, Vilmer shows up, played by Matthew McConaughey and driving an old beat-up wrecker truck. He also has a pretty cool-looking bionic leg. The deep, suspenseful build of this movie lasts for all of one minute before Vilmer goes bat-crazy insane, breaking the guy's neck and running Sean over with his truck, all while partaking in the absolute most ridiculous of mannerisms and evil laughs. For what it's worth, I actually found McConaughey to be a pretty good, convincing villain. You buy the guy as an insane killer, and unlike Zellweger, I'm not surprised at all that the guy eventually became a big star. Until the movie turns extremely loopy, the character of Vilmer is definitely the strong point of the movie, without a doubt.

Meanwhile, Jenny, Heather and Barry get tired of waiting around the insurance office, and go out into this strange mini-town in search of Sean. Sometime in this time span, Jenny becomes separated from the other two, who promptly find the old, beat-up Sawyer farmhouse. You might notice that in this review I'm not mentioning any of these people's personal traits, and that's because, other than some VERY shallow characteristics (Barry=asshole, Heather=prom queen, Jenny=troubled stoner, Sean=nice guy), they're nonentities. Don't take it that I'm being lazy. I'm only reporting what we're given.

Having said all that, we're about to enter the movie's money sequence. Barry and Heather enter the Sawyer abode and immediately get brutalized by Leatherface in a manner very similar to the way that the original victims in the first TCM film bit the dust. Barry getting hit in the head with a mallet is a cheer-out-loud moment, to say the least. The Leatherface in this film is played by Robert Jacks, who does a decent-enough job given the material. The Face Man for this go-round is, by this point, merely a prop, window dressing for a plot that takes more nonsensical plot twists than all nine seasons of The X-Files combined, so don't expect too much gushing about one of horror's main luminaries from this point on. Oh, I also forgot to mention that we've just been introduced to another member of the Sawyer family - W.E. (Joe Stevens), a shotgun-wielding dude who speaks only in classical literature quotes. Once again, you can't make this stuff up.

From here, we get our tribute/ripoff of the Marilyn Burns/Sally Hardesty chase sequence from the original film, as Jenny runs across Vilmer and uses her Scooby Doo-like detective skills to deduce that the crazy-eyed guy spouting off about fear is a homicidal maniac. After escaping Vilmer, there is a lengthy (and actually quite suspenseful) "Final Girl" scene between Jenny and Leatherface. After managing to get away from Face, she finds her way back to the insurance station, where (in another tribute/ripoff of the original film) Darla (remember her?) makes a HEEL TURN and calls in the Sawyer family to bring Jenny back to the family abode.

And...wow. What a "dinner/Sawyer family gathering" scene you're about to...uh...enjoy. Get ready.

With the above picture as evidence, McConaughey continues to perfect the "frothing at the mouth villain" role on Zellweger before she makes no less than three escape attempts that get cut off by either Vilmer or Leatherface. At a few points during this long sequence (it takes up the last half-hour of the movie), Darla shows signs of remorse which Jenny begins to play on. Eventually, Darla breaks down and says that Vilmer works for a "secret organization" of some sort, and after a tribute/mockery of the original film's dinner scene, the boss of this shadowy organization shows up in the form of Rothman (James Gale), a black-suited guy who kindly informs us that all of this - the Sawyer house, the murders, the macabre fascination with dead bodies - is all about an experiment to show people "the true meaning of horror."

Ok, first off - HAHAHAHAHAHA. That is, by far, the greatest film plot I've ever heard, but it gets better. Earlier in the film, it had been shown that "Illuminati" was written on the side of Vilmer's wrecker truck. For those not in the know, the Illuminati are a long-rumored/speculated/never-seen secret club of some sort that supposedly controls the world. Or something. Yeah. The idea that the all-powerful, all-knowing bureau of controlling the universe runs a beaten up old farmhouse where people like to engage in cannibalism and spout off cryptic philosophies about the meaning of fear is quite amusing to me. I can only presume that it's a tax writeoff for the Illuminati.

Time to give this stallion the Euthanasia treatment. Jenny's four millionth escape attempt finally proves fruitful when she is able to gain control of the remote that manipulates Vilmer's bionic leg (don't ask) and runs out into the balmy Texas morning in yet another tribute/ripoff of the original film. She runs down a camper with Leatherface and Vilmer in HOT PURSUIT (/Roscoe P. Coltrane). Meanwhile, somewhere, a plane takes off. We don't know why, but it does. After Leatherface - while riding in the back of Vilmer's wrecker - manages to run the camper off the road, the plane swoops down and nails Vilmer in the face, killing him instantly and causing Leatherface to cease his HOT PURSUIT (/Roscoe P. Coltrane). Jenny hops into a waiting black car that whisks her away from the farm, and inside, Rothman informs her that this experiment was an "abomination" and that it was supposed to be a "spiritual experience."

And then, after being taken to a hospital, Jenny sees Sally Hardesty being wheeled around on a stretcher, once again played by Marilyn Burns and ending the movie on an admittedly creepy note.

Oh boy, time to pass judgment on this film. You know - from reading that convoluted and scatterbrained plot description, do you really need me to spell out that it sucks? The experience I had with it was the following - the first twenty minutes or so were actually pretty atmospheric, but when all of the "danger" elements started making their presence be known in the second act, I was completely bored because I didn't care. The movie has a gold mine here in the form of four potentially likable, potentially innocent and undeserving people going to their high school prom and finding their way to hell, and much like pretty all of Rob Zombie's opuses, the movie left me cold because I hated every victim character.

Now, it's time for a pseudo-intellectual rant. It is entirely possible to create an unconventional movie and make it deep, emotional, and resonant. The Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters is a perfect example of this - it doesn't make much sense in the traditional manner of things, but the two main characters are drawn so well, and we as an audience are given plenty of reasons to care about them as people, therefore when the weirdness begins it becomes a positive rather than a negative. These are people we like, and they are trapped in an impenetrable maze.

This movie? Not so much. Kim Henkel chose to write one of the most bizarre stories I've ever seen play out in any horror movie, giving the Texas Chainsaw series a mythology that it really didn't need to have, but all of that would be forgivable if we cared about it. Since we don't, the movie's hackneyed plot involving a secret organization fronting the Sawyer clan's murderous tendencies isn't even laughably bad. It's just horrible. After 86 minutes, I couldn't wait for this abomination to be over, and I've suffered through plenty of crap in my day. The third movie in the series seemed to have the idea for a TCM sequel right - the Sawyer clan moves their stakes to a newer but equally backwoods section of Texas and waits for potential victims. Introducing the Illuminati and voodoo mind control into the proceedings is not the way to do it, and it's thanks to this movie that we have the entirely forgettable Platinum Dunes remakes.

Positives? As mentioned, McConaughey is definitely game for his role. No matter how goofy the movie gets in its final trimester, he'll keep you from hitting the eject button just because he plays the Vilmer role so completely over the top that you can't take your eyes off the train wreck. Other than that, though, don't expect much in the way of redeeming qualities. The victims are vanilla, the look of the film is flat and dingy, the music sucks, and the story sounds like something that would be right at home on the Satellite of Love.

* out of ****. Avoid this one like the plague.

I AM "LEATHERFACE: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre III"!!!

Confession time: I had never seen this movie in my life before the obligatory research viewing for this review. I'm far too lazy to go back and check, but I'm pretty sure that I have lied about this at one point at a few message boards, so if you're one of the people who were under the impression that I had a half-assed nuanced opinion of this flick, much apologies. I now have a slightly more educated half-assed nuanced opinion.

So here we are - the third film in the Texas Chain Saw series. Without a doubt, a series that deserves its place on the virtual Mount Rushmore of modern horror film icons along with Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers, this is also one of the many franchises that hold a special place in my heart for having the power to creep the holy hell out of me as a kid via its BOX ART alone. When I was just a little bastard, I would peruse the horror aisle looking to get creeped out due to nothing more than masochism, and the images of the beastly man with creepy masks brandishing large implements seen in the aisles at Sears always did the job with shocking ease. Nonetheless, curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I eventually caught the first movie on TV sometime in my sixth grade year.

So, to give this whole thing some vague semblance of completion, my brief reviews of the first two films in the franchise:

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Man oh man, the Horror Nerd loves him some Texas Chain Saw Massacre! Throughout my dalliances with fellow horror fans out there on the interwebz, I've learned that it's very much a "love it or hate it" thing, and feel free to put me in the former camp. It traumatized the holy hell out of me as a 12-year-old, and while I've seen plenty of films since then that are technically scarier and plenty more that are gorier, the atmosphere, dirtiness and grittiness are off the charts to the point of making this one unforgettable. To me, it's beauty in simplicity - a group of kids goes on a trek across the backroads of Texas only to chance into running across an insane family of cannibal meat merchants, most notably Gunner Hansen as the legendary muscle of the group, Leatherface. The remake? It tried - I won't fault Michael F**king Bay and his foot soldiers for not putting out a solid effort. But this is a flick that just CAN'T be repeated with slickness and professionalism. It's got the budget of an order of McNuggets and the uncanny screaming ability of Marilyn Burns to carry it...and that is why it's immortal.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part 2: Good, although nowhere near as memorable as the first film. Also directed by Tobe Hooper (the same guy responsible for the first installment), this one is more of a parody of the original. The theatrical poster is a spoof of the promotional material for The Breakfast Club, but that fact was lost on me during my formative years, and this is one video cover that scared the bejesus out of me. It's Leatherface along with three other like-minded cannibalism proponents. Yikes. At any rate, Hooper piles on the humor and the plot is pretty goofy - a small-town Sheriff (played by Dennis Hopper - the budget for this flick was approximately 90 times that of the original) remains hot on the trail of the Sawyers long after the crimes seen in the first film, while a radio DJ (Caroline Williams, who looks great in the tiny jean shorts she wears throughout the film's running time, I must say) is the star victim in peril/object of Leatherface's affection for this go-round. It's also got the always amusing Bill Moseley as the "comic relief" villain, although this indirectly may have led to Rob Zombie having a film career, so take it for what it's worth. In short, a lot of fun, but not a revolution like the first film was.

And that brings us to...this flick. Leatherface: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre III was released in January of 1990 and directed by Jeff Burr of Puppet Master 4 and 5 relative fame. More or less, it pretends that the second installment doesn't exist, which seems like a prudent course of action since that film ended with, ya know, every villain character dead. For the most part, it also junks the jokey, almost mocking tone of that film and takes a more serious approach. Maybe a bit TOO serious - it was originally saddled with the dreaded X rating before several MPAA cuts netted it the R needed for a mainstream release, although the uncut version is now widely available on DVD. End Wikipedia research phase.

Before we get going on this particular go-round of reviewing madness, allow me to play like Vince Russo and/or the Daniel Craig Bond films and pull back the curtain (you know - remove all the fun) on the proceedings. I had my next series of reviews slated to be either the lesser-known TCM films or the Evil Dead series and was leaning toward the latter, even dropping a reference to it in the Phantasm IV review. However, since I hate the ED series with a passion and seemingly every other horror fan adores it, I figured I'd save myself the hate mail and go with the movies that have much more variance in their reception. So thank everyone's favorite skin-wearing psycho for saving you the trouble of reading 30-or-so paragraphs of me bitching about how Ash Williams isn't quite the end-all-be-all hero character that everyone thinks he is. Although I just said it.

With that...FINALLY...the movie.

After the expected (and quite awesome) opening narration followed by a skull-bludgeoning murder scene, the flick immediately calms down and stays that way for a nice long, slow build. In one of my favorite rapidly-becoming-cliche phrases, this is a move that is always appreciated. The two saps above are your star victim characters for TCM III, a college couple on their way to Florida to "work out their differences" or some vague thing that isn't quite spelled out. Maybe it was, but I wasn't playing particularly close attention during this phase of the movie. At any rate, Kate Hodge (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ashley "Kirsty Cotton" Laurence) plays Michelle, the brunette on the right who serves as your Final Girl, while Bill Butler is the slightly nerdish-looking Ryan. Butler is one of my favorite bit part horror veterans, having been killed off in Friday the 13th Part VII, the Tom Savini version of Night of the Living Dead and Terror Night, and it was good to see him have a pseudo-starring role here.

While attempting to tune in some bitchin' late '80s tunage, they catch wind that there's an upcoming road block due to a massive mass grave (redundancy alert) being unearthed. There's some very nice special makeup effects involved in the mass grave scene where we're also clued in that Ryan is a pre-med student. Why I mentioned this, I don't know. After continuing past the road block, they find their way to the Last Chance gas station, where they run into...

Viggo Mortensen wearing a cowboy hat. Of course, there's also the requisite Texas Chain Saw Massacre creepy guy (this time an eternally skeevy dude with a glass eye named Alfredo), but hell...it's Viggo Mortensen wearing a cowboy hat. Definitely not the thing I expected to see in a TCM movie. For those of you who have seen the original film (which, let's face it, should be damn near all of you), this would be the "building up dread before the victims head out into deepest, darkest Texas" segment, as Alfredo eventually winds up trying to shoot them and the car speeds off into desolate countryside.

And you know what that means in a Texas Chain Saw movie. Eventually, they get blindsided by a large truck (driven by LEATHERFACE - seen live and in the flesh for the first time since the intro) and our two protagonists find themselves on the run. A lot of the midddle segments of this movie take place in the woods for some good old-fashioned stalk-and-slash action, where amazingly enough a few more characters are introduced. Michelle and Ryan run into Benny (played by amazing horror film luminary Ken Foree), a survivalist who fills the role of being a worthy adversary for the Sawyer clan, and then run afoul of Tinker (Joe Unger, and man, what a sleazeball he is), yet another Sawyer-in-hiding with hooked hands and a swarthy dimeanor. Anyway, after the graphic Leatherface-izing death of a survivor from a recent meat raid, Michelle and Ryan are brought into the Sawyer abode for the finale.

For those of you who are extremely uninitiated, the Sawyer clan in the TCM flicks...yeah, just think Ed Gein taken to the nth degree. In the first film, it was strongly implied that they weren't just cannibals...they were merchants who sold their barbeque creations on roadside stands. Since the second movie is mostly comedy, we'll just look at this one as the "official" sequel for the sake of posterity, and we get yet more sickness thrown our way as it's strongly implied that the captured females in their missions serve as "breeders." Hell, one of the villains in this flick is a cute little blonde girl who takes great delight in pushing the button that smashes Ryan's brain in. Great stuff.

At any rate, the ending sequence of TCM III isn't quite the religious experience that the infamous "dinner scene" from the original film is, but it's definitely a strong showing in the pantheon of "Final Girl" fight sequences. There's lots of sickness, lots of screaming, lots of gore, and even some cool badass moments for Ken Foree. What more can you ask for?

So, with that, we begin the analysis segment of the review. It's been almost two years since the last time I've taken in TCM 2, and since that film and this one are somewhat competing entities for the title of "official sequel to the original movie," I'm going to have to side with this one. The second movie is loads of fun, but the stylistic shift from grit, grime and uncomfortable realism (indeed, that first movie is so cheaply filmed that it looks like a goddamn documentary, and that a lot of the horridness was stuff that the cast actually did without the aid of makeup because that was probably a lot easier than faking it) to over-the-top slapstick was a little offputting. This one is a lot more faithful to the tone of the original, which should have been made more than apparent by the oh-so-handy plot description above, so 50 cool points to the movie for that. It's also got Viggo Mortensen making a *gasp* heel turn right before the third act, and Viggo plays a great heel. Kind of like he is in real life.

I also highly enjoyed the little nods to the first film. Leatherface slugs around in a leg brace due to the chain saw blow to the leg he took in the original, we get yet another cameo from Grandpa (although he's just a withered-up corpse in this film, as opposed to the withered-up barely-living bloodsucker he was in Hooper's movie), and we get some stellar production design work inside the Sawyer home, with bones and trophies tucked into every corner.

What's more, the characters actually end up being a strength. I was a little worried at first - I'm fond of Butler, but Hodge was pretty cookie-cutter. However, she gets a lot more likable as the movie goes along, and that final shotgun scene...cheer-out-loud moment. Of course, Foree is always game for any role. Even in the absolute dirt worst Rob Zombie-written material, he brings every bit of emotion that he can bring to a role, and this movie is no exception. You buy the dude as a legit threat to the clan of inbred cannibals, because he has a strong presence that can't be denied.

Not really a whole lot more to say about the film, other than that I greatly enjoyed it and would heartily recommend it to my horror-loving fans. However, I'm told that the NEXT movie in the franchise...isn't quite the minor classic that I found this one to be. Foreshadowing.

*** 1/2 out of ****.