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 ****.