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.
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