Cuz she's a Sawyer: Texas Chainsaw (2013)

Texas Chainsaw (2013) (AKA "Texas Chainsaw 3D")
rating: **1/2
starring:  Alexandra Daddario, Tania Raymonde and Scott Eastwood

Here we go! The latest of the TCM franchise and my God it's a sequel directed to the 1974 original?! It's hard enough that majority of the public may not even sen the original, but make one ten years later after TCM 2003 was released I wouldn't surprise if people would have been confused, but if this movie's targeting hardcore fans, then let us all be hardcore fans here for the time being and review this little disaster.

In a form of consideration for non-TCM fans, we open up with the ending of the original in full stock footage, before moving with us watching the Sawyers gets cornered inside their own house, which includes not only Drayton and Grampa, but also Drayton's wife (?!) and four more hicks with shotguns (and one of them being "Boss Sawyer"?!); hearing of the massacre, the towns people drove to the farm and brought a hail of bullets at the family in an act of vigilante justice and torched down the place, leaving Drayton's wife the only survivor, but didn't last that night as she's quickly found by one of the town people, got killed and had her baby stolen from her.

Fastforwarding to...um...some...years... later...

The baby grew up as Heather Miller, who's about to find out that she's an orphaned girl when she receives a letter from her grandmother, Verna Sawyer. Apparently, gramma passed away and left a sum of inheritance, an entire mansion and everything on and in it, just for her. Picking up her friends to join in celebration, Heather will realize that everything actually includes something -or someone- living inside a hidden room. Someone with a big penchant for heavy powertools and a habit to collect face skins. Someone named Leatherface...who's also her cousin.

Texas Chainsaw, who for some reason dropped the "Massacre" from the title, is perhaps one entry in this franchise that makes very little sense to me. Other than the aforementioned problem with marketing, I don't really see a point doing this. I mean, I wanted to see Leatherface again, yes, but I was expecting something more creative than this.

Plot-wise, it is certainly something I never heard of before; the idea of family loyalty is tossed around in each entry in this franchise in varying level of deepness  but never as exploited and as twisted as this. Alexandra Daddario's character Heather practically started scared to death of Leatherface around the first half or hour, and I wouldn't blame her if the guy just so happens sews masks right through his cheeks, but would you actually change your mind by the last minute just because you found out the towns people torched them down for massacring a bunch of innocent teens? or that he's your cousin? I mean, I know you're family, but the guy nearly sliced your arm off with a chainsaw two seconds ago! And to add more to this movie's ailing level of good and wrong, the sheriff of the town's actually siding with the Sawyers cuz he thinks what happened to them years ago was just wrong. Really sheriff? You think burning a house full of killers down is unjust, while murdering and eating many passerby isn't? I would like to see you act all calm like that if you found out one of them bones decorated in that house was your junior!

But the biggest problem here (other than Heather's being the sexiest forty year old I'd seen!...what?) is that there's no clear line between who's the real bad guy here. It's as if Leatherface is being marketed here as an anti-hero; now, as much as I wanna side with Leatherface to kill these guys, I can't since they got a good reason to hate him; he's a murdering barn boy who's practically dangerous when he gets out of hand. But then again, I can't side with the rest of the cast either since they have no redeeming qualities. They're big douche bags or jerks; Douche Bags being Heather's cheating boyfriend and her so-called gal pal, and probably that thieving hitchhiker, and jerks being the vigilante towns people. Also, Jeb here was explained to be mentally retarded, so I can't really blame the boy if that's all he can do either. I'm close to siding with heather, but with hasty decisions like that, I'm a little frightened of her... (I mean, crunk! She's suddenly siding with the guy that killed her friends! And she doesn't even know they where cheating behind her so i don't see much of a reason for her to change sides like that!)

And yet, it's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The one movie franchise I can't get enough with (save that horrid Next Generation entry. ILLUMINATIS ARE NOT SCARY!), so I can't go all the way hate this. The silliness of the movie has it's charms and the gore made it worthwhile. And while many of its attempts to humanize and a hero out of Leatherface seems awkward and out of place in the franchise, I'm kinda open to that idea. Word is that they're gonna attempt to franchise this with another sequel following this, something I'm both excited and terrified about. (let's just pray of God, Buddha or whatever forces you believe in that leatherface won't go Toho Godzilla on us during the 70s. Godzilla was scary at the 50s but by the time the 60s came in...)

Not the best entry by a long shot, but it does beat TCM The Next generation to the twisted twist game. Let's applaud it for at least that, and for trying!

Bodycount:
5 males and 1 elderly male shot dead, burned
1 female kicked on the face, neck broken
1 male face bashed in with meat hammer
1 elderly female found rotting
1 male meat hook to the back, sliced in half with chainsaw
1 male crashes through windshield, throat cut
1 female shot on the head
1 male back repeatedly hacked with axe, face peeled
1 male pitchfork to the gut
1 male dismembered with chainsaw, shredded through meat shredder
1 male and 1 female presumably killed with chainsaw
total: 17

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