Texas Chainsaw
- Fundamentals, reception.
- American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 91 minutes, horror, gorefest.
- IMDB: 4.8/10.0 from 25,243 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 10 million USD.
- Rotten Tomatoes: 19% on the meter; 42% liked it from 115,519 audience ratings.
- Netflix: 3.5/5.0 from 404,712 audience ratings.
- Directed by: John Luessenhop.
- Starring: Alexandra Daddario as Heather Miller, Dan Yeager as Leatherface, Trey Songz as Ryan, Scott Eastwood as Deputy Carl Hartman, Tania Raymonde as Nikki, Shaun Sipos as Darryl, Thom Barry as Sheriff Hooper, Keram Malicki-Sanchez as Kenny, Paul Rae as Mayor Burt Hartman, David Born as Gavin Miller, as Sue Rock as Arlene Miller.
- Setup and Plot
- The movie opens to the slaughter of the Sawyer family by a bunch of Texas locals and a couple of lawmen. A baby is taken from the place and adopted.
- We jump forward in time. Heather's grandmother has died, and she inherits an estate in Texas. This is when Heather finds she was adopted by new parents who moved away.
- Heather and friends drive to Texas and connect with the executor of the estate, who tells Heather to 'read the letter' from the deceased grandmother. He does not tell her that there is a huge serial killer locked up in her basement.
- Darryl, the drifter whom the group picked up along the way, says he'll help move in their stuff while they are getting food and supplies in town. He starts ripping them off, but finds Leatherface instead; end of Darryl. The group returns and discover the attempted thievery, but do not investigate enough to find the crime. While cooking, Kenny discovers the extra door Darryl found, and ends up with the same fate.
- Ryan, Heather, and Nikki attempt to escape in the van, but Leatherface catches them and kills Ryan. Heather runs to the local carnival; Nikki stays at the van with her deep leg wound. Carl challenges Leatherface, who throws his chainsaw at Carl, then runs off.
- Officer Marvin finds the overturned van, then follows the blood trail. The Sheriff recognises the giant chainsaw that Carl brought in from the carnival. Marvin pursues to the mansion, and gets encouragement from the mayor via radio to follow the blood trail in defiance of the Sheriff's orders to stand down.
- Meanwhile, Heather reads all the police documentation of the slaughter of the Sawyers. Not surprisingly, she seems to be deeply affected by it all, and connects to her Sawyer roots.
- How does this all play out? The mayor is out to kill the last of the Sawyers. Heather is not too happy with the entire town since they murdered her natural family. The Sheriff would like the violence to stop.
- Conclusions
- One line summary: Nicely shot but unnecessary sequel.
- Three stars of five.
- Scores
- Cinematography: 8/10 Varies from OK to quite good.
- Sound: 8/10 Actors were miked OK. The music was reasonably good for building suspense and the sense of imminent danger.
- Acting: 5/10 Thom Barry, Paul Rae, Scott Eastwood, and Richard Riehle were fine. David Born and Sue Rock were OK as the Millers. Alexandra Daddario, Trey Songz, Tania Raymonde, Shaun Sipos, and Keram Malicki-Sanchez were just plain terrible.
- Screenplay: 2/10 The chronology does not make a whole lot of sense: Heather would be right around 40 years old, not a bit over 20. Nobody except perhaps the sheriff seemed to have aged in almost 40 years. The Sheriff's response to the endgame seemed hard to believe. Heather's profound switch was unbelievable as well. Leatherface had just murdered her lover and her close friends, after all. The worst part for me was the opening sequence. The Sawyer family from the 1974 film was irredeemably bad; that was essential to the pungency and originality of the first film. The family members portrayed at the beginning of this film was made out to be the innocent victims, decent people who should be left alone. No thanks. The clip after the closing credits was more true to form. That is where the plus two comes from.
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