Film Review : Netflix's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

 

When I review albums by artists, I expect more from them not accept less. That is why I like them they release albums of a higher standard.  As horror fans we should adopt a similar perspective rather than just accept whatever scraps from the table Hollywood will throw us. At the end of the day, we are the consumers. With properties that have a legacy like Texas Chainsaw Massacre there is a bar those films need to measure up to. Some of the earlier sequels have shown like the the second film this can be done with some b-grade camp and still make a great movie. Since then, varied levels of success have been achieved. I even liked the "Leatherface " prequel. This first wrong chord struck by Netflix's newest installment is it felt like a Blumhouse  movie to me. I hate Blumhouse as it feels like they are dumbing down their movies and trying to appease a teenage market with them. This also made it the first Texas Chainsaw movie I have fallen asleep during. 

That was not a dealbreaker. The deal breaker really lies in the poor writing. Most people are happy people get killed. Well, that is the bare minimum you should accept. When you can watch it want to be the more recent "Halloween" movies and still be entertained, then your opinion might not be subjective. Early on when the violence started there, we some inconsistencies that bugged me. He is strong enough to break a cop's arm and stab him with his bone, but the local fix it guy is going to be strong enough to hang with him for a round. Leatherface is crazy strong. The suspension of disbelief of this is maintained by making sure these lines up, across the board when displaying this strength that is why we are willing to believe the incredible feats. But the movie did not know what it wanted to do. Did it want you to cheer for the millennial stereotyped characters to be sawed in half? or were they hoping you would sympathize with them?   

In either case they were killed by the bus load. The kill scenes which have gotten the most positive feedback online, seemed to have little grasp of what would happen to flesh if it came in contact with human flesh. For one it would not just liquify a body into a fountain of blood. It would not be that pretty. There was some money invested in this film, enough to buy a town in Texas so it looks good until the violence occurs. The visual of Leatherface himself just seemed to be taking liberties for the sake of doing so, when his look is iconic. Netflix is out to appease the masses so should I be surprised they would want to model this after the more recent Halloween movies, complete with the victim out for vengeance motif ?   No, I am glad it did not have a happy ending and all those empowerment moments were cut back down to size. At the end of the day the joke was on the audience.    

Movie Review : "Leatherface"

It makes me happy that there is more worth writing about in horror over the course of the past month. This gives me hope that I might not be sitting here staring at a blank page when it comes to making an end of the year list. Reboots, and Prequels are normally not worth a shit. This movie however was fun, well-written and did not re-spin the same shit some of the other Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies have. We have even been done somewhat of an origin story before with the re-make. I think this movie falls in line with the established mythology of the character and doesn’t try to to give it any kind of a spin or shove some modern message down your throat. They gave just enough of the perverse twist this movie needed without trying to hard or playing it too Hollywood. It holds up to my no survivors rule when it comes to horror. Horror needs to be hopeless and the tension is waiting for the other shoe to drop. They fake you out in terms of who you think is going to become Leather Face until the film’s third act. The fake out is pretty heavy handed , but well done.

The gore is well done. Perhaps even more for gore hounds than not , as sometime in the original movie the violence was more implied where things get pretty graphic here. I think the ruthless nature of this film is what helps keeping this in perspective and helps with the story that they are trying to tell. While I like torture porn, I don’t feel this falls into that sub-genre, though it is firmly a slasher. The only obvious thing about the movie to me is that it feels a lot like “the Devil’s Rejects”. Granted those Rob Zombie movies were heavily influenced by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, it feels like those albums where Black Sabbath was trying to sound like Alice in Chains .Even to the point of having a bad ass demented female Anti- Hero like Baby.  This did not diminish my appreciation of the film.

The damsel in distress,who is the film’s by definition protagonist.Can be a mixed bag when you are sorting through how and when you want her to die. I think her fate could have held a little more impact in regards to the psychological journey of becoming Leatherface. I can always judge how effective the flow of a movie is based on how fast I get through it when watching it casually at home and I plowed through this in two sitting. I think some of the menace could have been increased in regards to what the protagonist endures and that she should have been broken down on more levels , but that is just my wishful thinking, the reality is I don’t have any major complaints with this movie and think it does what it set out to do very well.