Texas Chainsaw
Starring Alexandra Daddairo, Trey Songz, Tania Raymonde, Keram Malicki-Sanchez
Directed by John Luessenhop
Taking place immediately following the events from the original film, a gang of locals converge on the home of the Sawyers after Sally (Marilyn Burns) escapes the family from hell, featuring their mentally challenged son who wears peoples' faces for masks and brandishes a chainsaw. The police try to stop the vigilantes, but they succeed in killing the entire family and burning the house down. The only survivor (that they know of) is a baby girl, who is taken in by a couple who is a part of the mob.
Years later, Heather Miller (Alexandra Daddario) receives a letter saying her grandmother had died, but she had never met nor knew of her. She travels with her boyfriend Ryan (Trey Songz), her best friend Nikki (Tania Raymonde), and Nikki's new boyfriend Kenny (Keram Malicki-Sanchez) to Texas to find out who she really belongs to, and along they way they pick up hitchhiker Darryl (Shaun Sipos).
Upon arriving at the small town, she discovers that her real last name is Sawyer, which ignites anger in the town, especially with mayor Burt Hartman (Paul Rae), one of the members of the mob that set fire to the Sawyer house years earlier.
But for now Mayor Hartman is the least of Heather's worries, as inheriting her grandmother's palatial mansion comes with a deadly price. She wasn't the only Sawyer to survive the fire, and in the basement of the mansion her cousin Jed (aka Leatherface) lives, and goes on a new rampage against Heather and her friends.
Escaping to the town, Heather learns the fullness of her family legacy, and the horrors that befell them, and she has to come to a decision: is blood really thicker than water?
The first "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was an iconic masterpiece of horror cinema, and, like most films that start out good, end up being tarnished by years of sub-par sequels. I feel that "TCM" has a worse track record with sequels over "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street" because they clearly forget the continuity. Some sequels finds Leatherface with his original family (who should've been dead according to this film), and others finds him with different people who take him in as family, and so on. The only decent sequel was the remake starring Jessica Biel, and definitely not the monstrosity that was "Texas Chainsaw."
Director John Luessenhop seemed to not understand what type of film he was making. The first part of the film was a typical slash-by-the-numbers film, and then it turns into a muddy, foggy existential piece of film where you identify more with Leatherface and root for him to win instead of thinking of his victims. Leatherface is made to be a horror anti-hero, and it doesn't work well with the film, especially where Heather is concerned.
There is also several sub-plots of the film that never come to fruition. The hitchhiker had absolutely nothing to do with the storyline, it didn't advance the narrative and he was a huge throw-away character. Heather's best friend Nikki and her boyfriend Ryan were having an affair, and it's something Heather never finds out. It just seemed pointless to include that in the storyline.
Speaking of Heather, she is the worst heroine ever. She fell so many times. Seriously, she was running out of the mansion and tripped down the steps, then she ran to the cemetery and tripped over the gate. Later on she runs right in front of a car. She is the most ungraceful girl I've ever seen in horror films. Sure, the girl is supposed to trip every now and then, but she seriously seemed to have a one-way ticket with the ground. Unfortunately, that's a metaphor for this whole film - it fell flat on its face.
Rating: C+
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