Part of Critical-Film's 2009 September Screams

-The Texas Chain Saw Massacre review
-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 review

Less a continuation of the second film, and more of a re-imagining of the original. In place of the original Sawyer clan is a new family, yet one that is far less frightening. In addition to changing out the entire cast of villains, with the exception of Leatherface (referred to this time around as 'Junior'), the setting has been moved to an isolated house in the middle of the woods. Some of the changes work... some don't.

The best way to approach Leatherface is to disassociate it from the rest of the films in the series, as the only thing that really ties this film to the other two is the titular character. Realistically, this film could have been made under any title, Texas Chainsaw or otherwise, however the inclusion of Leatherface suggests that he was included simply to capitalize on the growing fan-base of the first two films.

That's not to say there are no similarities, because there most certainly are. The film is about a family of outback cannibals who terrorize our heroine; human remains are scattered throughout the house; torture devices are used to dispatch their victims; and obviously, the inclusion of Leatherface. All these things would suggest the film to be a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, yet so little effort was put into actually tying this film to the prior two. We have a whole new family of cannibals... who are they? One can only speculate. There are a few small details that seem to tie into the other films, such as the inclusion of a twisted gas station owner who takes a Polaroid of our heroine (This time played by Kate Hodge), and attempts to charge her for it, very much like 'The Hitchhiker' in the original film. Yet, we know 'The Hitchhiker' was run over by a truck, so who is this impostor? Don't know...

Unfortunately, nothing is explained, we're just supposed to go along with it. So, we do... and honestly, the ride's not half bad. The new family is actually somewhat likeable. Led by a young Viggo Mortensen, they seem almost like a real family. They interact with each other in somewhat enjoyable ways, lift each other's spirits and provide sympathetic emotional reinforcement; then somebody strings a corpse up by a meathook and we remember where we are.

There is one unfortunate addition to the family however, a young girl with a little skeleton doll. Yes, it's kind of creepy to see such a young (11 at the time) girl doing such depraved things, such as cheering on an attempted axe murder. It's revealed that this girl is actually Leatherface's daughter; now let's try to make sense of that, shall we? In order for Leatherface to have a daughter, he would have had to rape one of his potential victims, keep her alive for 9 months, without providing so much unwelcome stress as to harm the child or cause a miscarriage. I don't think that's possible. Second of all, she's 11. Where was she during the events of the second film? Also, Leatherface's reaction to Caroline William's character in the second film would suggest that, while he most certainly has sexual tendencies, I don't think he'd know what to do with a woman.

Gosh, there are so many little plot questions I have...

Anyway, I don't want to give the impression that the film is bad. It's not, it's actually quite good. Director Jeff Burr provides a great atmosphere, including a great suspense-inducing gimmick which was added to the character of Leatherface; the cast, headed by the always-great Ken Foree is quite good, with Ms. Hodge putting forth a good effort as the heroine in distress; there's even a few good laughs to be had. There's just far too little attention paid to developing the story from the groundwork set by the first two films to justify calling this a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film.