Year: 2013
Director: John Luessenhop
Stars: Alexandria Daddario, Tanya Raymonde, Scott Eastwood
Yeah… this is gonna be a tough sell. Texas Chainsaw 3D is an objectively poor film. Most purists of the series loathe it, and with justification. It takes wantonly obnoxious liberties with basic concepts, like time. It belongs to one of those curious, occasional periods in cinema history in which a 3D boom meant that a lot of popcorn pictures got distracted adding in shots to show off the gimmicky tech. It cleaves not to the principles of its series forbearers, but to the inclinations of the mainstream horror movies of its moment, i.e. being populated by obnoxious ‘teens’ played by 20-somethings with the physiques of models, displaying a paucity of intelligence. And it’s become one of my go-to comfort movies. Takeout pizza for the soul. Greasy, salty, bad for you but fuck it.
A deeply unserious ’70s-set prologue in which the original family is massacred by local rednecks is enough to court ire by itself, with its confusing Easter egg stunt casting of Gunnar Hansen (the original Leatherface) as, err, someone, and Chop-Top himself Bill Moseley taking on the (brief) role of Drayton Sawyer. The sequence ends with a secret child spirited away. 40 years later, that child is Alexandra Daddario’s 20-something gothic artist/meat counter gal Heather Miller, identifiable as a Sawyer from a necklace brand on her boob. Heather discovers she’s inherited a property in the depths of Texas and so adds a stop to a New Orleans-bound road trip with her gaggle of fellow 20-something pals.
Thus Heather, her boyfriend Ryan (Tremaine Neverson), and another couple Nikki (Tanya Raymonde) and Kenny (Keram Malicki-Sanchez) head out east in their van. Along the way they pick up hitchhiker himbo Daryl (Shaun Sipos) whom any right thinking individual wouldn’t trust alone with an empty wallet. Whaddaya know, this bunch leave him to prowl around Heather’s newly acquired and heirloom-ridden palatial estate. But there’s a secret hidden in the basement (spoiler; it’s Heather’s chainsaw-wielding cousin Jebediah ‘Leatherface’ Sawyer (Dan Yeager) who’s pretty spry for someone supposedly in their, what, sixties at least?).
From the casting of gorgeous young things to the bright and summery colour palette throughout, Texas Chainsaw 3D screams casual fun from every pore. The sweaty stickiness on these rippling bodies is as close to pure TCM as you’re gonna get, as in most respects it presents as almost the antithesis of the series’ signature stylings. Instead of a claustrophobic rundown farmhouse replete with animal carcasses or the grim brutalism of the remake we have a well-kept and well-lit plantation house. This movie’s token hitchhiker is an opportunistic (but ultimately harmless) dufus. And the series’ most relentless and contentious mainstay – a whole family of warped psychopaths – is notable for it’s absence. The movie may be littered with clumsy nostalgic nods to the legacy (hey, a dead armadillo!), but it either isn’t interested in or doesn’t understand what the franchise is ordinarily about.
And that’s a big part of why – for me at least – it works. Now, I love the original. It’s comfortably in my top 5 movies Of All Time. Hooper’s film is a masterpiece of visceral intensity and political metaphor. But Texas Chainsaw 3D has and serves a very different purpose; no purpose at all. It isn’t about anything. It is, in fact, pridefully airheaded. There are no delusions of grandeur. Even the digital cinematography is flatly without inspiration. The post 9/11 nihilistic meanness of the mid-’00s remake and prequel is abandoned in favour of the pure comfort of genre clichés, which it runs toward which such guileless gusto that it somehow gets away with blunt cover versions of the greatest hits. From shutting characters in coffins to the ol’ overturned vehicle routine. And by jettisoning the crazed family dynamic it frees itself from the need for the series’ more grating and protracted episodes of shrill domestic hysteria, favouring the more immediate, action-orientated thrills of a conventional slasher. Leatherface himself is the sum of what we have to worry about for much of the duration.
The movie even threatens us with a classic slasher stalking sequence when Heather flees from her hulking menace through a nearby fairground. Her chosen method of escape by hanging from a Ferris wheel is exceedingly stupid, and it is in the spirit of the movie’s relentless low ambitions that director John Luessenhop doesn’t make the most of this setting for some serious chainsawing carnage. But if Texas Chainsaw 3D doesn’t display a mote of initiative, it excels at cosy, cheesy genre simplicity and that has made it, for this viewer, endlessly rewatchable.
I adore – adore – the mid-film diversion in which police officer Marvin (James MacDonald) inspects the bloody crime scene at the plantation house, goaded on from the station over videocall by Thom Barry’s scenery-chewing Sheriff Hooper. It takes an indulgent amount of time to worm its way around the property – effectively an unnecessary mid-film recap – but it’s all in service of a darkly comic punchline that never fails to leave me howling, one that fits perfectly with the movie’s broader personality as a bonafide ditz. So much so that I’m briefly inclined to credit Luessenhop and the film’s creatives with a self-awareness that isn’t particularly evidenced otherwise.
Daddario handles the lead well, not that it asks a tremendous amount of her. She was, notoriously, game for more and somewhat famously would’ve done the scenes in which Heather is tied up topless, but for the hesitancy of her producers (infuriating a generation of horny horror geeks). Irrespective of whatever missed opportunities, she’s a spirited, charismatic presence, all watery eyes and fiery grit, making up for the general blandness exhibited by the likes of Neverson or Sipos.
The end of the film is as notoriously baffling as the beginning. Having spent a better part of the picture being terrorised by a looming menace who makes masks out of peoples faces, Heather suddenly and arbitrarily throws in with him. Because what’s more important than family? Attempts to seed this potential inclination toward violence and deranged loyalty in Heather are half-hearted at best, and while corrupt local officials like Mayor Burt Hartman (Paul Rae) and his cop son Carl (Scott Eastwood!) are irritant bullies, they’re at the very least hygienically preferable to her chainsaw wielding cousin. Or so you’d think.
This final nail in the coffin of good sense – which I’m sure is the final nail for many viewers – sort of makes the movie for me. My argument may be gossamer thin, but it’s such a flaunting of basic sense that it sort of unlocks everything that I love about Texas Chainsaw 3D. Being irritated at this thing just feels like a colossal waste of energy. It’s so stupid that I cannot imagine taking it seriously… so I don’t. And therein lies freedom. Freedom from the toxic preciousness that is modern-day interpretations of fandom. The audience isn’t owed anything. And so I embrace Texas Chainsaw 3D as perhaps the pinnacle of IP horror brainlessness, and allow it to function – exceedingly well – as an all-weather comfort flick. I may be laughing at it, but I am laughing. It brings me curious joy and it does so every time.
The most effective movies in this series make you want to hold your breath in horror or staggered surprise. This entry is about kicking back, letting loose, having a giggle and enjoying hoary genre tropes and baffling decisions without the distraction of anything as haughty as a purpose, message or agenda. That this proved a dead-end for the franchise’s supposed rebirth isn’t a surprise. I don’t lament that, particularly, though it’d have been nice to spend more time with Daddario. But I’ll still take this over the false starts that have followed it.
Even if there’s never another ‘great’ Texas Chain Saw Massacre film, at least those with the temperament have the silly ones. This one’s mine. Do your thing, cuz.
The Lost Highway Hotel 