Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is one of the weirdest, unexpected sequels since Halloween 3. The film opens with a quick flashback and picks up exactly where the last one leaves off. The police, along with some vigilantes torch the Sawyer house with the murdering cannibals inside. A little girl is saved and raised by one of the vigilantes. Now that she is grown, (Alexandra Daddario) Heather discovers she is adopted and the sole heir to the Sawyer plantation in Texas.She travels there with 3 college mates and picks up a person along the way, because the unwritten code of a Texas Chainsaw movie is the hitchhiker/rider. As it turns out, she is not the only heir left and you come to sympathize with the cannibal with a chainsaw.The film has its share of severed bodies, blood, and gore. The 3D action is climaxed with a chainsaw tossed at the camera. Remember this is a sequel. Keep the expectations low.Parental Guide: F-bombs. Implied sex. No nudity. Tania Raymonde bra/panties. Alexandra Daddario open shirt cleavage...and how did her shirt become buttoned shut once it was ripped open?

Texas Chainsaw is a very pointless film, and wields a chainsaw that clearly has no real teeth. The 3D gimmick quickly becomes tiresome as there are only so many random objects that can be pointlessly pointed at the screen (and when you watch it on TV, it is all null and void anyway), but the plot simply is not there and doesn't really add up (a murderous gang in a rambling house having a millionaire benefactor? A funfair crowd that pretty much ignores a chainsaw-swinging maniac in hot pursuit of a defenceless young woman?). Also, the main narrative premise makes no real sense in terms of the side we, the good viewers, are supposed to take. OK, there is some unlawful vigilante antics at the outset that sees off the Chainsaw clan, but are we really supposed to be that moved? This is a family that ruthlessly kills all who fall into their clutches, an ethos carried on by the surviving Leatherface (shacked up in palatial splendour, to boot), so the sense of moral outrage expressed by Heather (and the Sheriff) is really weird. Oh dear, the nascent Mayor eliminated a group of murderous cannibals in his youth, how awful! I sure hope that justice is served and that Heather and her human face-wearing Charge live happily ever after (with Heather effortlessly overlooking how 'Cuz' brutally butchered her boyfriend and best friend, but family is family, I guess). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a triumph of '70s nihilistic horror, but this slick, CGI-filled, 3D-charged farrago just needed to be hung on a meat hook. Très bad.

If you just to see rampage serial killer killing people without shitty plot, give it a try. Nothing made sense in this story. The film suddenly tries to portray a sick psychopath serial into some kind of an anti-hero is just plain stupid with that kinda background story. I guess I should pretend to be a 3yr old watching this. There's nothing to feel compassionate for the killer. What's the deal with a seemingly normal girl by parents (doesn't seemingly abusive towards her) and whose friends got mercilessly slaughtered suddenly feels compassionate for the killer simply because they are somewhat related? And a supposedly righteous cop who actually allow this to happen and let the killer go? This story must be based on an alternative universe where nothing made sense.Absolute rubbish.The plot is so shallow, it is like its written by a 5 years old. Watch it only if you extremely bored, the only reason I give it a 2 instead of 1.

Even on second viewing three and a half years later, the above line is still one of the most cringe-worthy I have ever heard.I rated 'Texas Chainsaw' 2/10 back in January 2013 and I stand by my rating after watching it a second time. Even though it looks good, has a creepy atmosphere (at least in and around grandma's house) and some nice splatter scenes to offer plus a beautiful lead actress (Alexandra Daddario) going for it, this movie is an absolute mess.First off, a real problem with 'Texas Chainsaw' is the fact that it takes place in the present but still is supposed to be a direct sequel to the original 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (1974). We know that the events in the first movie took place in 1973 and Heather was a little baby at that time. 'Texas Chainsaw' supposedly takes place in October of 2012 (grandma's day of death is September 29, 2012 according to her tombstone). That would make Heather 39 but she looks to be in her early twenties at the most. We see a number of townspeople and the sheriff in the scenes that take place in 1973 and they don't look much older later on in the present-day scenes, let alone 40 years older.So when you watch the movie and do the math, you probably come to the conclusion that the movie must be taking place in 1993 or something. Heather's boyfriend drives an old Volkswagen bus and there are no cellphones or computers to be seen. The early '90s scenario seems plausible for about half of the movie until one of the sheriff's guys pulls out an iPhone and live streams his search of grandma's house. Now the timeline is completely ruined and the people who made 'Texas Chainsaw' knew it.When you closely observe the movie, you will notice a few times when we see the date "August 19" but the year "1973" is not shown on purpose. One time we see the date on an old newspaper but the year is smudged out. Another time we see it on a tombstone but the year is obscured by grass. Very curious indeed. There is however one time where the complete date "08/18/1973" can be seen on a police report. That was probably overlooked. All this is distracting and it makes you wonder but I wouldn't consider it a major flaw if the movie was otherwise good. Nevertheless, it would have been a much better idea to have the movie take place in the early '90s to not mess up the continuity.Another problem with 'Texas Chainsaw' are Heather's friends, who must be some of the most generic supporting characters ever. That's probably why they are killed off early on. The evil town people are not much better. The acting is mediocre at best but that is a relatively minor issue compared to the horrendous script with its thin and ludicrous plot.It's incredible how anyone would approve a script that constitutes Leatherface's murderous family as victims of the bad townspeople. It is completely ridiculous that Leatherface, a notorious mindless murder machine, in this installment of the series is depicted as a poor backward guy who is just out for a little revenge on the people who did him and his family wrong years ago. Sure, he kills mostly just innocent people on his way to revenge, but he doesn't know any better, right? Insanity! Leatherface always was a cold-blooded killer, nothing else. He didn't have an agenda in the previous movies. He just killed. Period.'Texas Chainsaw' tries to depict Leatherface as a kind of victim and fails badly at it. The fact that Heather bonds with cousin Leatherface the way it is shown here after he just chopped up all of her friends doesn't make sense at all. She actually begs the sheriff not to shoot poor Leatherface and what's even more unbelievable is that he complies. Yes, the sheriff indeed lets Leatherface go after he rampaged at the town fair, brutally murdered a couple of innocent people and gruesomely cut up one of the sheriff's own men.Not enough lunacy? The sheriff just tells Heather and Leatherface to clean up the mess and walks away from the crime scene. What gives?! Nobody in their right mind would act like Heather and the sheriff do here. I tell you, nobody. Such a behavior is far from believable and almost an insult to anyone's intelligence. Maybe a plot as ridiculous as this would work if it was done as a horror comedy, but 'Texas Chainsaw' is dead serious and that makes it all the more bizarre.The only scene that is really good is a very short one that comes after the closing credits: Heather's foster parents ring at her door talking about how much they love her now that she has money and then Leatherface comes out of the house swinging his chainsaw. Sure, it's a pretty stupid idea that Heather would actually let Leatherface kill off the people that raised her for many years even after finding out what they did, but the tongue-in-cheek way it is done in this short scene makes it really funny. Sadly, there is nothing of this funniness in the actual movie. I reckon the movie could have been much better if it was done in that over-the-top style similar to 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2' (1986).'Texas Chainsaw' needs the audience to take a plot seriously that just can't be taken seriously and that is the big problem. It doesn't work. I'm sure most people have a facepalm-feeling at the end of the movie. I certainly would be surprised if you don't cringe when you hear "Do your thing, cuz!"