Warning: Blood splattered spoilers - in 2D!
This latest Texas Chainsaw
adaptation/sequel/reboot in a long line of adaptations/sequels/reboots is
horrific, but not in the way you'd expect. It's so shockingly empty and
uneventful, so dull and so bland, so predictable and remorselessly unaffected
by any sort of desire to put out something new or in any way imaginative or -
and here's the ultimate flaw - scary. Basically, it's a brainless excuse to
shower a 3D-goggle wearing audience with masses of blood and gore that's so
unrealistic it's laughable, so why the hell John Lussenhop felt the need to put
so much of it in is unfathomable.
We all learn by the time we're 18 that gore
is only scary when it is squirm-worthily real, so gobsmackingly realistic it
makes you shudder inside and out. That's the kind of gore that leaves you
feeling as if you've just had your brain raped, wishing you had the ability to
'unsee' things. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D wags a chainsaw in our faces for
some 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' and then proceeds to chop people in half or stab them,
or smash them up - whatever really, so long as blood can propel its way out of
the screen. The problem is that our nearly-100%-of-the-time-almost-nude main cast just
scream and run and scream and run a bit more before, oops, tripping up
because they need to be killed now, or experience a narrow escape. Paint by
numbers with no genuine feelings of fear or terror from anyone at any given
moment from start to finish, which is a remarkable achievement when you're
being chased by a complete nutcase wearing someone else's face and wielding a
chainsaw.
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| 'Looking for new lodger. Must be mature professional or psychotic chainsaw fanatic. All bills included.' |
The decisions made are ridiculous, by both the psychopath, Leatherface,
and his victims. At one point he chases the leading lady into a fairground -
which is hilarious! He could easily have been tackled or arrested or caught a
million different ways, whereas she had plenty of options for a method of
escape. Instead, she clambers up onto a ferris wheel which, as we're
all perfectly aware due to its circular nature, goes up and round and then back
down again. So she's screaming and he's just standing there waiting to kill
her. It's awkwardly shitty movie making. How any director can sit in his chair
and watch this bollocks being put together without scratching his head and
wondering whether or not it's entertaining or believable enough to actually be
shown in cinemas boggles the mind! It's perhaps even more worrying if that
scene, let alone the entire movie, turned out exactly the way he fancied.
Really, this new Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes across as one of those horror
films that's made by a director who is secretly harboring a massive hatred for
horror movies. Shame on you John Lussenhop - YOU are the killer! You killed
this movie and that is the reason why, in an absurd turn of events here for
this review, this is a brilliant horror flick.
In a way, yes, take your popcorn and giggle and
laugh and point and joke about how everybody is so pathetically brain dead
because we love to hate a shitty movie. It's one of those 'so bad it's actually
enjoyable for all the wrong reasons' sort of films. Films like this, however,
should really come with a 'please don't take it seriously sticker' - a warning,
so that we don't get angry before giving in and accepting it for what it is -
dreadful. Then again, perhaps it isn't meant to be a big joke, perhaps we're
meant to take it as seriously as Downton Abbey, but for most of us that simply doesn't
register correctly. The only way to survive until the end credits is to assume the
director is taking the piss and wants us to enjoy hating his characters, his
movie - him! It's the only way.
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| Who would you rather have split you in half? Leatherface or Trey Songz...? |
And that's fine. We're all perfectly capable of
accepting a really terrible horror film because of the strange part of our
brains that's fascinated by which horrendously awful decisions the characters
will make next, or which one will strip off next. But then comes the ending -
which is unnacceptable and makes no logical sense whatsoever. Heather Miller
had some sort of life before she became wrapped up in the events that are 'Texas
Chainsaw Massacre 3D', but she decides to stick around and shack up in her new
found house of hell because Leatherface turns out to be her cousin. She
forgets, instantly, that he wears a dead person's face, that he put her through
a fuck load of physical and mental torture and that he killed all of her
friends in cold blood, even her boyfriend. There is zero resolution for
everyone involved. The cops presumably don't give a monkey's any more for some
reason and will not investigate why so many people died. The random sexy cop
vanished and served no overall purpose. Heather never found out that Trey Songz
was cheating on her and, in actual fact, that entire storyline was pointless.
The least it could have done is served up a sexy Trey Songz's butt-filled sex scene,
but no luck!
All in all, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D is an
unplanned mess. Something that was made up as they went along. John Lussenhop
clearly had no vision and just wanted to cut people up. If making shitty movies
is the only thing that keeps him from doing it in real life, when's the inevitable sequel on the way?
★☆☆☆☆
Roo