Texas 3D - Please don't make me watch this ever again

Maire says:
I think the point of this movie is to destroy the franchise. It could have been good, but they did their best to make it horrible. Seriously, every character is so loathsome, that by the time they start dying, you wish it would have started sooner. And even then you’re left unfulfilled and curing those “damn kids these days”.

I won’t even talk about the 3D parts. Can we please leave this horrible idea back in the Captain EO exhibit, where it belongs?

If you’ve seen this movie, you have my sympathy, and I really hope it wasn't your introduction to the franchise.  Truly worthy of a shitpickle rating.

Corey says:
Hey! Bill Moseley plays Drayton Sawyer!  Cool!

Salty says:
Texas Chainsaw 3-D (which we watched in 2-D and still managed to understand it) starts off expecting its viewers to not have seen the original 1974 film. It wants you to know that there is some old film called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it wants you only to know that that old movie happened and there is a guy called Leatherface in it. That’s it. If you know anything else about the original movie, you will be alienated via continuity errors and character discrepancies. By the way, do you like rap in your horror movies? Okay, well it’s in there anyway. Seriously.

After a highlight reel from the original film we pick up exactly where the original left off. How exactly? The Black Maria is still parked outside the Sawyer house, that’s how exactly. Although apparently the Sawyer family has managed to asexually reproduce, because now there are like a dozen members (including Bill Moseley doing a creditable Drayton Sawyer, and Gunnar Hansen doing an even more creditable douchebag pseudo-intellectual cashing in on the lone highlight of his lackluster career - you suck, sir). A posse of vigilantes shows up and after a wild-west shootout Leatherface escapes to his aunt’s house down the road and one of the Sawyer family’s newly spawned babies is kidnapped. Seriously.

Cut to x years later (mysterious), the baby is grown up (with the Sawyer family crest burned onto her chest somehow) and she gets a letter that tells her that she has inherited the Sawyer estate, even though she was kidnapped and no one knows it blah, blah, blah she and her boyfriend and 2 other people go to check out the inheritance and pick up a shifty hitchhiker on the way who, in a surprising twist, tries to rob them blah, blah, blah Leatherface, now named Jebediah instead of Bubba or Tommy, is at the house and starts killing people blah, blah, blah her best friend and boyfriend are having an affair, though it works out fine, because they both get killed before anyone finds out blah, blah, blah she’s the only one left alive. Seriously.

Our protagonist escapes Leatherface only to fall into the hands of the police, who turn out to be at the whims of a corrupt former vigilante mayor! The mayor, having found out that this girl is a Sawyer, decides to have her killed. So he has her tied up in a factory and Leatherface shows up to kill everyone, but he finds out that this girl is his relative and they team up to kill those that would do them wrong. Now Leatherface and the girl are tentatively friends and they go back home to learn how to live with one another. So, it’s like a happy ending.


Seriously.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆	☆

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre : Bringing 1973 to 1973 in 2003

Maire says:
Disclaimer: I was at an advantage watching this one since we watched The Beginning beforehand. Thank you Corey and Salty. :)

As remakes go, I’m really alright with this one. Ok, we all know the story, so what can they do better. Well, the hitchhiker is a bit more crazy, so that was nice. The cop angle added a nice pickle as well. The gore is a bit more, but definitely within appropriate limits. I cringed. Ok, so there’s a baby, and I guess it being ok leaves you with a warm fuzzy? Yeah, I wouldn’t have put it in there either.

If you want a solid chainsaw massacre flick with an updated cast, please give this one a watch. It’s Maire approved.


Corey says:
For me the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot was one of the first films to kick off the remake revolution. Since it was released countless films have been redone, from other classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween to cult darlings The Hills Have Eyes and Last House on the Left. (Disclaimer: Some of these remakes are good, and some are fucking garbage. Watch at your own discretion.) The 2000’s were the decade of remakes of films that I gave at least half a shit about. I guess everything old is new again at some point.

One of the more interesting decisions made for the reboot is that the powers that be decided to make the film true to the period of the original. While we can take this as a nod to the original, it really doesn’t serve that much of a purpose or stand out during the film. Most likely, we are tooling around in the 70’s because there’s no cell phones, and just not having them is much better than “oh. no. I don’t have service.” for the thousandth goddamn time.

Unfortunately, the family doesn’t take center stage nearly enough this time around for my taste. It’s almost all Leatherface all the time. Don’t get me wrong, the family does an alright job of trying to be the Sawyers (even though their names have been changed. Why? Fuck you, that’s why), but they aren’t as much of a focal point as they have been in previous outings. R. Lee Ermey is the shit, and plays the patriarch very well. He’s no Drayton, but he does ok. This time, there’s all SORTS of ladies helping out (I’ve never heard so much about tea in a film that wasn’t about tea in my goddamn life), and they brought another fucking kid into the mix. At least that goofy-toothed monosyllabic miscreant knew better than to get in the way too much. Fucking kids.

The reason that this film succeeds as a remake is because the people who made it knew who their audience was. In the olden days, horror films were drive-in fodder. You took a date and watched some schlock in the hopes that you’d get to see some tits (either on the screen or in your car). Throughout the years, though, these movies built a following. Gorehounds started watching the films because they liked them. Texas the remake isn’t about throwing a bunch of teens into a modern day situation with a tired old theme (I’m looking at you, Prom Night remake) in hopes to get one of the larger moviegoing demographics to see it. It’s made for the fans who watch the film for the film's sake.


Salty says:
The good horror movies are the ones that put you in an extreme situation and ask you to figure out how to handle it while the characters do the same – the better ones tend to let their character make more agreeable decisions. This remake of Texas does a great job of coming up with the situations and having its characters react well without letting thing work out nicely. In order to keep the surprises coming, the family is expanded into a town of sadists hell-bent on cannibalism.

In what I would like to think of as a tribute to our friend Franklin (remember those raspberries?) we are given a wheelchair-bound antagonist, a likably evil sheriff, and an assortment of scrawny and morbidly obese co-conspirators (oddly enough this amalgamation of the family most resembles the family presented in part 3) that work to keep the thrills a-comin’ with a lot of what-would-you-do scenes. And then there is a very respectable, very scary version of Leatherface. You really get the impression that this individual would be terrifying to be in a room with. Add a chainsaw to the mix, and all I would think to do is wet my pants, and hope that he fears urine.

Okay, I really dislike that they changed Leatherface’s name to Tommy or something, but otherwise minimal complaints.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆

Well, look at that rating above there.  Hrm.  It looks like we've all finally agreed that a film deserves three stars.  Huh.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: Electric Boogaloo

Maire says:
Ok, so the original film was pretty intense, wasn’t it? Obviously the best way to follow that up is with slapstick! Don’t get me wrong, this is still a gore flick. Enough so that, on first viewing, you may not realize it’s meant to be funny, which will leave you feeling more horrified than its predecessor.

There’s a lot that can be said about this film. First, Dennis Hopper is in it. Maybe this isn’t surprising to you, but it was to me. Granted, I only really knew of him from his name and those Ameriprise Financial commercials, but his was not a name I equated with slasher movies.

Second, Bill Moseley. I’m sure Corey and Salty will have plenty to say about Bill and his character Chop-Top, so I will leave it to their masterful words.

Third, the Older Brother (he's not the Dad) character. If there is a stereotypical doggoneit dagnabit character portrayed better than Jim Siedow’s, well, I owe you $5.

Fourth through twenty-seventh, well, just watch it. You’ll enjoy it. Though, to fully appreciate Texas 2, you need to watch it with Salty. There may be no other person who can glean so much joy from this film as he does.

Corey says:

If Texas the first is a grandaddy of horror and terror, then 2 is the goofy uncle that’ll sneak you a beer when no one is looking while telling you stories of how he used to light bottle rockets out of his butt. 
The films are fundamentally different in approach, yet the quality of execution is just as high.  The maddening tension and fear of Texas are replaced by larger than life characters, each with their own amazing personality (and hilarious quirks).  That’s not to say that 2 isn’t a horror film, mind you.  It’s just one of those few films that rides that narrow gap between horror comedy and horror absurdity.
One of the things that Salty pointed out to me on this viewing that I hadn’t previously noticed is the set design.  If you look at the weird cave lair thing that the Sawyer folken are holed up in this time around, you notice how much time and care went into designing a place that a crazy family would hang out while winning multiple chili cook offs.  There’s the bones of old victims, coupled with that crazy network of cobwebby tunnels and pipes.  The whole place looks... well... lived in.
Speaking of chili cook offs, I love how Drayton comes off as a greedy capitalist in this film.  When he’s not yelling at his idiot family for doing some idiot thing, he’s scheming and trying to weasel his way into generating more money from his family business.  And who’s to say he’s not good at it?  After all, he’s won multiple chili contests, and that sort of thing will catapult you into financial stardom in a place like Texas.
On a final note, Texas 2 isn’t my favorite in the series.  But it sure as hell is the one I quote the most.

Salty says:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is the best movie ever made.

We start out on a cross-state road trip with two rowdy yuppies raising hell on the way to a college football game in – you guessed it – Texas. The young punks manage to piss off the wrong awooga-horn-blowing, confederate-flag-yielding truck (in Texas?! you exclaim. Yes. There are Confederate flags in Texas) with a game chicken, and a few hours later, in the midst of a prank phone call to our favorite Bedazzled DJ, Stretch, the kids are pursued by the truck which now has a chainsaw-wielding corpse riding in the bed. That’s right! The partially mummified corpse of a Vietnam veteran begins to attack the college kids car with a chainsaw from the bed of the truck, which is going upwards of 60 mph (in reverse). Next thing you know the driver’s head has been cut in half and it’s all been caught on tape by Stretch, who is persuaded into honking the recording out on her radio show to try get into serious journalism.

This is just the beginning of the film ladies and gentlemen, just the start of this masterwork. The rest of the movie is filled with fry-houses, aching bananas, crazy armadillo hats, Sonny Bono wigs, plot-driving trap doors, handicapped skeletons, fake brick walls full of discarded viscera, Christmas lights, food trucks, and Mr. Shark. Ever wonder how many times you would have to strike a stranger’s face with a hammer before it stopped being horrifying and started being funny? What does it look like when Death eats a cracker? Would a Vietnam-themed amusement park attract tourists? What would you do if you woke up to find a dear friend was wearing your recently cut-off face? Some questions will be answered, others merely posed - this is a bizarre and wonderful film that totally redefines what it means to be a Part 2.

The film, as a sequel, brilliantly revisits ideas conceived by the original, while simultaneously providing more depth. As it turns out the crazy hitchhiker from Part 1 (who was run over by the Black Maria) has an even crazier identical twin brother who got a metal plate in his head after getting wounded in Vietnam during the events of the first film (you know the plate is there because he has picked away and eaten the burnt scabby skin around it with a wire hanger that he sanitizes with a lighter). The identical twin, Chop Top and the corpse from the truck, Nubbins, expand the family without giving the feeling that new characters are just thrown in, and it’s great to spend more time with the surviving Sawyer brothers: Drayton is more pissed at the world than ever (but I think that that’s due to his hems); Bubba is starting to wonder about the joys of S-C-E-X, and, don’t worry, grandpa is still the best. Dennis Hopper has been added as Lefty, the renegade uncle of the wheelchair-bound raspberry-blower Franklin from the original film. In my opinion Dennis Hopper can do no wrong and this is his defining performance.

So the Part 2 aspect of the film is used expertly, but you may be concerned about the rest of the key elements – as would any fan of Patton Oswalt. The Massacre is admittedly minimal due to budget cuts (only 2 on-screen deaths), but fear not, there is plenty of Chainsaw. How much chainsaw? In addition to the aforementioned partial decapitation, and the live skinning of a chronic spitter, we get a chainsaw swordfight (I admit that this has already been done in Motel Hell), and plenty of phallic allusions. But it’s not just the bad guys that have access to the saws: Dennis Hopper comes right back at the family of chainsaw killers with not one, not two, but three chainsaws. Three chainsaws!? Yes, three chainsaws! You may be wondering how he manages to lug three chainsaws around. Two words: Chainsaw holsters. Oh yes! It’s a chainsaw extravaganza all up in this motherfucker – they even throw in an electric knife, just to cover the bases.

So we get a little Massacre and a lot of Chainsaw, which leaves the Texas. There is more Texas than a pair of rattlesnake cowboy boots, darlin’! The Texas is the best part of the movie. No character could abide any other part of the Union. From old hymns to “Remember the Alamo”, the dialogue reeks of Texas in the best possible way. What better place for a family of cannibals to win awards for their excellent chili? (The secret is in the meat.)

Thanks to Stretch, the movie has a great soundtrack (though no inavitadegotta, baby), and there is an excellent all-synthesizer score that always makes me think of some weird, jazzed up organ. What else can I praise? How about the set design? Brilliant! The home of the chainsaw killers is a delight to behold in real time or frame-by-frame to take in the subtler touches. Casting? I could think of none better. The costumes? Perfect! Do I like every aspect of the movie? Yep. Even the ending? Yeah, I even like the ending. Brazos.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆