Texas Franchise Review

That’s it from Texas for now. Put away you bible and your belt buckle and stop doing that to your sister, we are moving on. But it’s been good times, right? Cannibalism and torture, wearing human skin and eating dinner with your kidnap victim - it has been good times. We may be more confused than ever about how many relatives Leatherface has, but at least we can recommend which movies you should watch:

Franchise Ranking

Texas '04
Texas 2	☆☆☆☆
Texas '74	☆☆☆
Texas 3	☆
Texas the Beginning	☆
Texas Next Gen	φ
Texas 3D

Next up: The Omen.

Yeah, there are five of those.

*Salty can’t fucking believe that Texas 2 is not number one and is at a loss for words… other than these: Texas 2 is an amazing blend of a certain culture in a certain time period and seamlessly blends horror and comedy that is as black as a woodchuck’s asshole on a moonless night in a concoction fit for the most discerning connoisseur of horror. It is a travesty that a faithful representation of the films greatness is not presented here, but I have faith that you, anonymous reader will settle any question by going out and judging for yourself… or you could save yourself the trouble and take my word for it: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is the motherfucking shit.

**Okay, lets just agree that this list didn’t come out the way that anybody wanted.

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: The Beginning, the Most Original Subtitle Yet

Maire says:
Settle on down kiddies, it’s backstory time!

Would you believe that our boy Thomas Leatherface was born in a slaughter house? I know, right?! It’s ok though, cos the lady down the street takes him in and raises him as her son.

Along the line, Leatherface gets a lil’ brother, who is very protective of his older brother. After an unfortunate event surrounding the closing of the local slaughterhouse, lil’ brother comes to his brother’s aid by way of killing and then assuming the identity of a policeman. This leads to all sorts of opportunities throughout the film. (and also helped me to understand a lot in the remake by watching this one first.)

And here comes the irony for us viewers. Cue the usual TCM story line of kids being bad kids, and imagine our surprise when the local “policeman” comes to their aid.

Now since this one is called The Beginning, you’d expect there to be some mix-ups and missteps along the killing lines, but nope, these are all pretty polished, and for once, everybody dies.

Corey says:
When I first heard that they were making a prequel to Texas: The Re-Texasening, I felt shades of the Exorcist prequel abortion extravaganza grip my bowels.  I had liked the Re-Texasening! It had ups and downs, but overall, it did really well.   I really didn’t want the venerable franchise to be shitpickle-ized by sequel fever.

Turns out that my fears were unfounded.  Texas: The Bit Before Texas: The Re-Texasening retains the same atmosphere and gritty realism that made the reboot work so well.  All of our well cast family members are still here, and some of them still have legs!  Speaking of legs, the best part of The Beginning is that it is an origin story for the whole family, not just Bubba (fuck whatever they try to call him in the reboot, that big retarded oaf is Bubba, and will always be Bubba).

This origin story mythos is the major reason we watched this film before watching the reboot.  Maire had never seen either, and we thought it would be interesting to see what she thought of the cast of characters before they had become the cast of characters that we already knew.  I mean, I knew that dude wasn’t gonna have legs by the end of the film, but Maire had no idea!  I knew that R. Lee Ermey was gonna kill that cop and take his shit, but Maire didn’t have a clue.  It was fun to do the “I totally know what’s coming so I’m gonna look at someone who hasn’t seen either of these films” game with some of the more developmental points that make their way (can they make their way if the 2nd film chronologically was released first?) into The Beginning.

Other than seeing how our friends came to be, the film follows the typical Texas tropes, with some kids stumbling on the newly cannibal-friendly family, and dying/being chased in torture-y manner.  Other than a grueling scene with R. Lee Ermey and some kid who has to do pushups ‘cuz of Viet-fuckin’-nam, most of the deathy stuff just kind of feels rote.

Salty says:

Now I've never smoked meth, but I am pretty sure that watching horror movies is kind of like smoking meth. My understanding is that the first time you take meth is the best time, the most meth-y (I really don’t even know what the effect of meth is, but based on observation I assume that it makes rotting teeth feel really good in your mouth) and every time you do it after that you are just trying to relive that first time. So it is with horror: the first time you watch a movie is usually the best time and the many many many repeated viewings are attempts to relive that first time (perhaps watching it in the first place is just an attempt to relive the first horror movie you watched… that’s deep), though, to be fair, if the movie has any chutzpah (put some phlegm in it when you’re sounding it out in your head) it will be designed for additional viewings.

My point is that the first viewing is special in that it is a unique experience. Every film has its own vibe, its own surprises. I think that one of the reasons that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning doesn't do it for me is that even the first viewing is without surprise. Yeah, you don’t know exactly when things are going to happen, but right off you do know that certain things are going to happen, that certain people are going to end up maimed in a certain way and that everyone is going to die. No survivor girl, no one is going to save the day, everyone is going to get it. Bleakness prevails. How and why are rarely as fun as who and what.

Plus, I prefer to leave the origins of some things unknown. I am sure that most meth-heads would prefer not to think about the fact that they are smoking insect spray (I really don’t know what is in meth either). Combine these things with the fact that the film parrots the very distinct feel and cinematography of the remake of Texas, adding only increased viciousness, and you get an ugly baby. Do I sometimes like the bad guy(s) even though he/she is killing people? Yep! Do I like them because they are hurting others? No. Okay maybe, but in a fun way, not in a real life choke-your-child-to-death-in-front-of-you way. That’s not a fun way.

So, the question is: would the movie be good if it was not a prequel? I don’t think so, no. To me, good slasher movies are a game: you try to pick your survivor right away and then see who is going to get it when and whether or not it will be their own fault et cetera. The director’s job is to keep you guessing within the rules: will the music cue be for the killer or a red herring, can you be tricked into thinking an fake off-screen death was actually real and so on. The games that The Beginning wants to play are How long can we torture them? How grizzly can we make it? I suspect the director of the film owns a lot of porn movies with the word Gag in their titles.

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 4 : Your Stars of Tomorrow, TODAY!

Maire says:
Wrong! Well, at least this movie bore the next generation of movie stars? Yeah, let’s go with that.

I should like this movie. A lot. It has everything I love: dumb teenagers after prom, unnecessary blood spatter, and just all around ridiculousness. But alas, this film in pushing cliche to it’s limit, overshot and then wallowed in it rather than draw back into acceptable range.

Look, I know it’s hard to be a teenager, and after prom holds so much potential for things that you want to do and don’t want to do. But that is no excuse to turn into a fucking moron. Yes, bad ass nerdy girls are cool. Unfortunately, Renée Zellweger is neither. Matthew McConaughey’s Vilmer is the bright spot of this film. Good on him. However, his character’s leg is just... ugh. There are better ways to portray that.

And for the record, I’m ok with cross-dressing Leatherface.


Corey says:
As a disclaimer, this was the first sequel to Texas that I ever watched. I was in my mid-teens, and had finally gotten into horror past the “I’m 10 years old this is scary” stage of my fandom. Thus, when The Next Generation got released at my local video rental shop, I grabbed it sight unseen, lured by the weird sexy (???) Leatherface on the cover. Thus, my memories of this film were colored by a time where any horror was good horror. I was a sponge, and they’ll suck up the bad with the good with no regard for either.

This recent viewing reaffirmed that, yeah, there actually is some good stuff going on here. First of all, the family that got put together this time around does alright. They seem like a loving family with a good streak of wacko put in for good measure. Leatherface has some really good looks this time around, and generally acted like the big slow guy we all know and love. The hijinks with the bionic leg that Matthew McConaughey wears are hilarious, and the banter/fighting between family members is reminiscent of the first two films. Also, there’s no fucking kid to fuck things up. Fucking kids.

This time, though, all of those bits that I could happily gloss over in reverie were there in all of their ugly glory. Like the scene where Darla TOTALLY shows her ACTUAL TITS and not a body double’s during the scene where she flashes people for no good reason. Hell, I was 16, I didn’t care, tits were tits. This time, though, the transition from Darla to boobs is so jarring that it looked like they lifted the boobs from a different film entirely. Really, if they wanted that flashing sequence so bad, why not just get Linnea Quigley? She’ll get naked for a ham sandwich and a tube of Ben Gay.

And then there’s the weird freaky government dude. At 16, I thought that was edgy and neat. Crazy weird piercing through a ridiculous part of your body? Neato! You killed a dude with an airplane? Fucking AWESOME!

At 32, I think it’s dumb as shit.


Salty says:
I am certain that the idea behind Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation was this: what if there was a reason behind the Sawyer family? What could that reason be? To find the answer you have to ask what is the true reason for all evil in the world according to a Texan. The answer is, of course, the government. Bear with me on this for just a minute, here is your kernel: the government is actually facilitating the Sawyer family’s wholesale slaughter of Real Americans across the great state of Texas. It follows then that each member of the Sawyer family should represent a different “problem” with society.

Think about what are we given. If you were a Texan and you wanted to make a horror satire about the liberal government’s welfare system, what would you want to cover? We have the cripple, surely he is receiving disability for his tender condition (and most Texans are blowing raspberries at that!). Now, the filmmakers have a problem in that the physically disabled aren’t generally considered to be threatening, so they would need to come up with a threatening disability or you could give him a threatening crutch. I may be reaching here, but what kinds of crutches are people leaning on these days? Technology. So we give the leader of the family a gimp leg, enough to get him some subsidized relief, and then we fix it with crappy broken technology. On paper it’s a potent metaphor; in the film it is Matthew Mechagimpleg McConaughey with a nonsensical piston-leg-brace that is overly sensitive to remote controls and allows him to crush people’s skulls with ease.

Mechagimpleg’s got a hussy girlfriend. One of the first things she does when we are introduced to her is flash her boobs at some local college kids for the thrill. She uses her sexuality to get away with her crimes, hence the whole scene where she flirts with the cops to divert their attention from the girl that she has tied up in her trunk. She spends the rest of the movie toggling between being madly in love with her boyfriend and getting into fistfights with him. Face it, she’s just a few years away from having a couple of kids with that same abusive cripple, and those kids aren't going to feed themselves.

Do you doubt that Bubba AKA Leatherface is mentally handicapped? It is an established fact, and though his presence in this film is perhaps the least in the series he maintains an inability to speak or properly communicate, thus in real society he would receive some gub’ment money, and if your from Texas you ain’t lykin’ dat (especially since he’s a transvestite too). Then there’s the third brother: the one who doesn’t do much. Is it too much of a stretch at this point to speculate that he is receiving unemployment? Perhaps he’s a drug addict.

When the men in suits show up we get a couple of speeches about what a bad job Mechagimpleg is doing and we are supposed to think that this man is his employer. In a way he is: he is a government caseworker coming to see what is happening with the money the family has received and he is upset that things are so crazy. Mechagimpleg fears this man, because he needs to appear to be resisting the awful acts that he is committing to keep getting his free money. On the other hand, Mechagimpleg does have an advantage: the government man cannot stop him from torturing and killing the innocent because the federal government does not endorse capital punishment for any crime. It all kind of fits together, don’t you think?

The movie is a conservative view of liberal government and the way it hands out money the weak and needy. Therefore, the Sawyer family is just – are you ready for the linchpin that’s going to sell the whole thing? The Sawyer family is just a group of babies sucking at the government’s tits – hence the government employee is covered with nipples!
You’re welcome.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆☆	☆

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Government Film About the Dangers of Picking Up Hitchhikers

Maire says:
First off, did you know that this movie’s wikipedia page has 160 cited references? If that doesn’t say “cult classic,” I don’t know what does.

While Psycho definitely brought the slasher genre to the forefront, Texas makes full use of its elements. Yes, we know there are going to be bloody deaths, but man, it does a great job of building tension. By the end of the film, you’re hoping for the last death, wanting the movie to be done and over already so you don’t have to suffer the tension any longer.

And then the finger scene happens. And you feel horrible about yourself for watching it.

But you still don’t get that last death. Instead, you get a happy(?) ending and the first of our “dancing chainsaw” fade outs.

Oh god, the tension is still there...

whimper

Corey says:

Oh boy, here we go.

One of the reasons that we started the House was to document the fact that, yes, we actually watched all of these films. Even if no one reads our blog, we have a testament to the fact that we took on this Sisyphean task. But the problem arises when we tackle one of the greats. What can we possibly add to the conversation? What can I say about Texas that hasn't already been beaten to death?

Then, I remember that the House is for my reactions to films. How do I feel, 15 or so years after the first time that I viewed Texas? For the most part, I'm just as horrified as I was the first time I saw the film.

The thing that gets me the most about Texas (and the thing that most people tend to forget, if you ask Salty) is that the horror of the movie is not Leatherface. The horror is that there's a whole family of psychopathic wackos. Ol’ Bubba is important, sure, but he’s more of a supporting role to a crazy hitchhiker, a domineering (but loving) older brother, and a grandpa that’s still one of the best slaughterers in the state. In fact, the film would still be great (though maybe not a legend) if Leatherface weren’t present at all. He works as less of a character and more of a catalyst, providing impetus to the horrors that are already being wrought. He’s the salt in a soup, the hops in a beer. The movie isn’t built around him, he is built around the movie.

One of the other things the film excels at is the plodding tension and horror, without much actual gore. All of the sights and sounds are ground in gritty realism, never glorifying but at the same time never pulling any punches. Much like the slaughterhouse background of the Sawyers, the film delivers atmosphere brutally and efficiently. When Sally Hardesty wakes up for dinner, it’s terrifying to her, not because of the freaky bones on the table or the dead (?) man sitting at the table with her, but because of how we got to this moment. We’ve been hung on hooks. We’ve had to run. We know we’re the only one left. And now, just a quiet meal, where we’re the guest of honor. It’s enough to break anyone.

On a final note, Franklin is an amazing character. For one, he’s in a wheelchair, and the film doesn’t make a huge deal out of it. Just another one of those touches that, hey, this is real. Also, he’s a dick. And I love him for it. Every time I see that scene where he’s giving the raspberry, I crack up. But then I remember what’s going to happen to him, and it makes me a little melancholy.

Salty says:

Horror movies steal from one another constantly. It’s a fact. The producer of Friday the 13th admits he told his screenwriter “Write me a movie like Halloween”. All movies do it, but with horror it’s like a riot: everyone is stealing everything they can and no one cares who took what except the overtly pretentious spectator. I am sort of fickle when it comes to the thievery. I had to get rid of my copy of High Tension after I saw Intensity - not that Intensity was that good (fuck you Dean Koontz), but it’s like finding out your favorite porn star has gotten AIDS. It ruins the magic, you know? This is also why I can’t love Night of the Demons, when I watch it, all I can think is I could be watching Evil Dead. But I like Slither and Night of the Creeps, and I love David Cronenberg and he just makes one movie over and over (it’s a good movie). The issue is complicated.

Although dozens, if not hundreds, of movies have shamelessly “borrowed” from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (especially House of 1,000 Corpses), I have yet to see anything made prior to it that bears a remote resemblance. It’s the first movie made for mass audiences that feels like you shouldn’t be watching it, because not only is it violent, it’s chaotic, so you’re never really sure what you’re going to see or if you want to see it. The grainy quality of the film helps, so does the hydrocephalic gas station attendant and the self-mutilating hitchhiker. Also the chainsaw – let’s face it, no one would want to go see The Texas Massacre, that just sounds too religious and depressing.

The film is a Rubicon and rite of passage. Every horror fan has a “first time I saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” story, same as parrot-heads have a “first time I heard Margaritaville” story (and consequently a “first time I realized that I was an 50-year-old drunk with too much money” story). At fourteen my friend and I raided his miscellanea-riddled attic in the midst of a caffeine-fueled all-nighter. Our plunder was a pillowcase that we were certain was crusted with dried blood, a couple of Slayer tapes and coverless VHS copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I crashed about a third of the way in, but I kept waking to screams and chainsaw sounds, watching grizzly pandemonium and then slipping back into unconsciousness. I remember waking up at dawn as the end of the film played and wondering how it had come to this blood-drenched girl literally raving mad as she fled from the dancing Leatherface into the too-orange dawn and not being sure if I had seen that fat man blow raspberries at his peers or just dreamed it. I was sure that I would be watching the film again.

The movie is just off-kilter enough to make sure that you, the viewer, are interested without ever reaching a disenchanting moment of absurdity. It is, after all, based on highly exaggerated fact, and the reality is driven home by details. The setting, the characters, the plot, the unique but believable look and feel of the movie all amalgamate into this wild awful thing, but the details are what make it just right. The jittery muscle spasms you see after blunt force trauma to the head are a real phenomenon. The jerk of being dropped onto a meat hook yips with reality. Those bones you are seeing are real human bones (ordered from India according to the commentary; one wonders how much director Tobe Hooper worked on Return of the Living Dead before leaving the project). The movie is a complex recipe but all the ingredients are on full display, there are just too many to get mix correct again. So, it’s forgivable that other filmmakers have been unsuccessfully trying to emulate it ever since; it’s too hard not to (but you can at least try not to Rob. Come on man, seriously).

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆