Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

Ignoring the previous Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, Leatherface intends to strictly stay parallel to the source material of focusing mainly on the masked killer. Instead of sticking to the same structure the series was headed - expanding the cannibal family's mythology, director Jeff Burr attempts to humanize Leatherface in a blundering embarrassing spectacle which builds up a scene of the mad butcher typing "food" repeatedly into a Speak N' Spell like toy.

The film turns from bad to worse as soon as you meet our 80s caricatures that illuminate the screen with a deep-seated lust for annoying the piss out of you with their moldy dialogue and abominable screen presence. To sit still during a barrage of horror cliches that acknowledge their own existence is the worst and this film, being a horror circle jerk, doesn't make this experience any more warm and/or inviting.

Don't bother.

Ken Foree joins in on the fun as not a cameo, but the only reason these wastes survive the ordeal (Or some of them). Concluding on a high note, the ending might be the only acceptable asset of the film. While Foree isn't throwing his bad boy black dude attitude at you full force, he's spouting nonsense about being a top notch survivalist. One might find several disputable claims about said boast, but the result is never-the-less still painful. Almost as painful as watching Flyboy slowing turn into a member of the legion of dead.

As horrible as the sequel adheres to, the "controversy" that the film isn't present. While there is a workprint floating around, the film proves entirely that a bloodier version isn't needed. Leatherface is a slow mirage of a dying idol. Leatherface (character) is slowly fading into a world of contemporary hell. As with most horror genre classics, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was funded by Michael "Explosion" Bay.


Ty E previously stated that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) was a propaganda film of sorts, catering to the city folk and college kids. The trend started in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre saga before the remake. While the 2nd entry embraced its southern roots, In the third film, they bump the anti-rural accusations up full blast slightly echoed by Viggo Mortensen posing a solid question - "So? How do you like Texas?". This eerie line resonates through out the film leaving a sulfur smell of national deceit and timeless propaganda.

Posing Southerners as mentally defiecient socials isn't anything new to the film industry. To add to their already decrepit status in modern film, Burr creates an atmosphere in which these "yahoo's" attempt to learn, advocating the wonders of technology, hence the "learning" scene in which Leatherface plays with an educational toy, ending abruptly when he goes in a blind rage. All this forms the sense that Jeff Burr or the scribes believe that the rural folks are resistant to change and ignorant to the classic saying from Bob Dylan - 'The Times They Are A-Changin'


A childhood friend's mom actually told me that she used to date Gunnar Hansen (The Original Leatherface). The stories proved Gunnar to sound like an endearing fellow. I've heard of such love letters but I've never perused through them. As the myth of Leatherface stands, Gunnar should be disappointed with the outcome of an idol he created. His manic swings and staggering figure added to the horror.

Leatherface claimed to have suffered from many cuts and reshoots. These claims may be the truth but even the workprint didn't touch what was spoken as the "original vision". What was once is not anymore. I don't fancy watching a hypothetical documentary on a film I have no respect for to theorize how the film could have turned out. Jeff Burr created a product regardless of show big of a flop it was, and marketed it. I blame Jeff Burr solely for the slaughtering of an original and fresh massacre.

In an eagle eye view, Leatherface has no real material to it; nothing to differ it from the rest. I enjoy the fact that they suited up Leatherface with a leg brace to bring memories flooding back from the climatic ending of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but not much else exists. There's a couple of entertaining southern archetypes floating around, mainly Alfredo, but Leatherface is as dry of a film as the trailer would lead you to believe. No Excalibur here, just a rancid slasher film.

-mAQ