Movie Reviews
At one hour and twenty-five minutes, �The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning� is roughly one hour and twenty-five minutes too long. Even at its breakneck pace, it feels like it goes on for days � forcing us to watch repeatedly contemptuous scenes like the one where a lady watches as her boyfriend is impaled by a chainsaw and has his face cut off, revealing his exposed skull and muscle. The movie is gross, vile, and repulsive. Just like every other incarnation of it.
Tobe Hooper�s original �Texas Chain Saw Massacre� looks much like a freshman effort, but it was effective, if for nothing else, in delivering scares. Now the franchise is about the gross-out factor. It wants nothing more than to have you run out of the theatre to vomit.
�The Beginning� is the prequel to 2003s remake of �The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.� It gets its sustenance from unexplained features of 2003�s version. It explains why the old man is in a wheel chair, why the Hewitt family is cannibalistic, why Leatherface is so bitter. And all of it is ridiculous. At least not knowing these things gave 2003�s version a sense of mystery. Now it�s just a disappointment.
And here again, we have the fateful story of four young, good-looking hipsters (or hippies) escaping the angst of being young and good-looking by going on a road trip. There are the two brothers; one is refined and courageous because he�s been to Vietnam and back. The other, Dean, is the cowardly half of the family. When the movie begins, the plan is to take a road trip with their girlfriends on their way to shipping off. But Dean has plans of his own. He�s not going to Vietnam at all. As a precursor, we learn about their plans for the future in contrived scenes where the lovebirds discuss baby names and where they want to live when they�re married. One of the brothers proposes to his girlfriend with a ring from a Cracker Jack box. How romantic.
We get another chance to see idiot twenty-somethings mosey into a dilapidated gas stations and mingle with locals, who obviously don�t like to mingle. It�s not the first time this has happened in the horror genre. Watch any of the �Massacre� movies or the remake of �The Hills Have Eyes� and you�ll find it. So let me post a warning to all young, good-looking, ignorant twenty-somethings: stop at one of the thousands of well-lit, partially clean gas stations posted around the nation.
Next up is a scene so pitiful, I laughed my way through it. Inside the car, Dean burns his draft card (he could have easily torn it up and not caused a safety hazard, but whatever). His brother is driving, but decides to go ahead and lash out on Dean. A lot of screaming happens. Then they see that a biker chick is now tailing them, brandishing a shotgun, and yelling for them to pull over. (It�s not explained why this happens, but we all know bikers and hippies absolutely hate each other.) When a cow appears in the middle of the road, a terrible collision occurs (the cow is snapped in half, with bloody results).
The Hewitts get involved when R. Lee Ermey pulls up dressed as a sheriff. He kills the biker chick (blows a hole through her) and takes three of the four road trippers back to his house.
The final shot of the movie is maddening. It entails the final surviving member of the good-looking hippies driving away from the Hewitt house and coming upon a police officer who has pulled over a speeding vehicle. As she smiles and realizes that she�s going to be alright, Leatherface materializes in the back seat with his chainsaw and kills her. She loses control of the car (obviously) and runs over the police officer and bystander. Excuse me, mashes the police officer and bystander. Leatherface is, of course, unharmed, and walks away � the lonely sympathetic anti-hero....
Except that he�s not.
The constant Vietnam motif gets really old really fast. I can see that the filmmakers are trying to make this a film modern generations can appreciate, what with the current war hanging over our heads. Are we supposed to relate to these characters? Yes. It�s the only reason for mentioning Vietnam at all. But we don�t relate to them. We hate them for being idiots and na�ve. And we hate them for making stupid decisions that cost them their lives.
Maybe this movie is more about my generation than I thought. � *