I have a theory that modern horror directors already gave up on trying to scare us. Today's audiences are so jaded and so familiar with film language, that most of the time when they try to scare us, we shrug it off when it's not extremely effective. Their solution: if you can't scare them, you disturb and turn their stomachs anyway you can.
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is this particular reviewer's favorite American horror film of all time. Heck, it's one of my favorite films period. The sheer amount of terror that director Tobe Hooper supplied from a simple chase scene involving a chainsaw is remarkable, and genuinely scary. In contrast, the 2003 remake starring Jessica Biel downplayed that terror, but racked up the sex appeal and detailed gore. If you remember, the gore in the original Tobe Hooper film was minimal, with much of the scares dedicated to tension and the realism of a chainsaw's dangerous nature. Not so in the remake. True to many big budget horror films nowadays, it was more about action and "boo" moments than actual scares. It wasn't scary, all right, but it made damn sure that you see every itty-bitty bit of brain matter as that hitchhiker shot herself in the mouth.
From the very start, The Beginning was a pointless project. Let's just admit it, the idea of a prequel to the remake is nonsense. I don't say that because I hated the remake and thus believed this film would turn out horrible. I say that because, and this was proven true, there is no excitement to be grasped from it. Obviously, with an origin story, you'd want to show how Leatherface came to be, but at the same time, you want it to be a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, not Leatherface: The True Hollywood Story. They succeeded in that regard. It's still more of a standard slasher flick than an origin story. They explained how Leatherface was born and became a killer, and how Sheriff Hoyt became the deranged sheriff that he is in the remake, in the film's first fifteen minutes. For the rest of the movie, we follow yet another band of kids, this time on their way to answer the Vietnam War draft, as they get picked up and chopped to bits by the Hewitt family.
So why bother making it a prequel? If it's just going to play the same way and not dissect Leatherface's origin too deeply, why even set it in the past? That only cuts the suspense early: We already know going in that all the villains survive, and all the heroes die (since, ya' know, the sick family went on to kill for years to come and no one came back with the feds). There's no good reason to do this, especially since we don't even learn any new twists about the Hewitt family. They're the same ol' cannibals we encountered in the 2003 remake. Whenever one of the kids gets the upper hand on one of the villains -- which occurs several times towards the end -- you don't really care enough to cheer because you know it's eventually ineffective.
BUT! That is not to say there are no good things to enjoy as we're reaching towards that outcome. The Beginning has a lot of truly demented black humor in it, nearly all of them courtesy of R. Lee Ermey's Sheriff Hoyt, who takes up more screen time than he did in the previous film. And people wonder why horror fans cheer when the villains kill people in horror movies. When you have protagonists who are vapid, and a bad guy who spouts random hilarity at every turn, who the hell do you think the audience would root for? The film is admittedly amusing just to watch Ermey blow up in full force. He's very much the star of the picture here, not Leatherface. I just wish he were given more inventive cuss variations to chew the scenery with.
There are also a couple of really neat death scenes, such as Leatherface's wildly inventive first chainsaw kill (Let's just say it involves a character lying on his stomach and a dormant chainsaw). It's not the goriest or bloodiest film you'll find, but gore-hounds will most likely enjoy the amount of splatter in this film, regardless of the painfully boring narrative. By the end of the movie, actress Jordana Brewster is drenched head to toe in blood, a la Shauna MacDonald in The Descent. Unfortunately, it's still littered with stupid, stupid, stupid jump scares. There should be a rule that you can use the "Someone slaps the window, aren't you scared!" tactic only once in a single film. I also don't understand why they expect us to be scared by trivial things just because the music suddenly makes a sharp note. "OH MY GOD IT'S THE BOOT OF THE GUY WE KNOW IS AROUND!" What? Aren't these the type of scares that died in the 80s already?
Strangely, this film is probably closer in tone to the original Chainsaw film than the 2003 film; with its combination of black humor, gritty survivalist themes, and sick torture scenes that mostly plays the gore straight (unlike, say, Hostel). It even has some unmistakable references such as the infamous dinner scene, or the female lead's leap through a window. This is what the remake should have been like, in retrospect. It's not obsessed with beauty shots and polished scenes. It just tries to portray the events in the most messed up ways.
The Beginning is still not a very good film, but it is a much better effort. If you liked the remake, I like to think that you'd love this one. Just keep in mind that the film was originally rated NC-17, and they cut down a total of seventeen scenes to secure an R rating. So those of you who are just after sadistic pleasure, you know what that means. The Unrated DVD is around the corner.
"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" opens October 6, 2006 and is rated R. Horror. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman. Written by Sheldon Turner, David J. Schow. Starring Diora Baird, Jordana Brewster, Matthew Bomer.
