I really am almost at a loss for words after watching Leatherface. I really have no fucking idea what I just watched.
The film opens with a narration that refers to the event of the first film. We learn that Sally died in a mental health facility in 1977. One of the Saywers, W.E. Sawyer, was put on trial and given the gas chamber. The jury apparently concluded that Leatherface was another personality of W.E. The narration suggests that this may or may not have been correct, and if not, Leatherface is still at large. Either way, the events of 1973 were just the beginning. We are then planted somewhere between the first 2 films (from what I can gather) and meet Michelle and Ryan. They are travelling from Los Angeles to Florida to deliver the Mercedes they are driving. They stop at a gas station and meet a creepy attendant and a hitchhiker. As Michelle uses the bathroom, Alfredo (the attendant) watched through a hole in the wall. He and Tex (the hitchhiker, played by Viggo Mortensen) get into a scuffle over it and Alfredo shoots Tex as Michelle and Ryan speed away. A truck chases them and someone throws a dead coyote on their car causing them to stop. As they are changing a tire, Leatherface attacks them with a chainsaw, only damaging the vehicle. The speed off again only to end up crashing after seeing Tex in the road. Another driver, Benny, crashes as well. Another driver, Tinker, stops and at first appears to want to help Benny. We find out that he was the driver in the truck that was chasing Michelle and Ryan. We also end up learning that Tinker, Tex and Alfredo are all part of the Sawyer clan and that they watch the road for travelers to kill and eat. Guess what? Another chainsaw massacre happens!
I don’t know what this film is supposed to be. A sequel is directly suggested, what with the part III in the title, and the mention of previous characters in the beginning. However, at the end of the last film, it seems like all the Sawyers died. If they did not, I sure would like an explanation on how they survived (and where they are). Probably the most confusing part of this film is that Sawyer family was entirely different, other than Leatherface and Grandpa. However, in this installment, Grandpa was dead. Also, Leatherface apparently has a daughter. All of this made absolutely no sense.
The film was not scary at all. Probably the least scared one could be with chainsaws involved. The acting was not terrible if you can make it through some scenes that had missed cues large enough to drive a car through. This really was just a train wreck.
There were way too many references to the first film. Alfredo has a Polaroid camera and tries to charge for a picture he takes, as the hitchhiker from the first film did. There was also yet another dinner scene that was nowhere near as frightening than the first. The little girl’s doll is named Sally.
Really, I spent the majority of the film trying to figure out where it fits in the TCM universe than what was going on. It was not entertaining and is just a generic horror film. It lacks any originality and did nothing to further a story along (that doesn’t really need to keep going anyway). Quite simply, this film does not need to exist.
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