Franchises: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

I just knew that there would be a follow-up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre '03. Even though it wasn't that well-liked by most mainstream critics (Roger Ebert called it the worst film of the year, which, really, dude?), most horror fans at the time seemed to really enjoy it and, most importantly, it made a ton of money. That alone told me it wouldn't be long before we saw another film in the remake's continuity, and I was all for it. I really, really enjoy that film, as you'd know if you've read my review of it, and whenever that's the case, save for a few exceptions, I always welcome any sort of second chapter. I was a bit curious, though, as to how they would continue, since the remake's ending felt pretty final: Leatherface's right arm was cut off and he hadn't been seen since 1973, Sheriff Hoyt was dead, Erin warned the police and the house had been raided, and the rest of the family, more than likely, had either been arrested or gone into exile. And when the follow-up was announced, I found out just how they were going to go on with the story: they weren't. Instead, they decided to go back further in time and tell the story of how the Hewitt family and, more specifically, Leatherface came to be. Now, while many are opposed to prequels, like anything else, I feel they can work if the story is told well, and I thought this did have a lot of potential. (Also, it would make for another first, at least for me: not only had I never heard of a contemporary horror movie like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre being remade at that time, but I most certainly had never come across a prequel to a remake. Sequels, yes, like The Fly II, but never prequels.) Throughout the film's production, though, I learned some things that, while I wouldn't say they completely destroyed my interest, I did find them questionable. One was the title: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Since this was just two years after Exorcist: The Beginning, I was like, "Is that the only title they can come up with for prequels?" It just felt so unoriginal. And I also wasn't too keen on the plot, about yet another group of kids being captured, tortured, and killed by the family. I was expecting to see how the family killed their first victims but I figured that would be the last act, whereas the rest of the movie would focus solely on the Hewitt family, going into how they came about over the years, how Thomas Hewitt became the sadistic monster he was in the remake, and, ultimately, how he became Leatherface; instead, it sounded like they were just rehashing the same basic story of nearly all of the films in the franchise. Maybe it's my fault for having such lofty expectations when I heard the movie was going to be a prequel, but I was hoping they would be a little more ambitious with it.

I didn't see the movie when it was released in theaters in October of 2006 because, even though I was 19 at that time, I still couldn't drive and had no official ID, which I would've needed because, back then, I looked much younger than I actually am. And nobody I knew would've taken me to see it, either, trust me. Plus, I was in college and had to get up at the crack of dawn every day to be driven an hour to Chattanooga, so I doubt I would've had the time or been in the mood to go see it anyway. I eventually did see it on DVD the following February and, I have to say, I wasn't too enamored with it. While there was some stuff I liked, I didn't think it was as well-made as the remake and, most significantly, I felt it didn't do a very good job of telling the story it set out to tell. Also, I found it to be just a generally unpleasant viewing experience and a major example of the so-called "torture porn" trend that was popular at the time, which I've never liked. (It didn't help that I was battling some serious depression at that time and probably shouldn't have watched this type of film anyway). And to this day, this remains on the lower end of my personal ranking of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. It's definitely better than The Next Generation, and I would probably rather watch it over any of the movies that have been made since, but it's still my least favorite of the ones I do own in my collection.

August, 1939. A female slaughterhouse worker named Sloane suddenly goes into labor and dies while giving birth to a deformed baby boy. The cruel supervisor proceeds to abandon the child in a dumpster out back, where he's found by Luda Mae Hewitt, who takes him home and raises him as her own. Over the next thirty years, the boy, named Thomas, or, as his family calls him, Tommy, grows up while suffering from a hideous skin condition in his face, and also shows a penchant for self-mutilation and cutting up the bodies of dead animals. He begins working at the very slaughterhouse he was born in, and under the same supervisor who left him for dead. But by 1969, the place's horrid conditions have led to it being closed down by the health department, basically killing the town and forcing everyone but the Hewitts to move out. Enraged at being forced to leave, as he likes working there, Thomas murders the supervisor and then heads home, carrying a chainsaw. After finding what Thomas has done, the local sheriff, Hoyt, brings his uncle, Charlie, with him to help find and bring him in. But when they do find him, Charlie kills Hoyt and assumes his identity. That night, he tells his family that they will not abandon the place they've lived their entire life and also introduces them to the idea of cannibalism, with their first meal being none other than the sheriff. Meanwhile, two brothers, Eric and Dean, are driving across Texas with their girlfriends, Chrissie and Bailey, to enlist in the Vietnam War. But when they arrive in the small town and briefly stop at Luda Mae's gas station, they're chased by Alex, a female biker who intends to rob them. They then get into a serious accident and the new Sheriff Hoyt arrives, promptly kills Alex, and takes Eric, Dean, and Bailey prisoner, while Chrissie was thrown clear in the crash. At the house, Hoyt torments the kids, specifically the two brothers, as he knows one of them is a draft dodger, while Chrissie tries to find a way to save her friends. At the same time, Thomas' psychopathic tendencies are being encouraged by Hoyt and he's now only a few steps away from becoming the notorious killer, Leatherface. 

When you watch the 2003 remake, it's obvious from the way it ends that the producers didn't intend to make any sort of follow-up (in fact, this film is the only companion piece that Platinum Dunes produced for any of their horror remakes). And sure enough, in the documentary, Down to the Bone: Anatomy of a Prequel, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller say that they decided not to do a sequel, figuring the remake didn't need one. But due to fan interest in how the Hewitt family came to be, they decided that a prequel might be an interesting way to go. When they and Michael Bay decided to go ahead with it, they initially went to Scott Kosar, the remake's screenwriter, but he proved unavailable, so they then went with Sheldon V. Turner, who'd worked with them on their remake of The Amityville Horror. Interestingly, David J. Schow, the original screenwriter on Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, shares story credit on this film with Turner, but I'm not sure exactly how much he contributed to it. Also, in order to make the movie with Platinum Dunes, New Line Cinema had to pay a hefty sum to keep the rights, as Dimension Films had partnered up with Tobe Hooper, Kim Henkel, and Robert Kuhn in order to get a hold of them. Like with the remake, Hooper and Henkel are credited as producers, but this time, so is Kuhn, possibly due to the brief rights situation (it could also be why, during the opening credits, it says, "A Vortex/Henkel/Hooper Production," like in the original movie).

I don't know if they ever approached Marcus Nispel about returning as director but, either way, Platinum Dunes this time went with another newcomer: South African-born Jonathan Liebesman. According to Andrew Form in the documentary, even though he only had one short film under his belt at the time, Liebesman was one of their choices for the remake, but he instead did Darkness Falls (I've since seen that movie, which is about a killer tooth fairy, and trust me, it is just as bad as it sounds). Even though that film did well at the box-office, Liebsman apparently had a miserable time making it and almost considered quitting the business afterward. According to Michael Bay, he got him to direct The Beginning as a means of keeping him from quitting (before this film, he did another short film, which acted as a bridge between the American version of The Ring and its sequel, which is actually not that bad). After this film, Liebesman went on to do Battle: Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans, and the first of the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. Having seen the latter of those three, it feels like he's kind of become Bay's successor, making those same type of loud, brainless action movies, and looking back at The Beginning, it does feel like he knows how to do little other than cater to the lowest common denominator. He does prove to have some technical skill, but his storytelling abilities come off as uninspired and purely by the numbers, and he does little more than drown the movie in excessive gore and wallow in the torture trend of the era.

Despite my issues with the movie, the acting isn't one of them. But that said one of the weakest characters is actually Jordana Brewster as Chrissie. Make no mistake, she does handle herself fairly well... for what she's given to do, which isn't that much, despite her being top-billed in the credits. Once she's thrown clear from their jeep after they crash, she mainly just sneaks around the property and inside the Hewitt house, unsuccessfully trying to save her friends. She also does something really dumb early on, which is try to get the boyfriend of Alex, the biker who held them up, to help her, and acts all surprised when he refuses to help her when they get to the house, calling him an asshole. I just think, "Lady, you knew he was part of that gang of bikers who acted really pervy and threatening towards you and Bailey, not to mention how, again, his girlfriend chased you guys down with a gun." And even though she doesn't have much to do with the character before the crash anyway, Brewster just doesn't have the same kind of screen presence that Jessica Biel had as Erin. She plays Chrissie as a sweet enough person who cares about her friends, and loves her boyfriend, Eric, despite how much he's become entrenched in the war effort, but there's not much else to her. Really, her only meaningful acting moments during the first act are when she and Eric are being flirtatious at the motel swimming pool, which is when she also makes it clear that she's not happy about his going back to Vietnam but has come to accept it, and when she encourages Bailey to go to Mexico with Dean and get away from the war.

Chrissie also isn't as tough or resilient as Erin, as she barely fights back against the family when she's captured, save for some verbal assault when she's tied up at the table, asking them, "Do you guys fuck all your cousins, or just the ones you find attractive?", and calling them a, "Bunch of degenerates." And when Luda Mae orders Leatherface to take her away, she stabs him in the shoulder with a knife in order to make him drop her so she can escape. Other than that, she does nothing but run and hide for the entire movie, and I'm not sure I like how she seems as

though she's about to leave Bailey and Dean behind after Eric is killed. I know she's in utter shock and horror after having to hide under the very table her boyfriend was strapped to when he had a chainsaw shoved through his chest and his face sliced off, and she then had to watch Thomas sewing it into a mask (Brewster plays the horror of that moment very well, I might add), but it seems like, now that her boyfriend is dead, she doesn't care about the others anymore. And even though she does decide to try to help them,

it doesn't make any difference, seeing as how Bailey gets her throat slashed, Leatherface puts his chainsaw all the way through Dean while he's trying to save Chrissie in the slaughterhouse, and Chrissie herself ultimately gets butchered by Leatherface as well.

Of the four young adults, my personal favorite is Matt Bomer as Eric. He comes off as very charming and playful when he's with his friends during the first act, like when he's with Chrissie at the pool during their first appearance. Their relationship comes off as very genuine and romantic, as they talk about how many kids they'll have, what their respective genders will be, etc. (which comes back in a tragic manner in the scene before Eric is killed). He also gives Chrissie a ring, which she recognizes as being from a Cracker Jack box, and he says he had to go through seventeen boxes to get it. And when she asks him not to leave her, he says, "I ain't never gonna leave you, beautiful," in a way and with a look in his eyes that I don't think any woman could resist. His playful side then comes through when he then pulls her into the pool with him, after trying to get her to join him several times. He also has a nice brotherly banter with Dean, telling him, as he's in a motel room with Bailey, that they're moving out at 1700 hours, and when Dean sarcastically asks what time that is, Eric says, "You better be gettin' some, Dean." The way he says that with a big smile on his face shows how he loves playfully aggravating his brother. I also like how, when they've stopped at the gas station, Eric notices that his jeep's driver-side mirror is broken and comments on it with a smile on his face and not a hint of anger. Weird things to praise, I know, but I just like somebody who's this laid back. However, there is a more serious side to Eric's relationship with his brother. It's obvious he senses that something is off with Dean when they get on the road and, while they're at the gas station, he asks Dean if he has anything to tell him. Before Dean can speak, though, he gets interrupted. And when Dean attempts to burn his draft card, Eric, despite being angry, saying their father would be ashamed of him, eventually tells him why he himself is going back to Vietnam, despite the trauma it's caused him and the fear he still feels: so Dean won't be completely alone over there. And after the crash, when Sheriff Hoyt becomes enraged upon finding the half-burnt draft card, Eric pretends to be Dean and takes the heat for his brother.

When you first see Eric, he's playing around in the motel pool with a knife, telling Chrissie what he's doing is how you catch, "Gooks in the swamp." This is the first hint of what Chrissie later says about Eric having developed something of a taste for war, but given what Dean says about him having audible nightmares about it, it's clear his experiences over in Vietnam have also traumatized him, as they would anybody. They also come into play when they get into danger. As they're being chased by Alex, Eric tells everybody to stay calm and tries to outrun her. And

when that doesn't work, he pulls his own gun out of the glove compartment and turns around to shoot at her, when they hit a cow and crash. After they're taken hostage by Hoyt, Eric quietly assures Dean that he'll get them out of this, showing that he's a take charge type of person and has probably been in similar situations over in Vietnam. And he makes it clear that he's going to kill Hoyt the first chance he gets, especially later on, when Hoyt is torturing Dean by making him do push-ups and constantly beating him with his police baton. Eric eventually gets free,

gets Dean on his feet, and also manages to get Bailey out of the house, but unfortunately, what happens next is where I think he seriously drops the ball. Back outside, they're faced with Hoyt as he wields a gun and decides to distracts him so Dean can escape. But all he does is hurl a bunch of trash talk at him and try to tempt him to shoot him, when he should be trying to pry the gun out of his hand and either shoot him or, at the very least, beat the crap out of him. And he ultimately gets distracted and knocked out by the butt

of the rifle, and is taken down into the basement by Thomas, where he's tortured, killed, and his face made into the first Leatherface skin mask. I do like that latter plot-point, but I still think Eric could've gone out in a better manner.

I actually recognized Taylor Handley, who plays Dean, from a Disney Channel original movie from way back in 2000 called Phantom of the Megaplex, making him one of several actors from that channel who I've later seen in horror movies. I thought he handled himself well as Dean and I could actually relate a little bit to him because, back in the early to mid-2000's when it was rumored that the draft was coming back, I was worried about having to go to Iraq. (I said at the time that if it did happen, I would burn my draft card and head to another country, as if I had the resources to do so). Not only is Dean worried about how Eric will react when he finds out about his plan to dodge the draft, but he also wonders how his brother could even go back to Vietnam in the first place. That likely makes for one heck of a guilt trip when Eric reveals he was going back for Dean's sake, particularly when Eric pretends to be him when they get captured. Although Dean almost folds under the pressure when they're being strung up, he manages to keep his wits about him and eventually admits that he's the one who burned the card when Hoyt is about to suffocate Eric with Saran wrap. That's when Dean shows that he is quite tough, managing to do ten pushups while Hoyt repeatedly beats him with his baton. However, he collapses after getting more of a beating afterward, and even though Eric later manages to get him on his feet and tries to help him escape, he gets caught in a bear trap and is left out there by Hoyt. But later on ,when Dean is brought to the dinner table and comes to find that Bailey has been killed, he decides to give Hoyt some brutal payback. He gets him down on the front porch and slams his face into it again and again, knocking his front teeth out and repeating the taunts he gave him: "Now, let's see what kind of soldier you are, Sheriff. One! Oh, that was beautiful form, Sheriff. Two! Halfway doesn't count, dickhead! Three! Is that all you got? Is that all you fucking got?!" Particularly satisfying is when, after really pummeling him, he tells him, "My money says you're not going anywhere," the same thing Hoyt told Eric after Dean finished that sadistic round of pushups. And like Morgan in the remake, Dean goes out a hero, but unfortunately, it's because he does something rather dumb. Like Morgan, he stops Leatherface just as he's about to kill Chrissie, but all he does is run in, knock him aside, and then goes to help her up. Even if it was with a hatchet, did he really think that put Leatherface out of commission? Well, guess what? It didn't, as Leatherface gets back up and puts his chainsaw right through Dean.

The one I have the least to say about is Dean's girlfriend, Bailey (Diora Baird). She comes off as empathetic towards his plight, telling him that Eric will forgive him because he's his brother, and she plans to go to Mexico with him, but other than that, there's nothing to say about her character. She's hot, sure, and despite his mindset, I think Dean, realistically, would've been able to enjoy what she was doing with him in that motel room (at least, I think I would've), but she definitely has the least amount of depth. That said, she suffers a lot of horrific torture at the hands of the Hewitts, and with her anguished screaming, you really feel for her. She's tied underneath a small kitchen table for a long time, with Luda Mae creepily acting like she's her little girl by washing her face and singing to her; she almost manages to escape but Thomas hooks her in the chest and carries her back to the house like she's a piece of meat, as she screams in agony; she's later tied to a bed upstairs by Hoyt, who did God knows what to her; and when you see her at the dinner table near the end of the film, she's not only in shock but also revealed to have had all of her teeth pulled, before she's killed by Leatherface, who slashes her throat open with a pair of scissors.

Make no mistake, given the very reason for making this movie, the Hewitt family are the real stars of the show this time around. But the question is, does it succeed in showing how they got to the point they were in the remake? In some ways, it dies, but in other ways, not so much. One thing's for sure, though: while it was only hinted at in the remake, this proves that the Hewitts are, indeed, cannibals. And I also think it does a fair enough job in showing why they began eating human flesh. It's the same basic reason that was suggested in the original film, that they've

been put out of a job and have to find another way to fill their stomachs, but they go into more depth with it here, as the entire town is all but abandoned because the slaughterhouse, where most of the populace worked, is closed down. And even though Luda Mae still runs the gas station and bar, the lack of any townspeople or visitors, save for the occasional passersby, like the group of kids and the bikers, don't bode well as a solid source of income. But even though they could easily leave with everybody else, they decide to stay where they've always been and face whatever comes their way, in any manner they can. It'd be kind of inspirational, if it weren't for the murder and cannibalism.

In discussing the Hewitts, we might as well start with Charlie a.k.a. Sheriff Hoyt, as he's more or less the real protagonist. Even though the filmmakers said they made this movie in order to show how the entire family came to be, I've also heard that, because the character of Hoyt got a lot of praise from fans in the remake, they decided to make a movie that would basically star him, and since he was killed off at the end of the remake, this was the only way to do it. There's no question that Hoyt dominates this film, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good is that we get to see R. Lee Ermey chew the scenery to his heart's content, and he's so obviously having fun in making Hoyt even more sadistic and loathsome than he was originally. We learn that he took charge as the head of the family, killed the local sheriff when he tried to arrest Thomas after he killed his slaughterhouse supervisor, took his identity, and introduced the concept of cannibalism to his family as a means to survive, since the same thing happened to him years ago. While serving in the Korean War, he was taken prisoner and, in order to survive, he and the other POWs would single out one poor soul and eat him. And he makes no secret that he grew to enjoy the taste of human flesh, with how matter-of-factly he tastes the sheriff's blood after he kills him and how naturally he introduces it to his family, assuring them that they will survive and never go hungry again. And the next morning, when you see Hoyt park his car on the side of the road and step out with a shotgun, waiting for some hapless people to come that way, it has a sense of doom about it, signifying that the Hewitts' reign of terror has truly begun.

As I said, Ermey seems determined to make Hoyt far more despicable here than he was in the remake, and he succeeds above and beyond. In fact, this makes Hoyt's earlier portrayal seem downright mellow, as he takes full pleasure in killing and torturing people, particularly those of the younger generation, which he despises. His first act as "sheriff" is to blow away Alex before she knows what hit her, hit Eric with the butt of his gun when he doesn't do what he says, force Dean and Bailey, the latter of whom has bits of glass stuck in her from the crash, out of the wreck at

gunpoint, and make Dean put the biker's body up in his front seat. His contempt for them only grows when he discovers that one of the guys attempted to burn up his draft card, something that personally offends him, and he decides to dish out double the punishment towards them. He has Thomas string Eric and Dean up by their arms in the barn, sprays them with water, and attempts to suffocate Eric by wrapping Saran wrap around his face. This forces Dean to admit that he was the one who burned his card (although, it's strongly hinted that Hoyt already

suspected as much and just tortured Eric in order to get Dean to admit it) and so, Hoyt cuts him down and puts him through a sadistic round of pushups, saying he can go free if he does all ten. He continuously beats him with his as he does them to make it even more painful, and takes full enjoyment out of it too, asking him, "What's it gonna be? You gonna be the motherfucker who eats, or are you gonna be the poor, sorry motherfucker who gets ate?" Even though Dean does all of the pushups, Hoyt beats him a few more

times and stomps on his back, then tells Eric, "My money says he ain't goin' nowhere." After the kids' failed escape attempt, he leaves Dean outside with his foot caught in the bear-trap, lets Thomas deal with Eric in the basement, and ties Bailey to a bed upstairs. We then see him hovering over her, sniffing her and saying, "I love you," in a very perverted way. We can probably guess what happened after it cut away, and I have a really, really bad feeling as to why her teeth were pulled out; let's just say it might have been so she couldn't bite... something off.

We also learn that Charlie/Hoyt played a major role in Thomas' transformation into Leatherface. Even though he calls him the ugliest thing he's ever seen when he first sees him as a baby, Hoyt does seem to be rather protective of his adopted "nephew" (even though he would technically be his adopted brother, since Luda Mae is Hoyt's mother). Besides killing the sheriff when he attempts to arrest Thomas (before they find him, the sheriff repeatedly calls Thomas a "retard" and Charlie says, "He ain't retarded. He's misunderstood,"), there's a deleted scene that takes

place during Thomas' childhood where Charlie sees some kids bullying him offscreen and yells at them to get away from him. But there's also a hint that his killing the sheriff could've been him ceasing an opportunity to take total control of both his family and the now deserted town, something he might've been planning on doing for a while given how sadistic and evil he'd become by this point. Whatever the case, once he introduces the family to this more gruesome way of life, he encourages Thomas' homicidal tendencies to get things done. When he

takes the Alex's body down into the basement, Hoyt tells him, "Come on, Tommy. Ain't no different than the slaughterhouse: meat's meat, bone's bone. Get it done." He also calls on him to help recapture the kids when they're about to escape and decides to let him "play" with Eric. Most importantly, he encourages Thomas to use his chainsaw as a murder weapon for the first time, telling him that Holden is one of the bullies who used to pick on him when he was a kid, and is absolutely ecstatic when he does it. He also

gets him to use it again shortly afterward in order to amputate Monty's legs after Holden shot him. By that point, Thomas has made his first face mask out of Eric's face and when he sees it, Hoyt tells him, "I like your new face," which may have encouraged him to continue doing so with the faces of other victims over the years. And when Chrissie runs out of the house and Thomas, now having become Leatherface, chases after her, Hoyt watches with an evil sneer on his face, admiring what he's molded his nephew into, commenting, "There comes a time when every boy becomes a man." He feels he's "taught" Thomas everything he needs, and he now knows exactly how to apply it.

Finally, there's a sense that, despite how cruel and sadistic he is, Hoyt doesn't see anything wrong in what he and his family are doing. When they're about to have dinner, they say grace for, as Hoyt says, "The bounty that's been given us," then intones, "I was hungry and he gave me meat. I was thirsty and he gave me drink. I was a stranger, and he took me in." When Chrissie them asks if they, "Fuck all their relatives or just the ones they find attractive," Hoyt is genuinely offended, yelling, "You blasphemous bitch! This is redemption, lady! That's what this is. Oh,

you're all going to pay for your sins, and especially you!" Even though he could just be saying that to deflect judgement for what he and his family have done, he may also sincerely believe that they're not doing anything wrong but are just trying to survive, whereas Chrissie's generation is the one that has caused all of the evil that's going on in the world. Regardless, Hoyt does pay for some of the horrible stuff he's done, as he gets attacked by Dean and has his front teeth knocked out. Too bad Dean couldn't kill him, since he had to be alive for the remake, because I think that would've been far more satisfying. (But, Erin eventually kills him, so I guess there was retribution; it just took a while.)

While I do think it's great that they gave Ermey even more to do, I also feel that, by expanding his role so much, they short-changed the character who was supposed to be the actual focus: Leatherface. While the movie is meant to be about how the entire Hewitt family came to be, the filmmakers said many times that their primary concern was to show how Thomas Hewitt became the notorious chainsaw-wielding killer and, while we do get that to an extent, I think they could've fleshed it out much more than they did. As I said in my introduction, maybe it's my fault for having such expectations, but I was expecting to see Thomas' childhood over the years, then show him become an adult, and culminate in his becoming Leatherface. While the film does begin with his actual birth, and I do like the idea that he was literally born in a slaughterhouse, all we see of his childhood are suggestive snippets during the opening credits: his birth certificate, a medical report on his skin condition, a case-file that says he's developed a tendency to mutilate himself (which we do see a bit of during the montage), the moment where he first started wearing something around his face (a cloth in this case), a suggestion that he mutilated dead animals and used pieces of their flesh to cover his face, etc. That's all fine and dandy, and that opening credits sequence is probably the series' best, but I wanted to see those parts of his life in full detail. I wanted to see him first develop his skin disease, get picked on by other kids because of the way he looked (I really wish they had finished that scene I mentioned and put it in the movie), making him despise his face, leading him to mutilate himself and try to hide behind something else, and come full circle when he makes his first face mask. I also wanted to see how exactly he came to work at the slaughterhouse (I do like that his first kill is the very man who left him for dead right after he was born, but it might've had more impact if we saw him being mean Thomas over the years leading up to it), and so on. If they had spent more time on this than simply skipping to 1969 after the credits, I think the events of the film's latter half or so would've had a greater impact. Some might argue that would make the movie over two hours long, but so what? As one of the screenwriters for Freddy vs. Jason once said, where exactly is it written that horror films have to be around 90 minutes?

There are two others aspects of Leatherface's story that I think they could've done better. One is, as producer Mike Fleiss put it, "How did the love affair with the chainsaw begin?" Well, according to this movie, there wasn't much to it: after he kills his boss, he just sees it sitting there and tales it home with him. Other than that and a brief shot in the opening montage of him petting the blade, that's pretty much it. While I do like the idea that his adopted uncle is the person who encourages him to use it as a murder weapon, and that scene where he kills someone with

it for the first time is quite epic, they could've gone into much more depth about why he likes chainsaws to begin with. Maybe he likes how much easier it is to cut up big slabs of meat with them or admired the sheer power they project. Heck, why not show the first time he saw one working and how much it mesmerized him? Just give me more meat, is all I'm saying. The other is when he decides to make his first face mask and, again, if they'd gone into more detail about how much he hates the way he looks because of the misery it's caused him (in fact, other than the

medical report, his skin condition isn't mentioned at all), it would've made the scene where he skins Eric's face and turns it into a mask even more powerful than it already is. There is a build-up to it when he starts touching and feeling Eric's face, then touches his own, but they could've given it much so more depth. In fact, that would have added even more to a brief bit at the end of the movie. After Leatherface kills Chrissie at the end, he touches and rubs her face the same way he did Eric's, suggesting that he'll probably turn hers into a mask as well.

One thing about Leatherface that I do think they did well is the explanation of why he became such a merciless killer, that it was all due to Hoyt. Like I said, when he chases after Chrissie with his chainsaw roaring during the climax, it's the culmination of everything his uncle has "taught" him,  encouraging his psychotic tendencies by introducing the concept of cannibalism and telling him that cutting up people for meat is no different than what he was doing at the slaughterhouse. After Hoyt first encourages Thomas to use the chainsaw as a murder weapon, he wastes no

time in killing Eric with it or using it to perform "surgery" on Monty after he gets shot. And when Hoyt approves of his wearing other people's faces, it cements his transformation into Leatherface. But, all that said, I do think, yet again, that they could've done more with this, like go deeper into why Thomas is so loyal to his uncle and what exactly Charlie did that earned his complete trust and devotion. If that had been explored more, then  think that shot of Hoyt with that evil smirk on his face, watching Leatherface

chase after Chrissie, would've been more impactful. And I also think it would've been better to give Leatherface just as much screentime as Hoyt, rather than letting Hoyt dominate the entire film. In fact, Leatherface is in so little of the first two acts that I sometimes forget I'm watching a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, and by the time he skins and puts on Eric's face, there's just a little over twenty minutes left. Had they done that, this movie might be more popular among the fanbase.

I do think that Leatherface looks effectively creepy in this film. For most of the movie, he wears this thing that does look like it is actually made of leather, and which covers his face from his nose down. According to Greg Nicotero, it stemmed from an idea that Michael Bay had about Thomas wearing something akin to an old-fashioned football helmet, and that it might've been a chunk of an actual football he'd cut off. Whatever it is, it gives Leatherface a look that we haven't seen before, allowing us to see his eyes, as well as the top half of his face, and letting us make

out his facial expressions and get just how full of rage he is. Plus, he looks genuinely unnerving when he has that thing on. If a big guy with that on his face came after me, I would be pretty freaked out. And then, there's the mask he makes out of Eric's face and, like the Kemper mask featured in the remake, it's uncomfortably realistic, like he did skin off Matt Bomer's face, sew it up, and started wearing it. The shot of him in it that always gets me is when you see him standing on the stairway when Hoyt tells him that

he likes his new face. The way it's lit when he looks up at Hoyt is what makes it look all too real. It looks good in the rest of the movie as well, but that one particular shot makes me go, "Oh, God!" And physically, I think he's more impressive in that he doesn't come off as wearing an awkward suit that makes him look overly fat. In fact, it looks as though Andrew Bryniarski slimmed down a bit for this movie, which does fit with the idea of Leatherface being younger, and it also makes it feel like he would have an easier time chasing you down, even while carrying that heavy chainsaw.

Oddly, when the movie was in pre-production, I heard rumors that they were looking for a new actor to play Leatherface. I couldn't find any explanation as to why, but I read several sources that made it seem like that was indeed the case (because of his slimmer look, I thought they had cast someone else when I saw the TV spots). It wasn't until the E! True Hollywood Story on the franchise, whose debut coincided with the movie's release, that I learned Bryniarski had actually played Leatherface again. I was glad he did, as I liked his portrayal in the remake and, despite my mixed feelings about this movie, I thought he also did well here. But when I watched the making of documentary on the DVD, I began to see that, despite his passion for the role, Bryniarski is a dick, for lack of a better word. In one part of the documentary, when they talk about how they brought him back, there's an interview clip where he says, "I was born to wear the mask. There's nobody who's going to be as scary as me or bring what I can bring to this character." I had two initial thoughts upon watching that interview. One was, "What's wrong with his voice?", as he sounds weird there. And the second was, "Wow, you're an arrogant douchebag." While he did say he was born to wear the mask in the documentary on the remake, he didn't come across as arrogant but rather as someone who was very enthusiastic about playing an iconic horror character. But that latter statement rubbed me the wrong way, as I hated how he basically buried anyone else who thought they could play Leatherface. That was when I started to have second thoughts on him as a person and, as I described in my review of the remake, I would eventually learn that he pretty much is an arrogant and contemptible asshole. 

But what really pissed me off, as it did so many others, is how he utterly disrespected Gunnar Hansen when he passed away in 2015, making a sarcastic post about it on Facebook the day after Hansen's death, and when people took him to task for it, he doubled down, saying that Hansen criticized his performance while promoting Texas Chainsaw 3-D. The only thing that comes to my mind in that regard is a moment in the documentary on that film's Blu-Ray where Hansen playfully showed how differently the two of them slammed the sliding metal door. If that's all it took to make Bryniarski hold such a venomous grudge, then the guy really is a pompous, insecure dickhead (and the sad irony is that wasn't even Bryniarski who closed the door in the remake; it was an actor they initially cast as Leatherface who had to drop out when he proved unable to cope with the filming conditions). And that's not even getting into the allegations of him trying to grope women on the convention circuit or, apparently, attacking John Dugan, Grandpa from the original movie, on social media. Bottom line: I like Bryniarski's performance, but I'm not too hot on the man himself.

Marietta Marich has a bit more to do in this film as Luda Mae, making her come off as a bit more complex than she was in the remake. She's initially horrified when Hoyt introduces the idea of cannibalism to the family, as well as by some of the other hideous things that he and Thomas do, like when she first sees the latter in his face mask and when the two of them perform "surgery" on Monty. But, that said, she adjusts rather quickly, actually cooking up human body parts, as well as allowing Thomas to continue wearing his mask. In fact, she's the one who tells him to kill Bailey right at the dinner table, and allows both her and Dean to be placed there to begin with, even when she thought the latter was dead. Speaking of Bailey, Luda Mae seems to feel some weird motherly pull towards her while she's being held hostage in the kitchen, as she washes her face because they have company coming (the Tea Lady) and sings Hush, Little Baby to her. She tells her, "I never had me a little girl" (which makes me wonder exactly how Henrietta from the remake is related to her), so I guess she wanted to see what it would be like. But that doesn't stop her from allowing Hoyt to have his way with her or order Leatherface to slit her throat in order to, "Set her free," as she puts it, which adds another level of creepy to her (especially since she was cutting Bailey's hair and singing to her again at the table a few moments before). And while she does show some concern when Hoyt embarks on this new gruesome lifestyle for the family, it's not because she has any sympathy for the kids. In fact, while not as overtly so as Hoyt, she seems to have a disdain for them in general, given her dismissive attitude towards them when they enter her gas station upon arriving in town, scoffing at Bailey's statement that her gas station looked nice, and when she tells Chrisse at the dinner table, "I will not have you speak ill of this family." What she's worried about are the consequences of what they're doing, telling Hoyt that people will come looking for the kids and, after Monty gets shot by Holden, that he's created a major mess by killing the sheriff. And when it seems as though Chrissie is going to get away, Luda Mae tells Hoyt that she'll warn the authorities, right before Leatherface comes charging out of the house after her. Not the most in-depth look into a character's psyche, and like so much else, her conflict over what her family's becoming could've been delved into further, but it does give us a bit of a foundation for the person we saw in the remake.

There's not much else to be said about Monty (Terrence Evans) here that I didn't say in my review of the remake, besides his having legs for most of the film; otherwise, he's the same grumpy, crusty old man as he was there. The only major role he plays in the family's evil deeds is removing any signs of accidents on the side of the road caused by Hoyt's capturing victims. He drives a wrecker out to the spot where the kids' jeep and Alex's motorcycle are, loads them up, and takes them back to the Hewitt house, where they become the first part of the small junkyard we saw in the remake. His only other major moment is when Eric and Dean ask him for help and he says, "I don't get involved in his affairs," suggesting he's going along with Hoyt out of fear, even if it means having to eat human flesh (given how crazy Hoyt is, I can't say I blame him). Finally, though, I have to ask just what the point was in showing how Monty lost his legs. It adds nothing to the story, save for another scene of gruesome gore, and I honestly can't fathom that there were that many people who were curious as to just how it happened, because it's not that compelling of a mystery. Plus, you likely already suspected that Leatherface had something to do with it, as even Scott Kosar suggested as much in the documentary on the remake. So when you watch this movie, it's like, "Oh, so Leatherface did cut his legs off. Okay. Whatever." And the specific reason why his legs were amputated is not only nothing special, but I like Kosar's suggestion that Monty may have angered Leatherface into sawing his legs off more. 

That said, though, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel bad for Monty during the third act, as he gets put through the wringer. He's just sleeping in the living room, gets up and walks towards the doorway, only to run into Holden, who shoots him in the leg and then pins him down, threatening to blow his head off if he doesn't tell him where Alex is. Not long after that, as he's still suffering from the effects of that shot, Hoyt tells him that he's going to take care of it, only to have Leatherface come in and saw his leg off, and then saw the other one off for no reason other than because it was unbalanced. After that, he's more or less catatonic for the rest of the movie when he's sitting at the dinner table, with Luda Mae having to feed him like he's a little kid.

The last returning character from the remake is the Tea Lady (Kathy Lamkin) and she adds as much to this movie as she did that one... which is nothing. In fact, I feel that this character is even more worthless here, as we still don't know exactly how she's related to the Hewitts, and all she does is talk to Luda Mae about how important it is to keep hydrated when the weather is very hot and how much she loves, "Those little chocolates." Why is this scene necessary? Even though I didn't care for the scene with her and Henrietta in the remake, at least it served something of a purpose; this is just pointless, and it leads to a moment that's out and out silly. After getting loose, Eric bursts in to save Bailey and actually pushes the table, with the Tea Lady still sitting at the end of it, against the door so Hoyt can't get in. In short, he just used an obese person to barricade a door. Something that silly isn't good for a movie that's meant to be dead serious, particularly in a scene like this, which is meant to be tense and exciting. But, what's not so funny is that I looked up Lamkin and learned that she passed away in 2022, at the age of 74. While the reason for her death wasn't disclosed, I have a feeling it had to do with her obesity, which I made jokes about in the old version of this review. I make it a point to try not to make jokes about fat people, since I'm rather tubby myself, but in this movie especially, you see how obese she was, which makes me look tiny by comparison. But still, I now hate that I made those jokes, especially since she's no longer with us.

The other actors do okay with what they're given. The two bikers, Holden (Lee Tergesen) and Alex (Cyia Batten), are nothing more than typical hoodlums who like to terrorize and rob people. Holden especially proves to be quite capable of violence when he shoots Monty in the leg and holds Hoyt at gunpoint as he demands to know where Alex is (and that, of course, costs him his life). I do feel sympathy for Sloane (Leslie Calkins), the poor woman who gives birth to Thomas at the beginning of the movie, as she's so pitiable in how she begins crying when her water

breaks and prays for God to help her. You feel even worse for her because of how cruel her supervisor (Tim De Zarn) is. He's not in the movie much but you can immediately tell he's an asshole, as he doesn't allow her to go to the bathroom when she asks. After Sloane falls to the floor and is apparently dead, all he can say, "That's what you get for drinkin' on the job, Sloane." Let's also not forget that he puts the newborn in a dumpster outside and leaves him for dead, and that he's stupid enough to insult the full-grown Thomas when he finds him still hanging around the

slaughterhouse after it's shut down, telling him, "Your kind belong in this shithole." It never ceases to amaze me how some characters in horror films are stupid enough to hassle someone who clearly is not one to be trifled with. Did he not realize in all the years he was working there that Thomas is someone you don't push around? Moreover, did he not notice the enormous sledgehammer he was holding while standing in his office's doorway, seething? Either way, he gets what he deserves. And finally, you have Lew

Temple as the real Sheriff Hoyt, before Charlie kills him and assumes his identity. He's another guy who also had it coming. First, he makes the dumb decision to refer to Thomas as a retard, as well as something other than a human being, to his uncle. Second, he asks Charlie to come with him in order to help talk Thomas down, but when they find him, the sheriff tells Charlie to stay in the car. Well, what was the point of bringing him along, then? Perhaps he told him to stay in the car because he didn't expect to find

Thomas walking around with a chainsaw, but I think that's when you would want somebody who knows him to help finesse the situation, as he himself said. Regardless, I do like Charlie's line when he kills him: "Shit, I just killed the whole fucking sheriff's department. Damn it, I wonder what that felt like." Pretty good, as far as I'm concerned, since that character was so dumb.

One thing I can't deny about The Beginning is that it does feel as though it's taking place in the same universe as its predecessor, which is a first for this franchise. After four movies that are as different from one another in tone and style as you can get, it is nice to finally get two that are consistent. This feeling is emphasized not only by a number of the same actors returning from the remake but also because the film mostly takes place in the same area, with many of the same locations and settings, and has a similar look to

it. Instead of the bleach-bypass process, I think the visual style this time is a result of color correction and timing, as the palette is much more brown, as opposed to the remake's stark whites and tobacco greens, and the blood is not vibrantly red like it was there, but it's similar enough that it gives the movie the same sort of vibe as the remake, as well as that feeling of sweltering heat. Moreover, while the remake mostly had an ominous, foreboding, and creepy feel to it, The Beginning comes off as just nihilistic and doom-laden. You know going in that, no matter the

outcome, Leatherface and his family are not going to be brought to justice until four years after this story, and that, coupled with watching how things quickly go to hell in this small town and the Hewitts begin their reign of terror, tells you that it's unlikely any of these four young adults are making it out alive. And sure enough, by the end of the movie, when Leatherface has killed Chrissie, as well as inadvertently wiped out any potential witnesses, and heads home, you know these are just the first in a long line of people who will fall victim to them over the years.

While I don't think he's that great of a director in many respects, I will say that Jonathan Liebsman does show off a nice technical know-how and comes up with some good shots. As they mention in the documentary, he establishes for himself a tell-tale cinematic style of often shooting across or through things, like the dashboard of a car, the jeep wreckage, high grass, the Hewitt basement stairs, and such. He also does some interesting things with POVs, like one from Sloane at the beginning where you see her

vision as she looks up at her supervisor quickly blur and go black as she dies; Eric when Hoyt lunges at him and puts Saran wrap around his face, and an upside down one from him when Thomas straps him to the table in the basement and he sees Alex's butchered remains; and a memorable one from Thomas himself as he first puts on the skin mask that he made from Eric's face. Liesbman also comes up with some memorable images in general, like that of Thomas walking down the road carrying the

chainsaw, Hoyt standing in the middle of the road, waiting for their first victims, the grisly moment where Thomas saws through Eric and then peels his face off, and the final shot of Leatherface walking off into the darkness after having killed everyone. But where he truly shines in his direction is the way he shoots the wide landscapes and open roads of Texas. Early on, when the kids are traveling, those shots do come off as beautiful, especially those at sunrise when the group wakes up after sleeping in their jeep overnight. But once they're taken hostage, the

countryside gives off a sense of extreme isolation, best exemplified in the high-angle shot when Chrissie runs onto the road after everyone leaves the scene of the accident, and when she runs off from the Hewitts' property, yelling for help. When you see those miles and miles of empty countryside all around her, you realize there is absolutely no help coming and, as she tells Dean later on, there's no help to go to, either. As Matt Bomer said in the documentary, that exemplifies one of the most terrifying aspects of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies: that feeling that you are completely alone out there and will have to fend for yourself. 

If I have any issues with Liebsman's direction, it's that the cinematography tends to go a little more handheld and shaky than I'd like, and much more so than it did in the remake. While it doesn't make the movie unwatchable, I don't particularly like that approach, and there are some instances melodramatic instances of slow motion as well that I kind of roll my eyes about as well. And like the remake, the nighttime sequences can sometimes be hard to make out, especially during the climax, when there's a lot of running and quick action. In fact, I think the brown feel to the color palette makes it a little worse in this instance.

Unlike the remake, this film virtually never tries to pass itself off as an account of something that really happened, as there's no opening crawl or fake archival footage. It's only at the very end that we get any sort of narration, again from John Larroquette, that tries to establish this as a dramatization of true events: "From 1969 to 1973, the Hewitt family murdered 33 people across the state of Texas. To this day, it is universally considered the most notorious and brutally sadistic killing spree in the annals of American history: The

Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Interestingly, though, the Max On Set featurette on the film made for Cinemax did try to keep some of that faux documentary feeling, with voice actor Tom Kane first narrating about the events of the remake, saying that the investigation, "Unlocked a virtual Pandora's box of the worst sort of human depravity since Jack the Ripper, or Ed Gein," and eventually adding that, recently, "Evidence of new murders that predate the killings of 1973 came to the attention of investigators. This evidence links Thomas Hewitt and, indeed, the

entire Hewitt family to an even more depraved past that anyone could have possibly imagined." This was all within the first five minutes of the featurette, full of imagery and audio not from either of the movies, and once the behind-the-scenes stuff began, Michael Bay reiterated that most people still believe that the series is based on a true story. So, it's interesting that the marketing was picking up this motif, even if the movie itself really wasn't. That featurette, unfortunately, isn't on any of the home media releases (although it does have the same interviews as seen in the Down To The Bone documentary) but you can see it on YouTube and I would recommend checking it out if you're interested.

There are three key locations which featured in the remake that are here again in The Beginning: the Hewitt house, Luda Mae's gas station and bar, and the slaughterhouse. A major difference with the first two is that they don't feel quite as rundown or dirty as they did in the remake. They still don't come off as very welcoming, but the gas station's interior, for instance, while still having an atmosphere of it being hot and stuffy inside, isn't as disgusting and nasty, and the sight of customers sitting at the tables give it more

of a lively feel than in the remake, where it was just a dead place that no one visited. In addition, you get to see a backroom, where Chrissie and Bailey go to talk privately, and there are few more details to the immediate interior, like a deer-head on the wall, along with a good number of family photos. 

The Hewitt house is the same big plantation house it was before but, since the family has just now started cannibalizing people, it hasn't become as unkempt and unpleasant as it would become by 1973. There are no pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen or disgusting, old food inside the refrigerator, and you don't get that sense of mold in the air and in the walls that you did before. Even downstairs in Thomas' lair, while there is some water dripping and shallow puddles here and there, it's not as grimy and

waterlogged as it was before, and there are no grisly souvenirs from victims lining the walls and shelves. He also hasn't become as sophisticated at disposing of people as he eventually would since, instead of the kill table where he would put his victims so the blood could drain out, there's nothing but an old-fashioned wooden table on which he straps Eric. And while you do see some chains where Alex's butchered body is hung, there's no sign of the infamous meat hook. Even the sliding door that leads down into the place

doesn't look as sophisticated as it was in the remake, with no spyglass or anything of that nature. You also get to see some new parts of the Hewitts' property that you didn't before, such as the house's second level, where the bedrooms are, as well as some type of sitting room with French windows leading into it from the exterior landing. Since there is a dinner scene this time, you get to see the dining room, which isn't much but it is interesting to see where the family actually has dinner, with details like a couple of big animals heads on the walls. And you do see a little

more of the kitchen than you did before. And finally, there's a barn in the back, around where the clothesline is, where Eric and Dean are strung up, as well as a more definite road leading from the house to the highway that wasn't quite there originally, and you see the beginning of the dumping ground for the victims' vehicles.

The location that changed the most between films is the slaughterhouse. Whereas it was the only location in the remake that wasn't completely dirty or grimy, it's not the case here. First off, whereas there were rooms filled entirely with steel cabinets, counters, and doors in the remake, here the only steel parts are the meat-hooks and chopping utensils; everything else is wooden and you see workers chopping up pieces of meat and wrapping them the old-fashioned way, both during the opening in 1939 and the scenes in 1969.

Second, like the locations in the remake, the slaughterhouse looks like a place where, after spending a hard day's work, you'd come out feeling completely soiled. On top of that, because of how horrendously hot the weather is, it feels like you couldn't even breathe in there. You also see some other areas of the location, such as the outside where the cows graze (which you briefly saw in the remake), the spot where they're led inside and killed, which is a large room that houses tanks filled with

blood and discarded body parts, and the supervisor's office. And finally, you see the slaughterhouse during two distinct phases of its history. During the opening in 1939, while not exactly brand new, it come off as an operating business, with meat hanging on the hooks (this time, they had enough money to afford prop meat), and the exterior looking a bit glossy and recently painted. But in 1969, when it's being condemned, the outside is much more weathered, with the writing faded, and there's no more meat hanging on the inside, with everything being put away in storage.

Some may think that the slaughterhouse being up and running again during the remake is a huge plothole, that if the place did open back up, there would be no reason for the Hewitts to continue cannibalizing people. I would agree with that except, if you remember back to the specific reason why the Sawyer family in the original films resorted to cannibalism, which was the slaughterhouse being automated, I think the same thing happened here by the time of the remake. The place may have opened back up but now, everything was automated and the Hewitts still didn't have a truly respectable way to make a living. Also, the place clearly went through a major overhaul in its look between 1969 and 1973, likely because, by the time of the latter, a new meat company had taken over from the original Lee Brothers, one that probably distributed nationwide rather than locally.

The only new location is the small motel where we first meet the kids, which is a place that I think all of us can relate to. If you've ever been on long road trips, then you've undoubtedly had no choice but to stop at little hole-in-the-wall motels such as this and, as we see here, the accommodations aren't always luxurious (though I've seen and stayed in worse, I must admit). While the room we see Dean and Bailey making out in doesn't look all that bad (although it's certainly not ideal either), the swimming pool where

Eric is goofing around is definitely not something that I would swim in if I could help it. There are leaves floating on the water and, while the pool does have filters (although, I'm not sure if those were commonplace back then), the water looks more than a little green, as if the owner doesn't even bother cleaning them out. Chrissie definitely has a point when she tells Eric that the only thing he's liable to catch in there is a disease.

I went into this earlier, mostly when it came to Leatherface, but there are so many other aspects of this story that I feel the movie failed to capitalize on. For instance, they could've delved further into Charlie's wartime experiences and showed him not only being forced into cannibalism as a POW but growing to like the taste of it, rather than it just being talked about in one scene. They also could've shown what Thomas went through during the time his uncle wasn't around to protect or encourage him, and maybe

have Charlie regale him with tales of his exploits when he returns home, further influencing him and allowing Charlie to gain more control. And they definitely could've expanded upon the plot-line of Charlie getting his family to embrace cannibalism, perhaps even creating some drama with some of them, like Luda Mae and Monty, not exactly being up for it (which is hinted at with the former during the actual movie), and how they're gradually forced to comply because they have no choice or are simply beaten down about it to the point where they don't

care anymore. It also might've been interesting to see how Thomas himself embraces it and show a little more of how Hoyt's influence leads into him becoming Leatherface. But no, after the twenty-minute mark or so, we just go into the same typical Texas Chainsaw Massacre story, with the only difference being that Leatherface isn't actually Leatherface just yet. And the climax is a rather weak retread of what we got in the remake, which is even all the more disappointing.

Given how the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre had some ties to the Vietnam War in terms of its inspiration and commentary, I thought it was an interesting idea to incorporate the war into this film's story. While it doesn't go into it nearly as much as it could have, there is something of a commentary here about the effects of war, specifically the sheer fear it can cause those forced into it through the draft, especially when they've seen the effect it has on others, as Dean does with Eric. It's also interesting

how it touches on the idea that, as much as he may actually enjoy being a soldier, Eric is putting up a front of bravado to mask his own anxieties about going back into it. Also speaking of Eric, he and Hoyt are shown as two sides of the same coin, as they're both veterans but Eric is a very moral and heroic person, while Hoyt is a depraved sadist who developed a taste for cannibalism during his own wartime experience. And Hoyt's personal conflict with Eric and Dean can be seen as a microcosm of the

division and conflict between generations that was going on at that time due to the war. Being from the generation when it was generally considered an honor to serve in the military, Hoyt is enraged the minute he finds Dean's burned draft card. He proceeds to verbally and physically abuse, first Eric when he pretends to be Dean, calling him a coward and, while nearly suffocating him with the Saran wrap, yelling, "By God, I'm gonna make a soldier out of you yet! Are you ashamed of your country, Dean?... Ain't nothin' I hate worse than a draft-dodgin', hippy

protester," and then Dean himself after he confesses, forcing him to do pushups to prove himself, while mercilessly beating on him and taunting him, "Show me that you ain't as fucked up as the rest of your useless, goddamn generation." And the fact that you have R. Lee Ermey, who's not only remembered for his role in one of the quintessential Vietnam movies but also had military experience and served in Vietnam himself, doing this makes it all come full circle.

As for its depiction of the time period, like the remake, the movie does a fair job when it comes to the setting, though that's pretty easy, seeing as how 98% of it is confined to just one general location. I also like that they incorporate biker gangs, which were prevalent at that time. But, unfortunately, also like the remake, I don't buy that these young adults are from that era; in fact, I think it's even worse here, as I really don't believe that these four are of the youth generation that was prevalent in the late 60's.

They don't dress like kids from that period (no bell-bottoms, long, hippie-style hair, or anything like that), talk like them, and certainly don't physically look like them. Seriously, that scene in the motel room, where Bailey strips down to her bra and panties in order to have kinky sex with Dean, as nice as it is to watch, feels more like something you'd expect to see in a modern day slasher movie than a movie that's meant to be taking place in the 60's. Not to say that kind of thing didn't happen in the 60's, but I doubt it was happening between two people with the bodies of

Abercrombie & Fitch models (by the way, isn't it amazing that we didn't get a scene like that in this series earlier than six movies in?). It makes me glad that Platinum Dunes eventually shifted away from not only just remaking classic horror movies but also from doing movies set in a specific time period, as it's clear they cared more about casting people who appeal to modern day audiences rather than going for historic authenticity. (They also use some songs on the soundtrack that hadn't been written yet in 1969, but since they're not actually playing on a radio or mentioned by the characters this time, it's not that big of a deal.)

Aside from the filmmakers dropping the ball when it came to telling us the backstory of Leatherface and the Hewitt family, my other major issue with The Beginning is that it really is just 90 or so minutes of sheer unpleasantness. More to the point, it's a prime example of that so-called "torture porn" trend in horror films around this time, which I never liked but, regardless, became very prevalent after Saw and Hostel were both enormous hits, with so many horror films over the next three or four years revolving

around watching people suffer in all sorts of horrific ways. I know these were hardly the first movies to ever depict people being tortured, with the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre itself definitely having elements of it, but the movies during this period just reveled in it and it got old really fast. While I did enjoy the original Saw, due to its elements of thriller/mystery, I never understood the appeal of watching somebody being slowly mutilated, getting their fingers and toes cut off, their tongue and eyeballs removed, and so on. Granted, the makeup effects in

those movies are often well done, as they are here, but I can only watch that kind of stuff for so long before I start to wish it would just end. And since this came out just nine month after Hostel, the filmmakers thought they had to outdo it in terms of sheer gore and unpleasantness. Personally, while I do personally find the gory stuff in Hostel harder to watch, The Beginning does get to me more emotionally because the victims, save for the supervisor and the bikers, are actually likable, unlike the three douchebags in Hostel. 

Like I said up above, and in my review of it, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre definitely had instances of torture in it, like Pam being hung on the meat-hook and the physical abuse that Sally is put through. And there were certainly elements of it in the other films, like Michelle's hands being nailed to the chair in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, all of the abuse that Jenny and Heather were put through in The Next Generation, and what Andy went through in the remake, but, save for The Next

Generation (which, weirdly enough, I find to be more mean-spirited than this, due to the lack of gore and instead just how sadistic and abusive Vilmer is, as well as the sheer unbridled insanity and weirdness of that film) it never felt as excessive to me as it does here. This movie truly wallows in its torture scenes, to where they go on and on, like Eric and Dean being strung up and abused, Hoyt beating the crap out of Dean as he does those pushups, Dean stepping in a bear-trap and screaming in pain, while Thomas carries Bailey inside on an hook, and when Eric is

strapped to the table in Thomas' lair and he slices his shirt off with a knife, flays his arm open, and so on. Some of you may feel I'm being overly sensitive about this, and it's possible that I am, but I just feel this movie lingers on the characters' suffering for far too long and it makes me wish it would just end.

Like I said up above, I can't deny that the makeup effects, courtesy of KNB, are very well done, and they had plenty of stuff to do as, unlike the remake, this film is wall to wall gore. And they start right off the bat with the birth of Thomas Hewitt, with Sloane going into labor and amniotic fluid and blood leaking down from between her legs, followed by the slimy, deformed baby crawling out afterward (apparently, she wasn't wearing underwear). I've heard some criticize the way the latter looks, but I've seen similar

images that looked far worse, and the few glimpses of it that you get are partially obscured. The first kill, where Thomas beats the slaughterhouse supervisor to death with a big sledgehammer, has some very wince-inducing shots of the guy's legs getting smashed and broken by the hammer, before he's finished off by getting bashed right in the head. The death of the real Sheriff Hoyt and Alex the biker are nothing special, as they both get shot, but what becomes of their bodies afterward is truly gruesome. You see how the former's body parts have been cooked up into a stew,

and when Thomas brings Eric down into the basement, you see the horrific image of Alex's chopped up body, with her arm and leg missing, hanging off some chains. The jeep accident that the kids get into happens when they slam into a cow that's crossing the road, resulting in an explosion of gore (though he'd never admit it, I have a feeling that inspired Rob Zombie for a similar moment in his second Halloween movie). During the kids' botched attempt at escaping from the Hewitt house, you see some grisly images like Dean getting his foot caught in a bear-trap and Thomas stabbing Bailey right above her chest with that hook and carrying her into the house with it.

Things really get gruesome when Thomas takes Eric down into the basement. After he straps him to the table and inspects his face, there's a moment where he flays Eric's right arm to the point where it's nothing but a mass of exposed muscle and tendons. Later, Thomas kills Holden by shoving him down on top of his chainsaw, starting it up, and then yanking it upward, slicing the guy's torso in half and splattering blood on everybody else, with an added shot of his blood flowing across the floor afterward. And then

there's the kill that really gets to me: Thomas puts his chainsaw right through Eric's chest and then proceeds to skin his face and turn it into his first mask. The bit with the chainsaw is just a typical gory kill, albeit very intense, with a lot of nasty bone and flesh crunching sound effects, but the flaying of the face is truly sick and made me go, "Aah!", when I first saw it. It's not bad enough that we see Leatherface cutting along the sides of Eric's face, with blood oozing out, but once he's done cutting, we see a backlit, reverse

shot of him pulling it off, with slimy, stringy stuff running from the face to where it used to be, which is so damn gross. He then takes the face in his hands and brings it over to his chair and workbench, where he proceeds to sew and stitch it into the mask. Just like with the Kemper mask in the remake, this mask, as I said, is unsettling in how realistic it looks, both when it's by itself and when Leatherface is actually wearing it. This whole scene is so nasty that, while the rest of the gore and kills in the movie are good, they don't have anywhere near the same visceral

impact. Leatherface slicing off Monty's legs with the chainsaw does look pretty realistic, and the same goes for the visual of his bloody stumps. When Luda Mae and Hoyt are preparing dinner, there are some small but icky shots of fingers lying on the floor, as well as a sickly funny exchange about whose tongue Luda Mae has at one point, which Hoyt says is from Holden. At the dinner table, we see that horrific visual of Bailey's teeth having been yanked out, which is soon followed by Leatherface slicing her throat open with a pair of scissors and a lot of blood flowing out all over the table. 

There isn't much to say about the effect when Hoyt's front teeth get knocked out but it looks good enough, and the vats of blood that Chrissie hides in at the slaughterhouse are pretty disgusting-looking, with the chunks of meat floating in them and the sound of buzzing flies. Dean gets killed when Leatherface shoves his chainsaw through his back and out his front, sort of the reverse of what Lefty did to Leatherface during the climax of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. He even lifts Dean's body up and lets the

saw grind his insides up a little more, before throwing him aside and continuing to chase after Chrissie. Speaking of which, her death is kind of the same thing: Leatherface puts his chainsaw through the back of the driver's seat in the car she commandeers and it slices all the way through her. You've seen kills like that before, so whatever. But, as I'll get into later, the context of this death really aggravates me, as it's the first instance of a certain horror trope in this series that not only feels totally beneath it but also just doesn't work in this instance.

Like I said, the movie wastes no time in getting gruesome. Opening in August of 1939, at the Lee Brothers slaughterhouse, we see the woman named Sloane wrapping pieces of meat, when she suddenly grabs her stomach and asks her supervisor for a bathroom break. The man doesn't respond, but just looks at her through his office's window, as she grabs the crucifix she's wearing and, clearly in pain, as well as horrified, exclaims, "Dear lord, help me!" Urine streams down from between her legs, followed by blood, and she then falls backwards onto the floor.

fAnother worker in the room runs to her aid, when the supervisor comes down and makes him leave. Hovering over Sloane, he makes that comment about her drinking on the job, when she suddenly begins screaming and flailing around. He tries to calm her, as amniotic fluid pours out across the floor (apparently, the floor is hot enough to where it steams), when she stops struggling almost as suddenly as she started and dies. After realizing this, the supervisor sees the deformed and barely alive baby that emerged from

her; horrified at the sight of it, he says, "Dear God, help us." In a cut, young Luda Mae Hewitt is out in the back of the slaughterhouse, scrounging around in the dumpsters in hopes of finding something edible, when she hears the sound of the baby in one of them. Opening it up and finding the infant, she scoops him up in her arms and takes him home. Showing him to Charlie, Luda Mae says, "He's so beautiful," while Charlie proclaims, "That's the ugliest thing I ever saw." 

That launches into the very awesome opening credits sequence, where we first see old family photos of baby and then six-year old Thomas Hewitt, showing the deformity in his face and him either hiding his face or someone else hiding it. The actual title is over an image of him apparently picking at his badly-deformed face, followed by his case-file and a shot of him cutting into the side of his face, which is then wrapped up in a cloth bandage. Age nine sees him taking a dead coyote or a similar animal back to his house, flaying off a chunk of it, and putting it to his

face. At age twelve, he starts working at the slaughterhouse, and we also see newspaper clippings showing that said slaughterhouse has been condemned and the town is dying as a result, as well as clippings about the drafting of soldiers into the Vietnam War. It ends with Thomas seemingly burning all the old photos of himself out of hatred and rage, along with a line from his case-file about his mental state deteriorating. This montage is enhanced immensely by Steve Jablonsky's very haunting main theme, as well as occasional uses of that original camera noise.

Come July of 1969, even though the slaughterhouse is closing down for good, Thomas is still there, chopping meat like always. Seeing this, the supervisor tells his subordinate to make him go home. The man very nervously walks down to the center of the room and approaches Thomas, telling him that the place is shutting down and that he needs to leave. Thomas does clearly hear this, as he stops for a second, but then continues chopping. Irritated, the man yells at him, "You gotta get the hell out of here, you dumb animal!" Thomas then stops in mid-chop, slowly turns

around, and approaches the man, cornering him. He tightens his grip on the meat cleaver he was using, but as the supervisor watches from his office, he simply drops it and leaves without incident. But later, as the supervisor is packing up his office, he finds Thomas standing behind him. Not intimidated like he should be, he tells Thomas to go home, then insults both him and his family. That's when Thomas attacks, whacking him with a sledgehammer and sending him to the floor, before hitting his right knee. He then

smashes one of his desk's legs, causing it to collapse on top of the man and pin him to the floor. The phone lands just within reach on the floor and the supervisor dials the operator, but before he can speak, Thomas brutally breaks his legs with the hammer, then walks around to the front of the desk. The supervisor, gasping in terror as Thomas approaches until he's looming over him, moans, "I'm your friend, Hewitt." Thomas, however, is unmoved and finishes him off by smashing his face in. The task done, he looks about the office, at several bits of cutlery, until he sees a chainsaw and heads for home, carrying it down the road.

After Sheriff Hoyt fetches Charlie to help him find and apprehend Thomas, they come upon him as he's walking down the road. Stopping his car, Hoyt gets out, telling Charlie to stay there, and approaches Thomas, telling him they don't need to make things difficult and asking him to put the chainsaw down. Thomas glances at him but turns his head away and doesn't comply, prompting Hoyt to pull his revolver on him. Charlie gets out of the car, wielding the shotgun that Hoyt stupidly left on his dashboard, and comes up behind him, telling him, "I think we got a

problem, sheriff." Hoyt turns to look and Charlie shoots him, killing him instantly. Thomas turns and looks, as Charlie tastes some of Hoyt's spilled blood, then takes his watch and hat. In the next cut, he's arrived back at the house in the sheriff's patrol car, walking in while carrying all of his personal belongings, including his uniform. He then dons the uniform for the first time in his bedroom, and after he serves the family their first meal of human meat, courtesy of the sheriff, the next day, he's parked out by the highway. He steps out in the middle of it, armed with his rifle and waiting for the first batch of victims.

After the kids stop at Luda Mae's gas station and head on down the road, they're unknowingly followed by Alex, the female biker they saw there with Holden. Eric and Dean come into conflict when the latter is caught burning his draft card, and as they argue, everyone then notices that they're being followed. Alex pulls out a gun and yells for them to pull over, and the others in the jeep argue about what Eric should do. Initially, he floors it, trying to outrun her, but when that doesn't work, he grabs a handgun out of his glove compartment and turns and points out the

back window. Before he can shoot, Chrissie yells at him and he sees that there's a cow crossing the road in front of them. Eric has no time to react and they slam into the cow, tumbling across the road and, miraculously, coming to rest right-side up. The impact disturbs a nearby flock of birds and, after a few moments of silence, Eric awakens to find Chrissie isn't in the passenger seat like before. Looking in the back, he sees that Bailey has a shard of glass in her and finds that Dean is alive but unconscious. He tumbles out of the wreck to find help, but before he

can go anywhere, Alex shows up, pointing her gun at him and determined to continue with the robbery; elsewhere, Chrissie awakens in a field of tall grass, having been thrown out of the jeep. Seeing a patrol car approaching, Alex makes Eric get to his feet and go along with her charade. But when Hoyt gets out and approaches them, carrying his shotgun, he wastes no time in blasting Alex, blowing her back against the wreck, to everyone else's shock. He immediately takes control, demanding that Bailey and Dean get out

of the back, despite Dean telling him that Bailey can't move, and hits Eric when he insists on finding Chrissie. While he forces Bailey and Dean out at gunpoint, Eric sees Chrissie in the weeds nearby and silently warns her not to reveal herself. That's when Hoyt finds Dean's half-burnt draft card and, knowing it was deliberately set since there's no fire in the wreck, demands to know which of the boys is Dean. That's when Eric, seeing how Hoyt is eying him, pretends to be Dean for his sake. Hoyt then forces

them into the back of his patrol car, making Dean put Alex's body in the passenger seat. Eric tells the others that he saw Chrissie while Hoyt is out of earshot, and after he gets into the car, blowing his nose and putting the handkerchief across Alex's face, he radios Monty to come clear up the wreck. He drives off with them, leaving Chrissie out there by herself. She runs to the wreck, first futilely trying to get it started and then searching for Eric's gun, when Monty pulls up in his wrecker. Not seeing him, she climbs in the backseat, continuing to look for the gun, when Monty backs the wrecker up against the jeep's front and prepares to hook it up.

She has to hide as he starts ripping apart the canvas behind her, and sees the gun under the seat. She reaches and fumbles for it, then has to recoil when he opens the door and searches the jeep's interior. Unfortunately for her, he spots the gun and takes it for himself, before hooking the jeep up and driving off with it, forcing her to continue hiding. Meanwhile, Hoyt and the kids arrive at the Hewitt house, which is when they truly start to realize the amount of danger they're in. Hoyt gets out with his shotgun,  momentarily leaving Alex's gun on the dashboard, but

just as Eric is about to go for it, he quickly leans back in and grabs it. When left alone, Eric and Dean try to find a way to escape the car, when Hoyt shows back up and warns them, "You kids best not be makin' a mess in my car or you'll clean it up!" He then calls Thomas out of the house, who approaches the car and, acting on Hoyt's orders, removes Alex's corpse and takes it inside. Hoyt then has him string Eric and Dean up in the barn, and shortly afterward, Monty arrives in the wrecker. He sets the jeep down in a secluded section of the property, then searches it for

anything he missed; unbeknownst to him, Chrissie has slipped out and is now hiding underneath the vehicle. As Monty walks back and forth around it, Chrissie, at one point, tries to crawl out from underneath it, only for him to step right in front of her. Though it initially looks as though he found her, he actually starts relieving himself, much to her disgust. Once he's gone, she manages to crawl out and make her way around the property. While Hoyt has Thomas begin to butcher Alex down in the basement,

he sprays Eric and Dean down with a hose, saying, "My Daddy always told me, 'You want to be a good farmer, you gotta keep your livestock clean.' A clean goat is a happy goat!" As he walks away, Chrissie peeks around the corner of the house and sees them. Knowing she has no chance of saving them by herself, she runs off to find help. And when Monty goes inside to get a beer, it's revealed that Bailey is tied underneath a small table in the kitchen.

While Eric is trying to find a way to free himself, Hoyt suddenly comes at him and completely wraps his face in Saran wrap. Seeing this, Dean desperately begs for Hoyt to let him breathe, as Eric gasps for air. Grabbing a knife, Hoyt tries to come up with a suitable punishment for "treason," when Dean finally admits that he's the one who burned his draft-card. Hoyt, acting disgusted that Dean was going to let his brother die for him, cuts a hole in the wrap right in front of Eric's mouth, allowing him to breathe. He then grabs Dean by the throat and flings him down to

the ground, before unwrapping Eric's head; Eric threatens, "I'm gonna fuckin' cut your head off," while Hoyt mockingly says, "Now, you just keep sweet-talking me, dumplin'." That's when he forces Dean out into the yard in front of the barn and gives him the opportunity to go free, if he's able to do ten pushups. Hesitating, as he's clearly trying to process this bizarre offer, Dean is then kicked in the stomach. As Eric watches helplessly, Dean begins doing them, managing to get two in before Hoyt starts beating him with his baton, first in the back, then on the inside of

his knee and his elbows (which, ow!). As this goes on, the film cuts back and forth between it and Luda Mae creepily cleaning Bailey's face while singing to her. While enduring this brutal torture, Dean receives encouragement from Eric, while Hoyt mocks and taunts him. In the end, despite the beating, with one blow causing him to only get halfway up, which Hoyt says doesn't count, Dean manages to do all ten. Not that it matters, as Hoyt beats on him some more until he can't move. Once he's done, he tells Dean that he's free to go, then stomps on his back and, ignoring Eric's angry threats, heads inside the house.

Later that afternoon, while Luda Mae is inside, talking with the Tea Lady, Eric finally manages to free himself by smashing the wooden board acting as part of the pulley that has him hanging. Upon hitting the ground, he gets his hands free, runs to Dean, gets him on his feet, and hides him elsewhere. Inside the kitchen, Bailey futilely tries to pull herself free from the table's leg, when a brick smashes through the window, startling Luda Mae and the Tea Lady. The former gets up and yells for Hoyt, who's upstairs,

when Eric comes in through the exterior door. The Tea Lady, who proves to be so fat that she's unable to stand up, starts yelling that Eric's in there, but he grabs a knife, threatens her with it, and starts cutting Bailey's ropes. Hoyt rushes downstairs, grabbing his shotgun in the living room, while Eric grabs a set of keys nearby after freeing Bailey. Seeing Hoyt stomping towards the doorway behind the Tea Lady, Eric and Bailey push both the table and her up against the door, keeping Hoyt from getting at them. Eric

gives Bailey the keys and tells her to get the truck, while he gets Dean. As they both run outside, Hoyt calls for Thomas, who hears the commotion down in the basement. He grabs a hook and stomps up the stairs, while outside, Bailey reaches the wrecker and gets in. She desperately tries to find the right key, while Eric goes to where he hid Dean and gets him on his feet. Hoyt comes running out after Bailey, but she manages to get the right key and drive away from him. However, she was so frantic that she didn't have time to close the door on her side, and just when she's

about to make it off the property, Thomas runs up alongside the truck, hooks her, and yanks her out. Elsewhere, Hoyt confronts Eric and Dean with his shotgun. Eric has Dean run off while he confronts Hoyt, daring him to shoot him. But Dean doesn't get very far before he steps in a bear-trap. His yell of agony distracts Eric, who's knocked to the ground by Hoyt. Thomas carries Bailey back inside on the hook, while Hoyt finds where Dean is trapped and tells him, "Well, well, well. It's a good thing you didn't go to Vietnam. Somethin' like this mighta happened."

Come nightfall, Dean is left out there, while inside, Hoyt has Thomas take Eric down to the basement. (While carrying him through the door, Eric futilely tries to grab onto the door-frame, which made me cringe as soon as I saw it, as I remembered what happened when Andy tried that in the remake.)

Chrissie then arrives with Holden, only for him to abandon her and go inside to find his girlfriend. Down in the basement, Eric, after being slammed atop the wooden table, sees what's left of Alex and quickly tries to escape, only for Thomas to grab him by the throat. Though he tries to fight, Thomas proves to be too strong for him, and punches him to knock him back down. After Chrissie finds Dean and learns where the others are, she sneaks in through a window on the house's back side, entering the kitchen. She

narrowly avoids being spotted by Luda Mae before she's able to slip through the door and make it past the sitting room without being spotted by Monty. However, when Monty gets to his feet and heads to the corridor outside the living room, he runs into Holden, who shoots him in his right leg. Hearing him, Hoyt comes in and, finding Monty on the floor, thinks he shot himself while fooling around with a gun. But then, Holden comes up behind him, puts his gun to his head, and orders him to take him to Alex. Hoyt

leads him upstairs and tries to yell for Thomas, but Holden tells him to be quiet. Down in the basement, Thomas flays open Eric's arm, and Chrissie hears his screams coming from behind the sliding door nearby. She tries to find a way to open it, when Thomas hears Hoyt calling for him. Grabbing his chainsaw, he heads up the stairs and exits through the sliding door, not seeing Chrissie as she hides on the floor beside the door. While she goes down there and tries to free Eric, Hoyt brings Holden to the bedroom where Bailey is being held hostage. When Holden angrily

says she's not the girl he's looking for, Hoyt's reaction is priceless: "Shit, that ain't her. You don't wanna see the other girl." Holden shoves him away and is about to shoot, when Thomas comes in and hits him on the inside of his arm with the chainsaw. He drops his gun and the two of them get into a fight, causing Thomas to drop the saw onto the floor. Like Eric, Holden has no chance against Thomas' strength, as his hand is broken and he's flung on top of the chainsaw. Hoyt comes in and holds Holden down, then tells Thomas to start the saw up. He begins cranking it and, upon

managing to get it going, saws up through Holden's body, as Bailey screams frantically with blood splattering on her face. Both Chrissie and Luda Mae here this in separate parts of the house, while Thomas yanks the saw completely through Holden's torso. Hoyt is ecstatic at this, while Thomas is now clearly emboldened, as Holden's blood pools across the carpet.

After he guts Eric with his chainsaw and skins his face, Thomas' transition into Leatherface is shot quite well. First, it's from Chrissie's POV from beneath the table, as he walks over to a workbench, removes the chunk of leather he's been wearing for the entire film, and sews Eric's face into a mask. He then gets up, stands in front of a mirror, which is so dirty that you can't make out any details in his face, and puts the mask on, tying it up on the back. He then heads upstairs when Hoyt calls for him, leaving Chrissie

alone. Getting out from underneath the table, she makes the mistake of looking at Eric's mutilated corpse. Quickly looking away and gasping in horror, she stumbles out of the basement and, when upstairs, almost leaves the house. But when she hears Bailey screaming upstairs, she knows she can't abandon her and heads up there, having to be careful since that's where the family is gathered. In the sitting room up there, Hoyt tells Monty, who's in great pain from being shot, that he'll take care of things for him. He

brings in Leatherface, the sight of whom shocks Luda Mae when she sees what he's wearing, and tells her to hold Monty, as he's not going to like what's about to happen: some impromptu surgery. Leatherface cranks his chainsaw up and, despite Luda Mae's attempt to stop him, saws right through Monty's right leg. Once it's been removed completely, Hoyt comments, "Bullshit! Look at that! Now Tommy, that's goddamn sloppy. That'll get infected. Even 'em up." And before Monty and Luda Mae can process it, the former's other leg is sawed off too. Monty basically goes into

shock, and when Luda Mae asks why he sawed the other one off, Hoyt just answers, "Balance." In the exterior corridor, Chrissie looks through the window and sees that Bailey is in the bedroom just beyond the sitting room. Accidentally knocking a metal can at her feet, she quickly crawls out to the exterior landing and looks back in. There's an effective moment when it looks as though Hoyt sees her, but it turns out that he's just looking at his reflection and wiping his face off. Chrissie then gets back down and crawls around below the window, slipping into the bedroom where

Bailey is. She manages to untie her hands, but before she can do her feet, Bailey warns her, "Chrissie, they know you're here." Hoyt appears behind Chrissie and, when she sees him, he says, "I'll have Mama throw on another plate for supper. You can stay?" Following that, Chrissie finds herself lying on the kitchen floor, half-conscious and watching Luda Mae and Hoyt prepare dinner out of various body parts, as Dean and Bailey lay on the floor around her.

Chrissie then awakens at the dining table, tied to a chair, and, seeing Luda Mae cutting Bailey's hair as she seems completely out of it, tries to get free. Failing to wake up Dean, who's sitting to her left, Chrissie proceeds to insult the family. After Hoyt admonishes her for it, he reveals that Bailey's teeth have been yanked out of her mouth. While Luda Mae feeds Monty, Leatherface walks in and she tells him to set Bailey "free." He grabs an open pair of scissors on the table and slices her throat open, sending

Chrissie into an anguished rage. Hoyt then orders him to take Chrissie downstairs and Leatherface cuts her loose and, despite her struggling and yelling, throws her over his shoulder. She yells for Dean, who doesn't reply, as she's carried out of the dining room. Along the wall, she manages to grab a small knife and stabs Leatherface in the back. He lets out a gasping howl and drops her to the floor, as he tries to reach around and pull the knife out. Chrissie runs for the front door, only for Hoyt to cut her off. She then runs into the living room and crashes through one of the windows,

tumbling onto the porch. Rolling over, she gets to her feet and runs for it. Watching her go, Luda Mae tells Hoyt that she's going to get them captured, when Leatherface suddenly comes running out, wielding his chainsaw, and chases after her. Meanwhile, inside, Dean comes to and, seeing Bailey laying on the table, dead, sits up and manages to free himself from his bonds. He attacks Hoyt when he comes back in, knocking him back out onto the front porch and bashing his head in. Once he's done, he hears the sound of the chainsaw off in the distance.

Leatherface chases Chrissie through the woods, until she comes upon the slaughterhouse. Ducking inside, she runs through the main workspace and towards the supervisor's office, where she finds his body still lying beneath the destroyed desk. Grabbing the phone on the floor, she tries to call for help but can't get a signal. She does, however, find the supervisor's car keys lying on the floor and grabs them. That's when she hears one of the sliding doors outside open and cautiously looks out the window, eventually seeing

Leatherface looking at her. She quickly grabs a discarded knife and runs out a door in the back of the office, then climbs down into the rear area of the slaughterhouse, where the cattle were actually killed. Leatherface walks in as well and calmly looks around, peering into the vats full of blood and cattle parts, unaware that Chrissie is hiding in one. He revs up his chainsaw and walks by the vat where she's hiding. Looming over it, he raises his saw, and at the same time she readies her knife, when he hears Dean 

yelling for Chrissie. Also hearing him, Chrissie lunges out of the vat and stabs Leatherface in the shoulder. Despite this, he grabs her, slams her to the ground, and drags her along by her hair to put her in position, before raising his saw to bring it down on her. But then, Dean comes rushing in behind him with a hatchet and hits him, knocking him to the floor. He goes to help Chrissie up, when Leatherface gets back up and puts his saw right through his back and out his chest. He lifts him up into the air, as Chrissie runs for it. He tosses Dean's crumpled body aside and turns his

attention back to Chrissie. He chases her on through the slaughterhouse, with her coming upon several dead-ends before finally being able to slip out through an opening behind some grating. Finding the supervisor's car, she gets in and drives away from the building, down some dirt roads, and gets back on the main highway. She sees a real policeman up ahead who's pulled somebody over, and it looks as though she's gotten away.

When I first saw the movie, I realized where it was possibly going and thought, "No, don't you dare." But it did: Leatherface pops up in the backseat and kills Chrissie with his chainsaw. First, Chrissie was well ahead of him when she got to the car and yet, even though, as I've said before, there's nothing supernatural about Leatherface, they decided to have him seemingly teleport, as Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees tend to do. If nothing else, at least it took a long time for them to apply this horror cliche to

Leatherface, but it was still disconcerting. And second, even if you suspend your disbelief and accept that he did somehow manage to get to the car before Chrissie, how in the name of God did she miss such a huge man with a big chainsaw lying in the backseat? You'd have to be all but blind to not see him and, in fact, they initially realized how preposterous this is and first filmed it so that he stabs her with a knife instead, but, because Leatherface's signature weapon is his chainsaw, and ignoring that he has killed with

other weapons before, including in this very film, they re-shot it with the saw. And even if you can buy that she didn't see him, how did he line that saw up with the back of the driver's seat and crank it up without being seen or heard?

Regardless, the car careens right at both the police officer and the man he's writing up, slamming into and killing them instantly. The car comes to a stop on the other side of the road and, breathing heavily, Leatherface reaches up front and creepily caresses the side of Chrissie's face. He then gets out of the car and walks down the road, past the wreckage, and heads for home.

Unlike the remake, The Beginning had an unrated version that was released on DVD separate from the theatrical version. What's surprising, though, is that, unlike most unrated versions, the additions, which make this one run just under six minutes longer than the R-rated version, have little to do with gore (which doesn't really surprise me, given how this movie is gory as hell in its regular version). Instead, it's mostly extended dialogue and additional material that actually enrich the movie a little bit. For instance, when the kids are first driving down the road in their jeep, they get harassed by the motorcycle gang they later run into at the gas station. They drive up alongside them, hit and kick the sides of the jeep, grab at the girls, and Holden and Alex have a more impactful introduction here, with the latter making an obscene gesture. This explains why Chrissie and Bailey look so uncomfortable when they see them at the gas station. Speaking of which, when we get to that scene, Alex makes a disparaging remark about the girls, while Holden tells her to just leave them alone. When the real Sheriff Hoyt takes Charlie to find Thomas, he's shown to be something of a pervert himself,

telling Charlie how you can make a horse "organism" using your finger and admits he wouldn't mind doing it himself. The first dinner scene is longer, with Hoyt having more to say about how they're going to stay there, as well as about the families who've left, with shots of Thomas standing in the background. Hoyt also prays and invites Thomas in to join them. Following the accident, Hoyt actually fondles Bailey's breasts when he makes her and Dean get out of the car, then yanks a shard of glass out of her, as she screams and curses at him for this. On the way to the

Hewitt house, there's more dialogue between Hoyt and the kids, with him mentioning his military experience, as well as telling Bailey to be quiet when she questions him about why he's not reading them their rights. When we first see Bailey tied to the table in the house, we see her notice the keys to the wrecker, as well as freak out when she sees Thomas watching her from a doorway. Hearing her gives Eric more incentive to try to get free. And when Hoyt makes Dean do pushups, he mocks him some more and makes him do twenty, and there is a bit more to the beating.

There are some extra instances of nastiness in the unrated version, though, like more amniotic fluid and blood when Sloane gives birth, and more shots during Holden's death, including some of his sliced open torso. The same goes for Eric's death and his face-flaying, the amputation of Monty's legs, and Bailey's death, and when Chrissie stabs Leatherface in the back, you see blood run out, which you don't in the theatrical version. You also see more when Dean is killed, and when Chrissie gets it, there's a new shot of the saw blade jutting out of her front.

As with the remake and most of Platinum Dunes' horror films at that time, The Beginning was scored by Steve Jablonsky, and while I don't like this score quite as much as the remake's, it's still very effective. The best part of it is the creepy, menacing main theme that plays over both the opening and first part of the ending credits, as well as during the sadistic pushups. It captures the movie's feel of impending doom and nihilism, as well as this series' nightmarish reality, perfectly, and works so well with the horrific, suggested images we see behind the opening credits. It's almost enough to make me forgive the fact that I wanted to actually see that stuff in full detail (emphasis on "almost" though). For the most part, Jablonsky forgoes the themes he created for the remake, although he does incorporate them into the score sporadically. Most notably, he takes one piece of music from it and makes it an orchestral motif for scenes like when Thomas is walking away from the slaughterhouse with his chainsaw and when he makes his first chainsaw kill, giving the latter a very epic and monumental feel. That latter version is used to close out the movie, as Leatherface, having killed Chrissie, walks back home, and John Larroquette tells us how many people the Hewitt family killed over their four year reign of terror. It gives the feeling that this truly is just the beginning of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Similarly, when Hoyt parks his car on the side of the road, waiting for his first victims to come by, that music indicates that the nightmare truly is about to begin. And finally, theme that plays when Thomas skins Eric's face and makes it into a mask is a low, downbeat piece that both signifies Eric's horrific fate and the true birth of a monster. But as good as that music is, the "scare" and chase scenes are scored with a rather forgettable, generic piece that feels like a watered down version of what Jablonsky came up with for the remake, like he was just going through the motions, which is a shame.

While Sweet Home Alabama was the only notable song on the remake's soundtrack, this film has a couple of more at the start, like All Right Now by Free during the scene at the motel where the kids are introduced, and Vehicle by Ides of March when they leave and are driving down the road. Like I said before, these songs didn't exist in 1969, but I don't really care, especially in regards to the latter, as I absolutely love that song (this movie was the first time I ever heard it, but I know associate it more with the Sylvester Stallone movie, Lock-Up). There were some other songs on the soundtrack, like The High and Low of the Blues by Ginseng Jukes, Nobody Knows The Trouble I've seen by Dan Ostermann, and A Church At The Foot Of The Hill by the Dixon Brothers, but like the country songs featured in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they're more in the background and not really something you're supposed to pay attention to. That said, at the very end of the credits, you can just make out one of those songs playing in the distance, which is rather eerie.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is far from the worst this franchise has to offer, but it's not among the best, either. While I would definitely watch it over The Next Generation any day (I'm never watching that thing ever again, though, so it's not much of a contest), as well as the later movies, it still frustrates me that they squandered the opportunity to really go into how the Hewitt family and Leatherface became the monsters that they are. Instead, they just touch on those details in a very rudimentary manner and then, after the first twenty minutes, go for the

most typical plot-line that you can get with this franchise, as well as delve into the "torture porn" trend, making for a very unpleasant film in many respects. Also, Chrissie isn't one of the better heroines we've had in this series, and the climax feels like a ho-hum retread of the remake's. Now, the movie does have a lot of strengths, like the returning characters and actors, especially R. Lee Ermey as Hoyt and Andrew Bryniarski as Leatherface, some likable characters in the four adults, a great use of the location (so far, this is the last one of these movies to actually be shot in Texas) and the settings we saw before, very gnarly gore and grisly imagery, some interesting use of the Vietnam War and the culture around it in the story, another good music score, and, if nothing else, this and the remake are the two movies in this series that feel the most alike in terms of visuals and tone. But, while I feel the remake is a great flick and a nice companion piece to the original, every time I watch The Beginning, I come away with the feeling that it could've been so much better than it is.