Franchises: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Leatherface (2017)

This is where I really began to lose my patience with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise's inability to maintain any kind of straightforward continuity. Since Texas Chainsaw 3-D, while certainly not a blockbuster success on the level of the original film, the 2003 remake, or even The Beginning, made $47 million on a budget of $20 million, I figured that producer Carl Mazzocone would get to make the six movies he told Kim Henkel and Robert Kuhn he felt he could make. And even though I wasn't a big fan of that movie, I likely would've watched them anyway, simply out of obligation. But, time passed and nothing else came about or was announced, and I even heard Dan Yeager, who played Leatherface in that film, say that he doubted another one would be made, at least in that timeline. Still, you'd think I'd know by this point not to count any of these horror franchises out, even when it seems like they're dead and buried, but, at the time, I did figure, "Well, I guess that's that." If nothing else, I figured there probably wouldn't be another for a good long while. But then, at some point, I heard there was another Chainsaw coming, and also learned two things about it that made me facepalm and shake my head. One, was that they were just calling it Leatherface, regardless of how there had already been a movie with that as the main title, and two, that it was another prequel, only this time to the original. Hearing the latter especially made me groan, "Jesus Christ, this franchise needs to just die." It really felt like they had nothing left to do with the property and were just going around and around with it, like they were chasing their own tail. So, even more so than Texas Chainsaw 3-D, I had no interest in seeing this, either in its limited theatrical release or through VOD, where most people saw it. And, also like that film, the only reason why I did see it was because I found the Blu-Ray cheap at McKay's about a year after it first came out and figured, "Why not?" 

Going in, I'd heard some snippets of reviews that didn't do much for my enthusiasm. I knew it was a road movie in the vein of Natural Born Killers or The Devil's Rejects, with Stephen Dorff playing a character similar to the one that William Forsythe played in the latter. And I also heard that it tried to keep the identity of the character who would eventually become Leatherface a secret, but threw an all too obvious red herring into the mix. Thus, when I watched it and saw what characters we were following, I had a hunch as to who was Jedidiah Sawyer, and I turned out to be right. I don't remember what my exact opinion of the movie was upon that first watching but I know I didn't particularly care for it and, just days before starting this review, had never watched it again. But I have to admit, I was kind of looking forward to revisiting it, especially when I read Tim Murr's print-on-demand book from Amazon, Texas Is The Reason: Five Decades of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and he felt it was the best movie in the series since the first three. I thought that maybe there was something about it that I missed the first time around and, upon re-watching it, I would come to appreciate it more. Having now watched it a total of three times, I will say that, of the entries we've gotten since the Platinum Dunes years, this is definitely the most accomplished one. While still far from perfect, and not a movie I could ever see myself watching again after this review, I don't think it has the writing problems of the previous one and, while it certainly has its fair share of depraved and unlikable characters, it doesn't have any that are so stupid or annoying that I want them to die as quickly as possible. There are also some really good performances here, and this definitely has to be the nastiest entry, not just in terms of gore, which is plentiful, for sure, but also because there are some truly stomach-churning images and situations here. But, just like with The Beginning, where this movie fails is how it decides to tell the story of Leatherface's origin, which is definitely not what you'd expect but also isn't that satisfactory, either.

Texas, 1955. On the night of his birthday at the Sawyer farm, young Jedidiah is gifted with a chainsaw and encourage by his family to use it to kill a man being held captive after supposedly trying to steal the family's livestock. However, Jed is unable to bring himself to do it, forcing Grandpa to finish the man off by clubbing him in the head. Shortly afterward, young couple Betty Hartman and Ted Hardesty are out for an afternoon drive, when Ted nearly hits something in the road. Getting out, Betty finds it's a young boy wearing a cow's head. The boy yells for help, then runs off into a field and towards a rundown barn, where she falls into a deadly trap and is murdered by Jed's older brothers, Drayton and Nubbins. Betty's father, Sheriff Hal Hartman, later arrives on the scene and, distraught over what's happened, and not having enough evidence to arrest Drayton, decides to get back against Verna, the family matriarch, by taking Jed into protective custody. He then sends him to the Gorman House Youth Reformatory, an institution for mentally disturbed children. Ten years later, a young nurse named Elizabeth "Lizzy" White begins working there, and meets Bud, a large, mentally stunted young man, and Jackson, a polite, well-spoken, and seemingly gentle patient whom she forms a bond with. She also learns from him that the ECT chamber has a horrific reputation among the patients. Meanwhile, Verna visits the facility's director, Dr. Lang, with her lawyer, Barry Farnsworth, wielding a court order to allow her family to visit Jed. Lang, however, dismisses it, much to Verna's fury. On the way out, she feigns going to the restroom in order to violate security and enters the wards to find Jed. In doing so, she causes an escape riot, during which Bud escapes the cruel electroshock therapy he's being put through, makes his way to Lang's office, and brutally murders him. At the same time, Jackson saves Lizzy from being murdered, only for the two of them, along with Bud, to be taken hostage by Isaac and Clarice, two extremely violent patients who take Lang's car. Ike intends for them to flee to Mexico, and he and Clarice leave a trail of murder and mayhem in their wake. Meanwhile, Hartman, figuring one of the escapees is Jed, is on their trail, and when he catches up to them, circumstances will lead to one of them ending up on the road to becoming the chainsaw-wielding madman known as Leatherface.

Seth M. Sherwood

Even though Millennium Films, one of the production companies behind Texas Chainsaw 3-D, announced that there would be a sequel not long after its release, it was later clarified that that statement had been premature. It's never been made clear as to exactly why a simple sequel to that film was never produced, but I've read speculation that it could've been due to the writing problems with it, particularly how Heather ended up being so much younger than she should've been, as well as the overall negative reaction by fans. In any case, the idea for this film came from screenwriter Seth M. Sherwood, who didn't have much to his credit at the time aside from some shorts and obscure television, as well as having been involved with 2016's London Has Fallen. However, that didn't stop the producers and the studio from going with his concept, which was to do something completely different than just another sequel to the original film (and, for better or worse, he definitely got that), as well as show how Leatherface completely lost any sense of identity. Many people who were involved with the previous film, including producer Carl Mazzocone and director John Luessenhop, are credited on this film as producers, along with Kim Henkel, Robert Kuhn, and Tobe Hooper. What's really sad in regards to the latter is that, by the time Leatherface finally got released in late summer and fall of 2017, Hooper had passed away. In fact, I think this may have been the last movie he was ever involved with in any capacity, but either way, it's a shame that he's left us.

After being attached to both the Halloween and Hellraiser franchises at various points, only for nothing to come of either, French filmmaking duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo were finally able to put their own stamp on an American horror franchise when they were hired to do Leatherface. The two of them are best known for their debut film, 2007's Inside, a movie that I've never seen and don't particularly want to, as the premise is the exact kind of subject matter I don't like to deal with. In-between that film and Leatherface, they did two other horror films, 2011's Livid and 2014's Among the Living, as well as a segment of the anthology film, ABCs of Death 2, also in 2014. Though I haven't seen any of those either, I knew enough about Maury and Bustillo's reputation to know going in that Leatherface would probably be the sickest and most gruesome film in the series, and I think I was pretty much right. In fact, I'm baffled when I look up reviews and see some critics saying this isn't as gory as some of the previous Chainsaw movies, which makes me wonder if they saw the same movie that I did. Regardless the filmmakers responded well to Sherwood's script and how different it was from the other films, but also did some rewrites, altering every death scene, as well as the ending. In the years since, they've directed two other films: 2020's Kandisha and The Deep House the following year.

Since it's always been assumed that Leatherface was born mentally handicapped, the direction that Seth Sherwood decided to take the story in his screenplay is definitely an interesting one. When the movie opens, we see Jedidiah Sawyer as a little kid (Boris Kabakchief), around eight years old, enjoying a birthday dinner with his family, when Verna presents him with a chainsaw and encourages him to use it to kill a man whom they've got tied up at the table after he supposedly tried to steal their pigs. But Jed, despite his family egging him on and Verna telling him that the man is one of the "bad people" attempting to break their family apart, is reluctant to go through with it. He only maims the man's leg, and that's because Drayton pushes him while he's holding the saw. In the end, Jed can't kill him, leaving it to Grandpa. Though his family is disappointed, Verna assures him that they'll always be there for him. Then, not long afterward, Drayton and Nubbins have Jed act as bait to lure a victim to a rundown old barn, where they murder her after she falls into their trap. Despite their encouragement, he's still clearly not a fan of what they're doing, as he watches Betty lying helpless before the others drop an enormous engine block on top of her. But because they murdered the daughter of Sheriff Hal Hartman, he retaliates by taking Jed into custody and sending him to the Gorman House Youth Reformatory.

When we catch back up with Jed ten years later, he's now in his late teens and has been renamed Jackson (Sam Strike). This is where the film really goes against expectations, as instead of the hulking, mentally challenged Bud, the man who will eventually become Leatherface is a fairly good-looking, well-spoken, mild-mannered young guy who looks out for Bud, his only friend, and quickly bonds with Lizzy White, the new nurse at Gorman House. Upset when Bud gets in trouble simply for defending Lizzy from the extremely violent Isaac, and knowing what he's about to be put through, Jackson tells her about the ECT chamber, aka "Dr. Lang's Chamber of Horrors." Though Lizzy does eventually learn the truth, Verna's attempt to rescue Jed after she's been denied leads to an escape riot where Lizzy and another nurse attempt to escape, only to get ambushed by an inmate. Said inmate kills the other nurse, but before he can do the same to Lizzy, Jackson comes to the rescue. Earlier, there was a hint of a real rage bubbling beneath his placid surface when he argued with Lang about what happened between Bud and his former foster family, but here, we see how violent he can really be, as he brutally stomps that inmate's head in while yelling ferociously. The sight of this frightens Lizzy, but when he then helps her up and leads her out, she doesn't resist. Upon getting outside, they're taken hostage by Isaac and Clarice, and while Jackson isn't about to take it lying down, Lizzy convinces him not to try anything. Regardless, he continues looking out for both Bud, who's taken along with them, and Lizzy, blocking the perverted Ike's view of her as she slips out of her nurse's uniform and into some civilian clothes. When Ike tells them of his plan for them to head to Mexico and then go their separate ways, he adds that they'll stop at his mother's house along the way, and then asks Jackson if he's got family he wants to look for. Be it because he doesn't really remember them or doesn't want to go back to their monstrous way of life, Jackson says no and that he's willing to go to Mexico.

When they arrive at a roadside diner, where Ike and Clarice plan on robbing and murdering everybody there, and Jackson and Lizzy are forced to play along, Jackson, as he sits at a separate table with Lizzy, laments, "I wish this was just normal. I wish we were just two people... here at a diner, you know. And I wish I was somebody else." During the blood-soaked chaos that breaks out, Jackson is just as horrified as Lizzy, and also tries to save one guy's life when he runs for it. However, all he does is block the man's

exit and he, instinctively, punches Jackson, prompting him to punch back. Bud also gets shot in the chaos, and after they escape, he's Jackson's main concern. When they take refuge in an abandoned trailer in the woods, he comforts Bud as Lizzy sees to his wound, and later puts a blanket on him when he falls asleep, telling him, "You're sure lucky I love you." He also gets Ike off Lizzy's back when he insists that she's seen their files and knows where their real families are, again insisting that Bud is all the family he needs.

He later saves Lizzy from Ike's wrath when he catches her attempting to escape that night, fighting with and overpowering him until Clarice appears with a shotgun. Regardless, Jackson protects Lizzy when Clarice turns the shotgun on her. The next day, when Clarice is unable to find Ike, Jackson and Lizzy, upon seeing that Bud's gone, realize what might've happened. Though Lizzy sees this as a chance for them to escape, Jackson is intent on finding and protecting Bud, knowing Clarice will kill him. Sure enough, the two of them find Bud sleeping beside the

body of Ike, whom he brutally murdered. Upon getting Bud on his feet and moving, the three of them take cover when Clarice is captured by Sheriff Hartman and his posse. Jackson warns Lizzy that Hartman is bad news, that he broke his nose once and filled up Gorman House almost single-handedly. When Hartman kills Clarice, Lizzy panics and runs off, forcing Jackson and Bud to run after her. 

Though they manage to evade the posse's dogs, when Lizzy flags down a passing police car, it results in Bud's death when he attacks the officer. With that, Jackson completely snaps. He brutally kills the officer while screaming maniacally, and has to climb into the car when Lizzy, now terrified of his rage, tries to drive off without him. He has a very violent mental breakdown in the passenger seat, and when Lizzy calls him insane, he seethes, "You're just like everybody else. You fuckin' liar! Why'd I think you'd

be any different?" Then, Hartman pursues them, shooting at them, and one of the bullets blows open a massive, gaping wound in Jackson's left cheek. Lizzy is also shot and crashes the car, after which the two of them are abducted by Hartman. Hartman takes them back to the barn where Betty was murdered and, after telling Lizzy who Jackson really is, makes clear his intentions to kill him. When Verna, Drayton, and Nubbins show up, Hartman drops Jed down into the same pit where they killed Betty, but the Sawyers

manage to overpower Hartman and get Jed out of the pit. When they're back home, Verna sews up Jed's wounds and puts a tight muzzle on his face to hold everything in place until he heals. Now mentally destroyed and unable to speak, he's much more in line with the traditional depiction of Leatherface, as he does whatever his family tells him. Verna gives him the chainsaw they presented him with as a child and, telling him that outsiders always lie, encourages him to kill Hartman and Lizzy, whom they've taken prisoner. Jed mutilates Hartman, and when Lizzy

manages to escape into the woods, he joins Drayton and Nubbins in pursuing her. Lizzy eventually gets caught in a bear-trap and, when Jed prepares to kill her, she tries to reach the person she once knew. For a moment, Jed is seemingly torn between Lizzy's appeals to his humanity and Verna calling her a lying bitch. He even seems to respond to her... until she insults Verna, prompting him to behead her. The movie's last scene shows him down in the house's basement, making his first skin-mask, likely out of Lizzy's face, and putting it on. However, he seems to despise the way it looks, as he immediately smashes the mirror.

Even more so than Texas Chainsaw 3-D, Leatherface does deserve props for doing something other than just the typical plot for this franchise, and not only does Sam Strike give a really good performance as Jed/Jackson but it is affecting to watch this likable guy with a potentially gentle soul go through so much trauma until he ends up losing all sense of himself and become a prototype for the mindless, voice-less beast we were introduced to in the original 1974 film. But, like with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The

Beginning, I feel that, while the movie did have a good idea for Leatherface's origin story, the execution wasn't as great as it could've been. While I do like the idea that he started out with his mental faculties intact, what I wanted was to see how his life with his sadistic, cruel family led him to lose his sense of identity to the point where he stops speaking and feels the need to wear other people's faces. But, while we get a bit of that at the beginning when he's a little kid, it instead comes about mostly due to events that

happen offscreen, during his ten years at Gorman House. It is interesting how, by the time we catch up with him in his late teens, he's become much more mistrusting of strangers and adults in general due to what Dr. Lang and the staff have put him through, but what I wanted was to see his family pound this notion into his head, perhaps attempt to break up a friendship between Jed and somebody from the outside, or see that friend momentarily turn against him because of who he is and the emotional troubles he has, as Lizzy does here, convincing him that his family was right.

Also, the way Jed loses his mental capabilities and becomes the dangerous man-child who does whatever his family says feels very rushed and sudden. While we see how enraged and emotionally broken he is over Bud's death, and can understand that Hartman shooting him in the face was the trauma that finally shattered him completely, within just a few hours of that happening, he's now willing to do whatever his family (whom he hasn't seen in ten years and, because of his trauma, now probably shouldn't even remember), particularly Verna, wants and chainsaws

Hartman, before chasing down and killing Lizzy. I think they should've focused a little more on Verna and the others using this to their advantage in order to manipulate him, and show that he's initially still torn over doing it, before the final remnants of Jackson erode somehow and he fully becomes Leatherface, as you get a sense of when he has Lizzy at the end and she insults Verna. Like with The Beginning, this might've pushed the movie to around the two-hour mark but I still don't see what the problem is with that.

I also have mixed feelings about Leatherface's signature weapon being something that was forced upon him. While it does fit with the narrative that he was initially reluctant to partake in his family's horrific crimes, I prefer the idea in The Beginning, that he's always had an affinity for chainsaws... I just wish that movie had gone further into it. Speaking of the remake continuity, this film seems to similarly imply that the main reason why Jed begins wearing other people's faces is because his own is horribly

disfigured, this time by getting shot. You could also surmise that the trauma from it that destroyed his mental capacity also led to the original conceit that he assumes the identity of whatever face and outfit he has on, but it does mostly come off like he's just trying to hide his disfigured face from the world because he's ashamed of it. And unlike The Beginning, there's no lead in or allusion to him first getting the idea to do it; the movie just ends with him suddenly making his first skin-mask, likely out of Lizzy's face. Again, this is another missed

opportunity, and they could've really gone into him beginning to develop that multiple personality complex when he first got the idea of the masks. And finally, not only was there no reason for the filmmakers to try to hide the teenage Jed's identity, it hurts the very story that they're trying to tell. For one, the character of Bud is such an obvious red herring that it's distracting, but, for another, if you do watch this movie thinking he's the young Leatherface, you're going to be focusing on him rather than Jackson, and so, when he gets killed and Jackson is revealed to be Jed, you'll be so shocked and trying to process it that Jed's mental and emotional degeneration won't be as effective as it could've been.

Despite the title, you're not going to get anything close to the traditional look and feel of Leatherface here, with it only being hinted at in the very end. But, again, it does help this movie stand out from the pack. And like the face-covering that Thomas Hewitt wore throughout much of The Beginning, the stitching and muzzle that Verna puts on Jed's face does have its own unique kind of unsettling nature, and Sam Strike manages to work well with it to make it as skin-crawling as possible. And the mask that he makes at the end of the movie, which could possibly be the "Pretty Woman" mask he wore during the original's third act, is obscured in low lighting and we don't see much of it, but what we do see is effective enough.

As much of a blatant red herring for the young Leatherface as he is, though, Bud (Sam Coleman) is actually a pretty good character. You really get the sense that, as big, strong, and potentially dangerous as he is, he's genuinely misunderstood and doesn't really want to hurt anyone. According to Dr. Lang, Bud bludgeoned a member of his last foster family until they ended up in a coma, but Jackson insists it was because they took away his dog. While Lang has a point when he says that's not an excuse for such violence, you get the sense that there's more to the story that we don't ever hear. In any case, upon meeting Lizzy when she first arrives at Gorman House, Bud, like Jackson, appears to take a liking to her and protects her when Isaac assaults her. This gets both of them sent down for some needlessly cruel electroshock therapy, with Bud enduring it first. But during the escape riot, he manages to break free of his bonds and attacks the two orderlies guarding him, knocking one unconscious and bashing the other's brains in. He then heads up to Lang's office and, when Lang makes the mistake of whacking him in the face with a rod, Bud does him in as well. He ends up along for the ride when Isaac and Clarice escape and take Jackson and Lizzy hostage. He always sticks close to Jackson whenever he can, but also does as he's told in general, staying out of the diner they find following their escape. To that end, he keeps Lizzy from escaping when she tries to run off during the murder spree that Ike and Clarice go on there. But when he gets shot during the chaos, Lizzy later does what she can for his wound at the abandoned trailer they take shelter in. Later, when Lizzy manages to slip away when Bud is on guard duty, leading to a violent confrontation between Ike and Jackson, the former insults Bud for it. That proves to be all he can take, as Bud knocks him out and later crushes his head with his foot. Learning this the next day, Jackson tries to keep Clarice from finding out, knowing she'll kill Bud for it, but then he, Bud, and Lizzy have to flee when Sheriff Hartman shows up. Ultimately, Lizzy tries to escape by flagging down a police car, prompting Bud to attack the cop and leading to him getting shot in the head, beginning Jackson's downward spiral.

If the movie is akin to Natural Born Killers, then Ike (James Bloor) and Clarice (Jessica Madsen) are definitely the Mickey and Mallory of this story: two hyper-violent, crazed psychopaths who'll kill anybody and anything they see for the slimmest of reasons (if any), and are also all over each other. Ike is introduced when he gets into a fight with another patient for a reason that's truly never explained, and proceeds to try to assault Lizzy after she breaks it up. This prompts Bud to come to the rescue, and the two

of them are forced to endure electroshock therapy for it. Right after that, Lizzy discovers Clarice attacking a woman down in the bathing area, forcing a live mouse into her mouth (can you spell, "Ew!"?). You later find out it's because she's crazy jealous towards Ike, as during the prison riot, she attacks the girl again, accusing her of just looking at Ike, and kills her this time. Meanwhile, Ike manages to escape thanks to Bud when he gets loose in the ECT chamber and lets him loose as well. He and Clarice meet up downstairs during the escape and start getting it on right then and there, with Ike even having her blow him. They take Dr. Lang's car and abduct both Jackson and Lizzy, thinking they won't be shot since they have a nurse as a hostage, although Clarice, naturally, becomes jealous of her being around. Ike also picks up Bud along the way, saying he owes him one, but that doesn't stop him from treating him, and everyone else, like crap, threatening to kill the other hostages if one of them runs for it. He says he intends to take them to Mexico, after which they go wherever they want, but they do intend to, at least, kill Lizzy at some point to keep her from talking. Needing money and a new vehicle, they head to a small diner and, after eating their fill and being as disruptive as possible, go on a killing spree, demanding people's money and then stealing a car outside. 

When they find the abandoned trailer, as the owner hung himself long ago, Ike and Clarice not only have sex (which reveals that Clarice has some nasty burns or lesions on her front side), but Clarice proves depraved enough to involve the corpse in it. Once they're done, we get a little bit of humanity from Ike, who says he thinks Lizzy knows where their foster families are and that it could eventually lead them to their real families. Despite having earlier said that they would stop by his mother's house on the way to

Mexico, Ike admits he doesn't know where his real family is, saying, "They keep fuckin' movin'," and wants to find them. Other than his being grateful to Bud earlier, that's the only likable moment we get from him. Later that night, Ike, proving he still has an unhealthy interest in Lizzy, tries to assault her again when she attempts to escape, leading to a fight between him and Jackson. When Clarice catches them, Ike accuses Jackson of trying to run off, and Clarice suggests killing their hangers-on, but Ike intends to stick to his plan (likely because he still

wants a chance to rape Lizzy). He then makes the mistake of insulting Bud for being such a bad guard, telling him, "You're an idiot and a fool, and I don't know why God bothered to make you," and dies a slow and very painful death for it. The next morning, Clarice attempts to find Ike, only to run into the search party being led by Sheriff Hartman. Hartman smashes her in the face without any provocation, and presses his thumb into her wound when she refuses to say where the others are. And when she tries to run, warning the others about the cops, she gets shot, dragged back to the trailer, and flung to the ground. Despite clearly being in pain, Clarice remains defiant to the end, not only laughing at Hartman but telling him, "You ain't law. You're just a sad old man, cryin' over his stupid, dead little girl." That last statement earns her a bullet right in the head.

The character whom I have some most mixed feelings about is Elizabeth White (Vanessa Grasse). For the most part, she is likable, arriving at Gorman House as a well-meaning, if naive, nurse who genuinely wants to help the troubled youths there. But, while she does manage to form a bond with Bud and especially Jackson, she also becomes a target both for Isaac's depravity and Clarice's jealousy towards any other woman he might be attracted to. She also learns just how prejudiced and cruel Dr. Lang is towards the patients when she witnesses the horrific electroshock therapy he puts them through down in the ECT chamber. During the escape riot that Verna causes, Lizzy has to watch a patient murder another nurse she was attempting to escape with, followed by Jackson brutally killing him. Despite her first glimpse into how dangerously violent he can be, she still comes with him when he leads her out of the building, only for them to be taken hostage by Ike and Clarice. Initially, she opts to stay with the group, despite how dangerous Ike and Clarice are, but once she sees just how they're willing to kill anybody, she attempts to escape any chance she gets. Despite her bond with Jackson and Bud, she proves willing to leave them behind if she has to, as she does when she tries to escape the abandoned trailer that night, or the next day, when Clarice is trying to find Ike and Lizzy implores Jackson to escape with her, despite knowing that it would likely mean Bud's death. Things come to a head when Sheriff Hartman and his posse show up, take Clarice hostage, and attempt to hunt the others down. When Lizzy sees how ruthless Hartman is when he kills Clarice, followed by them opening fire on the trailer to draw anyone out, she runs for it. After Jackson has the three of them hide within the carcass of a dead cow in order to avoid the posse's dogs, Lizzy has clearly reached the end of her rope, and flags down the first cop car she sees. This leads to Bud getting killed and Jackson completely losing his mind, which frightens Lizzy to no end, as she even calls him insane. Ultimately, she gets caught up in Hartman's personal vendetta against the Sawyers, and while she sees what he's doing as unlawful, she's still mostly concerned with saving herself. Unfortunately for her, by the time she meets Jackson again, the boy she knew is long gone, despite her attempts to reach him, and it leads to her death.

Despite saying that they see to their patients' "psychological and physical needs," Dr. Lang (Chris Adamson), the director of Gorman House, sees them not as patients to be cured of illness but rather as threats to society that need to be contained. After the scuffle between Bud and Isaac, despite both Lizzy and Jackson insisting that Bud didn't do anything, Lang is intent on putting them both through electroshock therapy, using Bud's violent history as a reason for why he should be punished. Later, during this session, Lang appears to take some pleasure in it, menacingly telling Isaac, who's strapped nearby, waiting for his turn, that he's next. When Verna and Farnsworth meet with Lang to talk about her being able to visit Jed, he ignores the court order that gives her those rights, making the excuse that Jed probably won't remember her or who he was originally. He also says that when Jed turns eighteen soon, he'll have him transferred to prison, telling Verna herself, "Even though you married into money and hired yourself a snot-nosed shyster, you are still hillbilly trash." Although Lang does have a point about the reason why Jed was taken from his family in the first place, he also clearly just has a prejudice against people who are lower on the social ladder, as Verna and her family were before she married into money. In the end, though, Lang's abuse towards his patients, particularly Bud, proves to be his downfall when the latter breaks into his office during the riot. And when he makes the mistake of smacking Bud across the face with a rod, Bud kills him by smashing his face into a window.

Like I said, Stephen Dorff's character of Sheriff Hal Hartman is basically this film's equivalent of Sheriff Wydell from The Devil's Rejects. Already harsh and violent towards any kind of wayward youth, with most of the patients at Gorman House having been brought in by him, Hartman really goes off the deep end when his daughter, Betty, is murdered by the Sawyers. But because they have no concrete evidence that they committed it, with Drayton countering that he simply found the body, Hartman is unable to arrest him. In order to get back at Verna, he takes young Jed into protective custody, and also orders his men to head to the Sawyer house and round up any minors, intending to send them to Gorman House along with Jed. Verna says he can't do that, but Hartman says that he'll get a warrant that will allow him to, then gets in her face and tells her, "You take one of mine, and I'll take all yours, Verna. All of 'em." Ten years later, after the group of inmates escape from Gorman House and Dr. Lang is murdered, Hartman arrives on the scene and figures he knows who was behind the latter, declaring, "This ain't the work of a confused child. This is evil. It needs puttin' down." Determined to find Jed and the others, he orders roadblocks pushed out as far as New Mexico, and tells Deputy Sorells, "Just 'cause they're kids, I don't want your men goin' soft. If they gotta shoot first and let God sort it out, well, that's permissible." When they catch up with Clarice near the abandoned trailer, Hartman reveals just how brutal he is, as well as how he's willing to find the others by any means necessary. He immediately pistol-whips Clarice in the forehead, then pushes his thumb down into the wound to try to make her admit where the others are. When she manages to run away from him, he shoots her in the leg, then picks her up and drags her over to the trailer, thinking the others are holed up inside. Clarice then makes the mistake of insulting him and his dead daughter, prompting him to shoot her in the head, before having them open fire on the trailer. And shortly after that, when Jackson and Lizzy are the only ones left and commandeer a police car, Hartman chases them down, firing at them. He not only blows open the side of Jackson's face but also injures Lizzy, causing them to crash.

That night, Hartman takes both Jackson and Lizzy to the barn where Betty was murdered, stringing Jackson up above the very pit where she was crushed to death. Revealing to Lizzy that Jackson is actually Jed Sawyer, he adds that he's going to set things right. He also hints that he plans on killing Lizzy to keep there from being any witnesses. The other Sawyers arrive, and Hartman takes the opportunity to wait until Verna walks in before dropping Jed down into the pit. But he's unable to stop them from surrounding and

knocking him unconscious. They take both him and Lizzy back to their house, intending on killing them later. When Lizzy manages to untie herself, Hartman, who has a bleeding wound in his torso, asks her to help him. Lizzy asks her why she should, adding, "What were you gonna do to me?", and he answers, "I don't know. I'm sorry. I am." Despite that less than reassuring apology, Lizzy does help him, but they don't get far before the Sawyers grab them and drag them into the living room. There, Hartman is flung onto the couch and, despite his threats, telling him

that it's not over, he becomes Jed's first victim with a chainsaw. All in all, while Dorff does play this role well enough and appears to be giving it his all, I just can't help but find him to be a lesser version of William Forsythe's Sheriff Wydell, who I found to be much more intimidating and brutal.

Throughout the movie, Deputy Sorells (Finn Jones) acts like the more reasonable counterpoint to Hartman, often horrified by his brutality and how unhinged he is. He's the one who initially comes upon Clarice in the woods and tries to warn her that she'd best admit where the others are, as Hartman won't give her a second chance. When Hartman just ups and kills her at the trailer, Sorells exclaims, "Jesus fuck, Hartman! Are you outta your mind?", but Hartman retorts, "It's called justice, boy." Before the climax, Sorells is built up to be a potential hero when, after the crash, Lizzy manages to use the radio to contact him and give him an idea of where she and Jackson are. But instead, he goes to the Sawyer house and tells Verna where Jed is, revealing himself to have been somebody on the inside who's been contacting them about Jed's whereabouts. After telling Verna this, he demands that she pay him what she promised, and she does... and then, Drayton attacks him and severs his spine, and him and Nubbins dump Sorells into the pigpen, where he's eaten alive.

Despite this being another origin story for Leatherface, we don't get to spend nearly as much time with the entire Sawyer family as you'd expect. And when we do, the film, unlike The Beginning, skirts around the cannibalism side of things, much the same way that Texas Chainsaw 3-D did, likely due to Lionsgate continuing to be squeamish about it. Save for Jed's birthday cake in the opening scene having chunks of meat within it, the notion of the Sawyers being cannibals is never brought up or alluded to.

Instead, like the Hewitt family in the 2003 remake, they're depicted as just a psychotic, bloodthirsty backwoods clan who consider any outsiders a threat to them and their way of life. But they're also not above luring innocent people to their doom, as they do with Betty Hartman. In fact, by the time this story begins, the Sawyers already have a reputation among their community for being bad news, as Sheriff Hartman notes that he's been at numerous crime scenes with one of them nearby. But he's never been able to actually arrest any of them, either because

they weren't yet adults or he simply didn't have enough evidence, which leads him to take Jed into custody and send him away, as per the state's "Endangered Childcare Program." While we never learn what made the Sawyers the way they are, we do realize that the bonds within this family are very strong, and they will do anything to protect or rescue one another. Even when one of them does something the others don't like or disappoints them, like when Jed is unable to kill the thief at the beginning, they're still there for each other, as Verna tells him.

Verna (Lili Taylor), the character whom Marilyn Burns played in the previous film and who set that whole story in motion, is revealed here to have been the true head of the Sawyer family for many years. She absolutely rules the roost, with her children worshiping the ground she walks on and upholding her teaching them that any outsiders are bad people who speak nothing but lies and try to break their family apart. And nothing or nobody comes between her and her family, including Sheriff Hartman and the Gorman House. Ten years after Hartman sends Jed there, Verna, having recently married a wealthy man named Carson and now able to afford a lawyer (seemingly the only reason she did marry him, given how she still lives out at the farm), visits Dr. Lang with a court order that should allow her to see her son. But when Lang rebuffs her and spitefully says he intends to send Jed to prison when he turns eighteen, Verna takes matters into her own hands and breaks into the ward to try to find him herself. While she's unsuccessful, her actions start the riot that allows Jed to escape. After that, Verna and the other Sawyers are in the background, with Deputy Sorells letting them know that Jed is on the lam. But during the climax, when Sorells tells them where Hartman has Jed, Verna and her two older sons, after murdering Sorells, go to fetch him. While they're unable to stop Hartman from dropping Jed down the pit where Betty was killed, they do take Hartman and Lizzy back to the house and rescue Jed. At the house, Verna sews up the wounds in Jed's face and attaches the muzzle to hold everything together until it heals. She then has him murder Hartman when he and Lizzy try to escape, and at the end of the movie, when Jed corners Lizzy and she tries to appeal to the person she knew before, Verna insists that Lizzy doesn't care about him at all. And after he's decapitated Lizzy, Verna praises him, "That's my boy. You made Mama proud."

We also get to see some younger versions of the characters we know from the original film, chief among them being Drayton (Dimo Alexiev). (While Texas Chainsaw 3-D suggested he was Leatherface's father, here he's back to being his brother, but there is a strong allusion to the family being incestuous at one point). However, I have to say that I really don't buy that he would eventually become the character whom Jim Siedow would play, as he has none of his tics or mannerisms, and feels like he wouldn't be able to put

on a face of normality for the public. In fact, somebody else said this and it's true: he feels more like a younger version of Vilmer from The Next Generation. Not only does this actor kind of look like Matthew McConaughey, but the sadistic way in which he seems to get off on murdering people, like how he blows a kiss to Betty before he and Nubbins drop the big engine block on her, and his defiant attitude towards Sheriff Hartman when he tries to arrest him, putting his forehead right to the barrel of his pistol when he pulls it, daring him to shoot him,

feels like a less crazed take on Vilmer. Speaking of Nubbins, or the Hitchhiker, we see two versions of him: one as a kid (Hristo Milev) during the opening in 1955, where he takes part in Betty's murder, and as an adult (Deyan Angelov). While he doesn't get much screentime, his characterization is much more in line with what we saw of Ed Neal in the original, as he comes off as unhinged and schizophrenic as a kid, whereas his adult version not only looks like Neal but manages to capture his crazed type of energy, particularly when he, Drayton, and Jed are hunting Lizzy through the dark woods. And finally, Grandpa (Eduard Parsehyan), while still very old here, with his mind clearly going, does get to do a little more than just sit around like a corpse. For once, we finally get a sense of the great killer that his family always claims he was, as he's the one who takes out their captive at the beginning after Jed drops the ball, doing him in with a single bash to the head.

Leatherface's visual style is like if you took the muted color palette of the Platinum Dunes films, specifically The Beginning, with brown being the dominate color, and made it richer and more appealing to the eye. While it's still pretty de-saturated, it's not nearly as bleak-looking, and the other colors, like green, blue, and especially red from the abundant blood and gore, stand out much more. The nighttime exterior scenes, which are bathed in that classic blue moonlight type of lighting, are especially reminiscent of the Platinum Dunes films' look, with those in the woods during the

latter half being very striking and quite beautiful. This is also a very dark and shadowy film in general, with the brightest scenes being the daytime exteriors, as the interiors, even those set during the middle of the day, have a lot of blacks and contrasting. As with past entries in this series, that's sometimes a detriment, with the film being a tad too dark to make out what's going on or who's talking to who. Although, I don't mind how the lights blink on and off during the riot, as it helps add to the chaos and frenzy. The cinematography, by Antoine Sanier, makes itself

known during the opening scene, with lots of extreme closeups of the characters' faces, a decision that some may find a bit off-putting. Similarly, the direction of the scene where Betty Hartman and Ted Hardesty come upon Jed in the road after nearly running him over is done in a lot of distant shots on him standing in the road wearing the cow head, making it feel all the more bizarre and unsettling. And when Betty walks to the dilapidated old barn where she's murdered, it feels like Julien Maury and Alexandre

Bustillo felt obligated to do their own ode to the famous shot of Pam walking towards the house albeit not as overtly. Speaking of the directors, I will admit that they know how to create memorably bizarre and often shocking imagery, like that of the birthday cake with guts and meat in it; young Jed in that cow head; the waitress at the diner getting her head blown off point-blank by a shotgun, resulting in a big geyser of blood; the long dead suicide victim in the trailer; the close-up of Ike's face as Bud forces him down onto

the rock with his mouth open before he stomps his head in; Jackson, Bud, and Lizzy having to hide inside a cow carcass, poke a hole in the hide to see if their pursuers are gone, and emerge covered in blood and mud; and the horrific injury to Jackson's face and what it eventually leads him to become, with our last glimpse of him sitting in the dark, making his first skin-mask. My personal favorite image in the entire movie, though, is that of Bud dragging Ike through the woods before stomping his head in, which is done almost in silhouette, with nice cuts to Ike's POV as he looks up at the sky and close-ups of him shuddering as he's dragged along, and it looks amazing. And I also like the wide, expansive shots of the countryside, which are very picturesque.

While the first Leatherface back in 1990 and Texas Chainsaw 3-D may have been criticized for not actually being filmed in Texas, this film goes much farther and is the first entry to not even be shot in the United States, something the next film would follow suit on. In fact, despite being part of a franchise whose roots are as American as you can get, this film was shot entirely in Bulgaria, by a pair of French filmmakers, and with a mostly European cast and crew! In any case, you'd think it would be hard, if nigh impossible, to make Bulgaria convincingly look

like Texas, but, I have to say, I buy this as the Lone Star State a lot more than I did the California location in the third film. That's probably because they chose their shooting locations very carefully, going for places with big, wide open fields, dark forests, and remote areas and locations that are very reminiscent of what you get in Texas. But besides finding it all convincing, I also just plain like the look of these places. They appeal to my personal country tastes, especially the look of that old barn in the field near

the Sawyer house or that trailer lying out there in the woods, which satisfy my love for long abandoned spots like that in the middle of nowhere. And while I don't know exactly how hot it was while they were filming (they shot in May), given where Bulgaria is, it wouldn't surprise me if they did have some hot, humid weather to deal with, and that feeling does come through a little bit in the movie's look.

Like the previous film, some of Leatherface takes place at the Sawyer farm and house. While it's still not used all that much, it does have more screentime than it did in Texas Chainsaw 3-D, as we not only see it in the opening scene but the latter part of the third act and the ending take place entirely on the property. From what I understand, also like with the previous film, those scenes were shot on a close replica of the house from the original film, but because of the lack of scenes and the dim cinematography, especially during the third act, makes it hard to tell just how

accurate of a recreation this set was. The exterior of the house and the property does resemble the original quite faithfully, and as for the inside, while the dining room table in the opening doesn't seem to be decorated with the hideous items in the original film, if you look at the room itself in the few wide shots, it does come off as rather rundown. By the time we get to the climax, when Lizzy and Sheriff Hartman are attempting to escape, though, we can see that the house is heading in the direction it will be by 1973. They regain consciousness in a mostly barren room

with a dirty floor that has chicken feathers lying here and there, and as they try to get out, they come across bone sculptures and furniture in the dining room, and we see in a room off of the kitchen that the Sawyers have freshly slaughtered pig parts hanging from the ceiling. We also get a look at the small foyer and staircase at the the front door, and notably, Hartman is killed in the living room, on the couch that's likely the same one that Pam finds decked out with bones when she stumbles into it (hell, this may be implying that

those bones are Hartman's). And after he's sewed up and given his muzzle, the basement becomes Jed's personal space, where he starts making his masks. As for the property in general, we see that they keep pigs there, which they feed human remains and living victims to, and when Drayton, Nubbins, and Jed stalk Lizzy through the dark woods, it proves to not only be a hunting ground they're familiar with but also has traps, such as a bear-trap that Lizzy steps in and

which dooms her. And while it's never made clear how close it is to the Sawyer house, the rundown barn where they kill Betty at the beginning can't be too far away, as it's obvious they've used it before, as its interior is decked out in their macabre decorations.

As you might expect, despite how nice it looks on the outside, Gorman House Youth Reformatory is a pretty gloomy and grim-looking place, with an unappealing yellow, brown, and lime-green sort of paint scheme, and lighting that ranges from a sickly kind of yellow to gray and overly clinical. Dr. Lang's office is, naturally, a pretty comfortable and formal environment, and beyond the security point, we see the day-room where Lizzy meets Jackson and Bud, the bathing room with the tubs, and the ward full of the patients' beds, none of which look all that bad in

and of themselves, but become uncomfortable because of some of the stuff we see go on in there. The place's darker areas, both figuratively and literally, are this one corridor that's lit dimmer than the others, which is where the lights flash on and off during the escape riot, and the ECT chamber, where we see Bud being put through the torturous electroshock therapy, as Ike waits his turn nearby. The inverse of this setting is the roadside diner and barbecue grill they eat at, which is innocent enough,

until Ike and Clarice turn it into a blood-soaked slaughterhouse, and the same goes for the abandoned trailer they find elsewhere, which would be fairly quaint and picturesque, had the man inside not committed suicide for whatever reason and if Ike and Clarice hadn't later despoiled his resting place, and him, the way they do.

As if making Bulgaria look like Texas wasn't enough of a challenge, they also had to make it look like Texas in both the 1950's and 60's. For my money, they did well on that score, mainly because, like with the Platinum Dunes movies, this takes place in isolated areas where the period wouldn't really need to call attention to itself. Other than the vehicles, the way Betty Hartman and Ted Hardesty are dressed in the opening, and some other fashions here and there, it all actually plays pretty timeless. And unlike Platinum

Dunes, I have to give the producers behind this film props for casting people who are not only average- and even fairly weird-looking, rather than going for the good-looking model types, but who I can also believe are from these time periods.

When I first watched Leatherface, I hadn't watched Texas Chainsaw 3-D in a while, so I didn't pick up on how this is not only a prequel to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre but is also in continuity with that film. Now, having re-watched it after reviewing Texas Chainsaw 3-D, I realize how blatant it is. Not only is Leatherface's real name Jedidiah again but Lili Taylor plays a younger version of Verna Carson, you see a younger version of Farnsworth, her lawyer from that film, and Stephen Dorff's Sheriff Hartman is meant to be Burt Hartman's father. In retrospect, this does help

make Texas Chainsaw 3-D a little better in that it gives Burt Hartman a deeper, more personal reason for hating the Sawyers, as they murdered both his sister and father. Also, given how this film establishes a history of violence and murder for the Sawyers, when coupled with the events of the original film, it provides more context to the townspeople's lynching them during 3-D's opening, with them deciding enough is enough. But while we're on the subject of that film, one thing that will always make me praise Leatherface over it is because this goes for that more

nuanced moral standing that I wished 3-D had. In fact, the film never really chooses sides. While it does depict Dr. Lang and especially Sheriff Hartman as monstrous people, it also doesn't shy away from how depraved, vile, and just plain cruel the Sawyers are towards outsiders. We do see how strong and important their family bonds are to each other, but that doesn't change the fact that they brutally and senselessly murder the man in the opening (even if he was trying to steal their livestock, he didn't deserve

that kind of gruesome fate), Betty Hartman, Deputy Sorells (that's especially bad since he was helping Verna find Jed and just wanted to be paid in return), and Lizzy. Since Jed and Bud are among the few truly sympathetic characters here, and we see that there is a potential for goodness in Jed, it makes you wish that his life had taken a different course and he managed to avoid getting back with his family. And going back to Dr. Lang, as cruel, dismissive, and downright prejudiced as he is against many of the patients at Gorman House, Ike and Clarice show us that some of them truly are scum and beyond redemption.

However, any praise I can give it doesn't change how, if Texas Chainsaw 3-D hadn't already, Leatherface truly marks the start of a really bad rut that the franchise has fallen into that, at this point, it still hasn't pulled itself out of. Chief among them is the basic concept of how, just a little over a decade after The Beginning, here we are with another prequel. Even if this does break from the established formula more than any other entry, it's still another attempt to show the origin of Leatherface, which made it feel old hat before it was even released. Also like The

Beginning, it suffers from the classic prequel problem in that you know who's going to live and who's going to be dead by the end, so there are little in the way of surprises. Between that and the next film being yet another reboot that acts as a direct sequel to the original, it brings home the feeling that this franchise has run out of ideas and just needs to be laid to rest, despite what some ardent fans I know might say. And besides my own personal disappointments with the film and what I would want from a Texas Chainsaw

Massacre prequel, which I've already mentioned, it also creates some plotholes for the later films in the timeline. For instance, where was Verna during the original's events, and why, after being so gung-ho about family and all that, had she seemingly abandoned them and moved into that big mansion in 3-D?. And why didn't Ted Hardesty, who's meant to be Sally and Franklin's father, warn his kids about the danger of the Sawyers when they went on that road-trip with their friends in the original movie, especially since he was there and distraught over what happened to Betty in 1955?

Like I said, looking up reviews, I saw several describe Leatherface as not being as gory as some of the previous installments, with one reviewer in particular saying it was less so. I find that opinion baffling, as this is much more gruesome and nasty than Texas Chainsaw 3-D, and also rivals The Beginning as the goriest in the whole series. In fact, this could be the grisliest one altogether. It starts up right at the beginning, with the guy whom the Sawyers are holding captive getting his knee sliced into by Jed's chainsaw, before Grandpa finishes him off with a

whack to the noggin. Betty Hartman's death isn't too graphic, as we get a brief glimpse the enormous engine block actually crushing her, but during the escape riot, Bud smashes an orderly's head in, Clarice chokes to death the woman Lizzy caught her tormenting earlier, Bud smashes Lang's face into a window until it breaks and the shards stab into his neck, an inmate attacks Lizzy and another nurse and slices up the latter's mouth with a scalpel (while partially obscured by the blinking lights during this sequence, it's still gruesome), and Jackson, in turn,

reduces that inmate's face to a bloody mess with his foot. At the roadside diner that the fugitives stop at, Clarice stabs a cop in the side of the neck, shoots several hapless people with his revolver, Ike stabs a waitress and later blows her head up in a geyser of blood, and one last guy is lucky enough to only receive a black eye. After Ike insults Bud, Bud whacks him across the face, carries him through a field, pushes his face and open mouth against a rock, and crushes his head with his foot. While we don't see

the latter murder in grisly close-up, when Jackson and Lizzy find Bud the next day, we see the nasty aftermath. Clarice gets pistol-whipped, tortured, and shot twice, the second time in the head, by Hartman. And while trying to elude Hartman and the posse, Jackson, Bud, and Lizzy hide within this cow carcass, emerging from it covered in blood and guts, as well as mud. (I think that was the exact moment when I figured those reviewers I mentioned were watching something else, because this is absolutely hideous.)

And when the movie moves into the third act, things really get nasty: Bud gets his brains blown out, Jackson bashes the guys face in and then crushes his head in his cop car's door, and while he and Lizzy are feeling from Hartman, he gets the side of his cheek blown out in a big, bloody wound. You also see the latter in full close-up without any blood later on, as well as when Verna sews the wounds up. Deputy Sorells gets stabbed in the back, literally, and is thrown into the pigpen, where the hogs eat him alive. Hartman gets probably the most gruesome death in

the whole movie, with his hands getting sliced apart by Jed's chainsaw, before Jed completely and utterly guts him with it, with blood flying everywhere as Jed screams like the madman he now is. This really rivals Eric getting gutted with the chainsaw and his face being sliced off in The Beginning. And finally, Lizzy gets decapitated by Jed, which is shockingly bloodless, while the movie wraps up with images of Drayton and Nubbins feeding the pigs what are likely Hartman and Lizzy's remains, while Jed makes his first mask down in the basement.

Given the directors behind it, it's not all that surprising that Leatherface turned out as gruesome as it did, and another reason for the gore and horror's effectiveness is the tone that Maury and Bustillo go for. Unlike Texas Chainsaw 3-D, which was attempting to be just gory entertainment, this film, much like, if not more so than, the Platinum Dunes movies, has a very nihilistic, grim tone, with little-to-no humor, few characters you can really root for, and shows the degradation of a well-spoken, good-looking, and potentially gentle young man into a

mindless monster who wears other peoples' faces. Also, there's a general feeling of nastiness about it, with stomach-churning moments and imagery like the guts inside Jed's birthday cake, his wearing a cow head, Clarice forcing a mouse into a girl's mouth in her first scene, her and Ike making out to the point of actually having sex in the midst of the riot, their discovering the suicide victim's gooey, rotting corpse in the trailer (Lizzy falls face-first against it and sticking stuff trails from it to her face) and Ike and

Clarice later involving it in their having sex, the nasty rashes and burns we see on Clarice's front during said sex scene, and when Jackson, Bud, and Lizzy hiding inside that half-eaten, maggot-infested cow carcass, after which Lizzy throws up by a stream. When you add all that in with the abundance of gore and the dark tone and cinematography, it makes for a really grotesque, uncomfortable movie all around.

As you've seen, the makeup effects created for these horrific deaths and gruesome images are very well done and effective, and there are very few instances of CGI. In fact, aside from instances of digital smoke, like the wisp coming out of Clarice's mouth after Hartman has shot her in the head and possibly some of the smoke the chainsaw expels, I really can't think of any major uses of visual effects here.

I do how the way the movie starts off with what should be an innocent and joyous occasion: a young kid's birthday dinner, where Jed is presented with a cake and asked to make a wish and blow out his candles. But then, when Drayton digs into the cake with a spatula, we see that the contents are not what we'd expect, as they turn out to be guts. Verna then tells him, "Where are your manners? Give the first piece to the thief," as the camera reveals a man sitting at the table, tied up and gagged, with his face bloody.

Drayton removes the gag from his mouth, and after he insists he didn't steal any of their pigs, Drayton stuffs the frosting-covered guts into his mouth. He spits them out and defiles the family verbally, prompting Verna to have Drayton whack the man across the face and gag him again. That's when Jed is presented with his present: a chainsaw, which Verna implores him to use to punish people like that, whom she says want to break their family apart. Though Jed is reluctant, Verna insists he pick the saw up, as Drayton,

Nubbins, and Grandpa start chanting his name to encourage him. Jed does so and slowly approaches the man, whom Drayton turns to face him. When Jed is standing in front of him, Drayton cranks the saw up for him, as the man lets out some muffled screams and frantically shakes his head. Though Jed raises the running saw-blade and moves it towards the man's head, he's still clearly reluctant to go through with it, despite his family's urging. Ultimately, he backs away, unable to do it, when Drayton shoves him from behind, causing him to lunge forward and slice into

the man's right knee. Despite Drayton attempting to guide him to do the rest, Jed tosses the saw aside and tries to flee the dining room. Verna stops him, saying he let them down, but adds that the family is always there for him, regardless, as Grandpa finishes the man off with a whack to the head.

Following the main title, we get the scene where Betty Harland and Ted Hardesty are out on a date, when the latter has to swerve to avoid hitting something in the road. After the truck comes to a stop, Betty gets out and slowly approaches whatever it is. She's then shocked when it stands up, revealing itself to be a kid wearing a cow's head. While Ted keeps telling her that they need to get going, she approaches the kid, asking him if he's okay. He suddenly asks for help, then runs off into a large field

to his right. Knowing that something is wrong, Betty chases after him, much to Ted's frustration. Losing sight of the kid, she comes across the old, rundown barn and walks inside to find it decorated with weird sculptures made from animal bones, with one being a weird mixture of bones and a stuffed toy. Walking through the center of the place, she tries to draw the boy out of hiding, insisting that she won't hurt him. There's a sudden rustle and she turns to her right to see the kid there, still wearing the cow head, but then

falls through a rotted section of the floor. Jed walks over to the edge of the pit to see Betty laying down there, badly injured. Drayton emerges from elsewhere in the barn and, seeing what happened, compliments Jed, telling him that he may be able to learn after all. Nubbins then appears and Drayton proceeds to move a large engine block hanging from the ceiling right above the hole and Betty. He has Nubbins do the honors, sadistically blowing a kiss down at Betty before Nubbins pull the lever and drops the engine, smashing Betty's head into a bloody pulp.

Following the jump to ten years later and the introduction of much of the main cast, the next major scene occurs after Dr. Lang denies Verna the opportunity to see Jed, despite having the appropriate court order. After she storms out of Lang's office, she asks where the restroom is, then leaves Farnsworth waiting for her in the main lobby. Down in the ECT chamber, Bud is being prepped for electroshock therapy, while Ike sits across from him, strapped to a chair, apprehensively awaiting his turn. While Lizzy,

hearing some yelling down in the ECT chamber, decides to take Jackson's earlier advice and see what goes on down there for herself, Verna sneaks out of the restroom without being seen. However, it isn't long before an orderly checks in there and sees that she's gone. Verna reaches the security gate just as a nurse is locking up and takes her key before slamming her face-first into a desk. She runs through the door, yelling for Jed, and begins awakening the other patients. Meanwhile, Lizzy finds her way into

the ECT chamber's observation room and is horrified when she sees the torturous procedure that Lang puts Bud through. But then, Lang hears an alarm bell upstairs, accompanied by the sound of Verna yelling for Jed. She walks into the middle of one of the wards, knocking out another nurse who tries to stop her, and prompting the patients in there to run out. One of them grabs the keys left on the desk and starts unlocking the other doors, leading to the others spilling into the outside hallway and running for the first security door, which they're able to unlock.

While Jackson, having been awakened, wanders around, and Verna is detained by security, Bud manages to break free of his bonds in the ECT chamber and easily overpower the two orderlies left there with him. He instantly knocks one out with a punch to the head, then bashes the other's brains in. Verna and Farnsworth are forced out of the building, while Lang orders it to be locked down. However, one of the inmates smashes a control panel, shorting out the electrical system and causing the lights to repeatedly blink. One nurse closes and attempts to

lock the main security door, but the inmates easily smash their way through. Having finished with the orderlies, Bud prepares to walk out, when Ike asks him for help, while up in one of the wards, Clarice kills the girl she thought was making eyes at Ike.

As the chaos continues, Lizzy and another nurse try to reach an emergency exit down in the basement, while up in his office, Lang hears a banging on his door. Said banging turns out to be Bud, who walks in after Lang opens the door. The doctor then whacks him across the face with a rod, but when he swings again, Bud grabs his arm and forces him to drop it. He then backs Lang up to the window, as the doctor tells him that they'll never let him go if he does what it is he has in mind. All that does is incense Bud all the

more, as he grabs Lang and smashes his head repeatedly against the window's glass until it breaks. Elsewhere, Clarice joins the others in running downstairs and out of the building, meeting up with Ike down in the main lobby. Down in the basement, Lizzy and the other nurse hide when they hear the sound of some approaching inmates, only for one to jump them as soon as it gets quiet. The man brutally kills the other nurse and then turns to Lizzy, only for Jackson to show up, kick him to the floor, and kick

his head in. He helps Lizzy up and the two of them run out of one of the emergency exits, only to come upon Ike and Clarice in Lang's car. They're immediately taken prisoner, both being punched and put in the trunk. Ike and Clarice drive off, just as one man is flung out of a second story window. Coming upon Bud walking along by himself, Ike opts to pick him up. Later, after they've parked the car and stolen some clothes from a backyard, Ike opens the trunk, only for Jackson to come out swinging. He knocks him to the ground, and Lizzy runs for it, only for

Clarice to run her down, catch her, and bring her back. Ike threatens Jackson, who was detained because an overjoyed Bud gave him a big bear hug, with a knife. Once Lizzy is forced to rejoin them, Ike makes clear his intention to kill everybody if one of them tries to escape. With that, Jackson, Bud, and Lizzy have no choice but to stick with them for the time being, and also change their clothes accordingly.

The next day, they come upon the roadside diner and Ike and Clarice decide to fill their stomachs. Ike tells them that they're going to go in separately to avoid attracting attention, and he also tells Bud to stay outside. Once inside, he and Clarice prove to be the epitome of obnoxious customers, with Clarice having him toss bits of food to see if she can catch them in her mouth, while Lizzy and Jackson sit over by themselves. The former get some dirty looks from a man sitting at the bar, with Ike then growling, "The

fuck you lookin' at?" When the man turns back around, Ike retorts, "Yeah, that's right. Nothin'." He then has Clarice check to see if the cop sitting behind her has a gun, and she sees that he does. She decides, "Let's start some shit up," and pushes a glass off her table and onto the floor. After it shatters, she says, "Sorry, y'all. That was my fault," then laughs about it obnoxiously. Having had enough, Tammy the waitress orders them to pay and get out, only for Clarice to say they have no money in a sing-song

voice. Ike gets up and restrains Tammy, stabbing her, while Clarice takes a knife and jams it into the side of the cop's neck. As he bleeds out, she takes his gun and kills some people who either try to run for it or attempt to be heroes, with Jackson and Lizzy recoiling in horror at their table. Going behind the bar, Clarice finds a shotgun and, commenting, "Fuck, I love Texas," tosses it to Ike. Dropping Tammy, he orders everybody to put their car keys and cash on the edge of their tables. The guy at the bar who confronted Ike tries to run for it but Jackson, not

wanting someone else to die, tries to stop him. The man punches him in the face and he retaliates by punching him square in the eye, knocking him to the floor. Lizzy takes the opportunity to run out of the building, but she's restrained by Bud before she can get far. Clarice runs outside after Lizzy, while Ike kills Tammy with a shot to the head. He runs out, followed by Jackson, as the man from the bar pulls out his own gun and shoots at them through the door. He grazes Bud's side but, regardless, he and the others manage to escape in a car that Ike and Clarice jacked. Later, when interviewed by Sheriff Hartman, the man is only able to give him a vague hint of the type of car they escaped in.

After their car runs out of gas and they're forced to abandon it, the group comes upon the trailer in the woods. They creep around behind it and come around its side, and Ike then has Clarice yank the door open while he points the shotgun at it. Getting no response and seeing no sign of life, Ike has Lizzy go inside and check it out. She reluctantly does, recoiling at a nasty smell in there, followed by Ike and then everybody else. Seeing a bed in the back, Ike then decides to freak Lizzy out some more, startling her and causing

her to fall backwards into the restroom, and right against the decomposing body of the trailer's former occupant. After she runs out of there, Ike and Clarice peek in and, seeing the body, laugh, Ike commenting, "Guess he died of loneliness." Lizzy, meanwhile, sees to Bud's bullet wound. Late that night, with Bud on lookout outside, Lizzy, again, attempts to escape from the group. Though she briefly hesitates because of Jackson, she does slip out of the open door and run off into the woods. She stops after feeling she's gotten far enough from the trailer, only to look behind her

and see Ike standing there, glaring at her. He grabs and slams her against a tree, intending on sexually assaulting her. But like before, Jackson comes to the rescue, tackling Ike to the ground. Jackson yells for Lizzy to run, as he and Ike get into a fight, which Jackson manages to easily dominate. He even gets Ike down and almost kills him, but Clarice shows up with the shotgun. Getting to his feet, Ike accuses Jackson of trying to abandon them, but stops Clarice from killing him, Lizzy, and Bud. But that's when he throws a nasty insult at Bud that, unbeknownst to the others, as Clarice forces them back to the trailer at gunpoint, leads to him dying a hideous death.

The next morning, while Clarice is out looking for Ike, Jackson and Lizzy find Bud sleeping beside Ike's brutalized corpse. Clarice is then caught by Deputy Sorells, who makes her hand over her weapons, as he alerts the others with him. He tries to get her to give up the others, especially when Hartman arrives with the posse, but her refusal to do so leads to her getting tortured. Sorells leads the others to continue the search, while Clarice manages to get away from Hartman. Running to an open field, she warns the

others of the cops, prompting Jackson, Bud, and Lizzy to hide nearby. They watch as Hartman drops her with a shot to the leg, then picks her up by her hair and forces her back over to the trailer, along with the posse. Thinking the others are inside, Hartman yells that they've got nowhere to go. That's when Clarice laughs at and mocks him for his grief over his daughter, and he shoots her right in the head. Seeing this causes Lizzy to panic and Jackson has to restrain her, saying she'll get them killed if she runs. Hartman

and the others open fire on the trailer, which is more than Lizzy can take, as she breaks free from Jackson and runs off. He runs after her, followed by Bud, while the officers cease fire and Hartman has Sorells investigate the inside. When he finds nothing in there, Hartman leads them to continue searching for the others. Elsewhere, Jackson, Bud, and Lizzy stop at the sight of a decomposing cow carcass, when they hear the sound of search dogs nearby. The party are led to the carcass by the dogs, but they bypass it in order to head on. It's then revealed that the fugitives

were hiding within the carcass, and once the party is gone, they crawl out from within it. Lizzy, seemingly in shock over the hideous thing she was just forced to do, wanders away from Jackson and Bud, collapsing beside a small stream, where she vomits. She then washes her face a bit and wanders on, with Jackson doing the same.

The three of them trudge across the countryside, looking like real zombies, when Lizzy sees a police car driving across the road on a hillside next to them. She flags it down on a small bridge and rushes to it, with Jackson right behind her, attempting to stop her. The officer calls in for backup, then pulls his gun on Bud as he walks up onto the bridge and stomps towards him. yelling at him not to move. Bud doesn't listen, of course, and, shrugging off a bullet (a little nonchalantly, I might add), grabs the cop and wrestles

him to the ground. Lizzy and Jackson walk up onto the bridge from another spot and, seeing what's happening, Jackson rushes to save Bud. He's not quick enough and the cop shoots Bud right through the head, killing him instantly. Thoroughly enraged, Jackson rushes right at the cop, brutally beats him, yells in his face, drags him over to his police car, and smashes his face with the door. Lizzy tries to stop him, but he just grabs her and shoves her into the driver's seat. Terrified by this, she attempts to take off without him, but he manages to run and climb into the

car before she gets up to speed. Following his violent breakdown in the passenger seat and angry screaming at Lizzy, they realize they're being chased by Hartman, who shoots at them through his driver's side window. Lizzy swerves back and forth, trying to dodge his shots, when Hartman shoots through the back window and scores the devastating hit on Jackson's face. As Lizzy shudders at the sight of what's happened to him, she's then shot herself and, hitting the edge of a guardrail, the car crashes along the ground behind it, flips over, and comes to rest partly on its side and roof.

After blacking out, Lizzy awakens in the back of another police car to find it's now nighttime and raining; she also finds her right hand cuffed to the inside of the door. Hearing Sorells' voice over the radio as he attempts to contact Hartman, she manages to grab the mic and answer the deputy. He asks her to describe her surroundings and she notes a rundown barn that looks as though it's on the verge of collapsing. Apparently knowing where it is, Sorells tells her to stay put and radios dispatch that he'll take care of it. But then, Hartman appears, drags her out of

the car and into the barn. After she's flung to the ground, she sees Jackson hanging with a cow head covering his own. That's when Hartman tells her who Jackson really is and what he intends to do with him. Meanwhile, Sorells goes to the Sawyer house and tells Verna where Jed is, and gets repaid by being stabbed, dragged over to the pigpen, and dumped inside, the pigs gruesomely eating him alive. Back at the barn, some headlights appear outside the door and Lizzy immediately starts yelling for help. Hartman yells at her to shut up and maneuvers behind Jed,

who's still hanging. Verna walks in, carrying a chainsaw, and Hartman proceeds to drop Jed down into the pit before she can reach him. After introducing Lizzy to Verna, Hartman, knowing that Drayton and Nubbins are nearby, demands that they show themselves. Sure enough, one of them emerges from the darkness to his right, slowly approaching with a sack over his head. Hartman pulls his gun on him and orders both him and Verna to get down on the ground. Neither of them are compliant, though, and before Hartman knows it, Drayton, also wearing a sack, comes in from behind and whacks him in the back of his legs, causing him to collapse.

Awakening at the Sawyer house, Lizzy manages to untie herself and reluctantly unties and gets the severely injured Hartman to his feet. The two of them then make their way through the house, aghast at the grisly sculptures and pieces of furniture made from bones that they come across. Sneaking through the dining room, they run and hide in a small space behind the kitchen when they hear Verna's voice. While Nubbins gets dinner for Jed, Verna goes to check on their captives, only to find that they're gone. After the two of them head out to find them, Lizzy

and Hartman make a run for it and almost get to the front door. However, they're grabbed and restrained by Drayton and Nubbins respectively. They're hauled into the living room and Hartman is flung onto the couch. Verna calls Jed and he lumbers up from the basement and stomps into the living room, towards Hartman, wielding the chainsaw. Despite Hartman's threats, Jed makes his intentions clear, putting the saw blade next to his face. With Verna's urging, and despite Lizzy's pleas, Jed cranks up the saw and Hartman, forced to try to shield himself with just his

arms, ends up with his hands sliced to pieces before Jed guts and disembowels him with the saw. Once that's done, Lizzy breaks free of Drayton's grip and runs out the front door and into the woods. Drayton and Nubbins, wielding blades, run after her, followed by Jed, still wielding his chainsaw. The three of them stalk her through the woods, but she momentarily manages to elude them by hiding behind a tree. Jed then switches off his saw, and he and the others try to see if they can hear Lizzy. Sure enough, when Lizzy

backs away from the tree, she steps on a twig, which snaps loudly, and both Drayton and Nubbins close in on her from both sides. She runs, only to then find Jed chasing her with his chainsaw. She goes as fast as she can, but doesn't get far before she steps right into a bear-trap. With no way of escaping, and with Jed looming over her, Lizzy tries to appeal to him, saying she only tried to help him and that they can both escape. Her words do cause him to hesitate, when Verna comes up behind him and tells him that Lizzy

doesn't care about him at all. He still doesn't take action, and Lizzy continues appealing to him, saying there's good in him and that what he's doing isn't who he really is. But when she makes the mistake of saying, "It's your crazy mother," Jed promptly beheads her. Verna then praises him for a job well done, while Jed lets out a deranged yell.

The movie ends with business as usual at the Sawyer home: Verna burns Lizzy and Hartman's clothes, Drayton and Nubbins feed chunks of meat to the pigs, Grandpa sits upstairs, rocking back and forth and singing to himself in a mumbling voice, and down in the basement, Jed makes and tries on his first skin mask. However, on the Blu-Ray, there's an option to watch the movie with an alternate, and much more twisted, ending. Instead of escaping into the woods, Lizzy, finding the front door locked, instead runs upstairs. There, she runs into a room and finds

Grandpa sitting by the window. With no other choice, she tries to get out through the window, but finds it locked. Verna then leads Jed into the room and leaves him to it. He approaches Lizzy, grabs her, flings her to the floor, and, under Verna's direction, cranks up the saw. He threatens her with it for a little bit but also seems to be thinking, and then, cuts through her right leg, nearly severing it completely. Switching the saw off, he leaves it there, and when Lizzy futilely tries to escape, Grandpa whacks her with the mallet. The ending then plays out as it does in the normal cut,

but when we get to the very end, when Jed has made and puts on the mask, he gets up and walks off to the side, where Lizzy is hanging from a hook, still alive but with the flesh around her mouth and neck flayed off. Jed looks at her, then gets behind her and, in an even more disturbing example of perverse sexuality than what Leatherface did when he first met Stretch in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, puts his chainsaw's blade right between her legs. Personally, I wish they'd

gone with this ending in the regular version, as this is far more impactful and unsettling than the more typical slasher stalking climax they did instead, and is a more in line with the character of Leatherface as we know him, hinting at that deviant, bi-sexual nature that was alluded to in the original.

As with Texas Chainsaw 3-D, Leatherface was scored by John Frizzell. And as much as I found his music for that movie to be forgettable, he does a little better here, managing to capture the movie's much grimmer tone, especially with this one discernible, melancholic leitmotif that pops up throughout the movie. While the music he comes up with for the chase and action sequences are fairly generic, they do their job, and he doesn't shy away from the film's rustic roots either, sometimes putting in a southern guitar aesthetic, like a low strumming when you see the film's title and when Sheriff Hartman arrives at Gorman House and sees Dr. Lang's body. And during the ending credits, Frizzell really brings in the nihilism and horror, as well as a feeling of sadness at the very end of it. But, on the whole, this is another instance where the songs and pieces of music on the soundtrack are more memorable than the actual score. When Ike and Clarice leave Gorman House in Lang's car, you hear Don't Take Me For Granted by Nancy Barry, but even better than that is when a piece of music called Gonna Have A Good Time plays when the two of them are being obnoxious at the diner, and when they start massacring everyone in there, this crazy, bluesy piece called 11-59 by Slackjaw Blues kicks in, making that sequence all the more deranged. And finally, It's Over by Patti LaSalle is heard during the final scene with Jed down in his basement, with the title and lyrics having real significance, alluding to how his relationship with Lizzy ended up.

If you're like me and rolled your eyes when you first heard of another Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel film being produced, I would actually advise at least giving Leatherface a watch, as it is better than you might think. It has good actors giving good performances, even if some of them, like Stephen Dorff, come off as a tad shallow and underwhelming in their parts; good locations and settings that don't belie that this is actually Bulgaria; the cinematography that's well done, if too dark at some points; really gruesome makeup effects and deaths, as well as just a lot of nasty imagery; there's much more nuance to the characters' portrayal, putting it leagues ahead of the previous film; the score and soundtrack are decent enough; and, if nothing else, this is definitely the most unique entry in the franchise. However, it's still got problems, mainly in that, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, the approach it takes in depicting Leatherface's origin, while interesting, doesn't reach its full potential and actually feels rushed in some spots. Also, the way they needlessly try to misdirect you as to who exactly it is can prove to be something of a hindrance in your first viewing. By its very nature, it's going to bring to mind other horror-road movies like Natural Born Killers and The Devil's Rejects, and like The Beginning, it suffers from the prequel curse of you having an idea who's going to be left alive by the end of it. And finally, knowing that this is what happened eight years before the events of the original movie doesn't add anything to it. All in all, while Texas Chainsaw 3-D was a poorly-executed attempt to start a franchise, Leatherface is more commendable but nothing that amazing.