Starring: Jordana Brewster, R. Lee Ermey, Andrew Bryniarski, Taylor Handley, Diora Baird
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Rated R
Perhaps you enjoy a brutal ankle and knee hobbling via massive sledgehammers, bone breaking torture delivered with the ever effective police baton or, perchance, watching a man, nailed to a table in a dreary dungeon/slaughterhouse, having his arm filleted with a straight razor and then his face cut off. Oh yeah, and a chainsaw massacre!
If this sounds appealing, then buy a ticket, sit your perverted self down, and prepare for an hour and a half of Texas-sized ass kickin.’
The horror genre aficionado approaches such films with caution and subdued expectations, prepared for campy violence, weak storylines, and unlikable, unmotivated characters. I walked into this film expecting as much, given the string of bad films and worse remakes that did little to bolster the TCM franchise.
Good golly Miss Molly! Was I in for a shocker. Director Jonathan Liebesman, along with original Chainsaw writer and director Tobe Hooper as producer, has created something special here. Something special and very disturbing.
This film has the incessant pacing of, well, you running for your life while being chased by a maniac with a friggin’ chainsaw. Minutes three through five are the only non bash-you-in-the-guts moments in the film, and those are to establish the four lead characters are in love, horny and really, really gorgeous. Jordana Brewster plays Chrissie, the unlucky heroin, who even with blood and butchered organs matted in her hair still is amazingly hot.
Taylor Handley, Diora Baird and Matthew Bomer round out the excellently cast heroes. Leatherface (Bryniarski) may be our favorite lumbering, human slaughter machine, yet R. Lee Ermey as the brutally militant Sheriff Hoyt makes this show?and makes it pure evil. The characters, or victims, are not merely expendable meat-fodder for the terrifyingly sadistic Hoyt to torture; they actually have depth and can instantly be empathized with. And although you know how all this cruel insanity will end, you will still find yourself pulling for the characters to escape the clutches of evil.
Don’t let this one escape the theatre before you see it. Pull your copy of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and watch it, go see this one, and wait patiently for the next.
