"Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation" - Zach's Take

You know how at the end of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre Leatherface twirls around aimlessly, awkwardly flinging the chainsaw around at the air, almost doing a weird little kooky dance?

That always soured the film for me. I thought it was over-the-top and silly. It kind of took me out of the film and ruined the verisimilitude that the it had managed to create up until that point.

Now imagine that last shot, but extended for 90-minutes.

Writer/director Kim Henkel (who wrote the original) returns to offer up what he calls "the real sequel" to the first one. Which is interesting, considering this is essentially a re-tread of the original, with pretty much nothing interesting to add and certainly no new take on the material. Teenagers get stranded. Leatherface knocks out one of them, hangs up the other on a meat hook, and chases the final girl with a chainsaw for a little bit. Then the main girl gets caught and is forced to endure a psycho family dinner. Girl escapes, chased by Leatherface. Cue kooky dance. Roll credits.

Just about the only difference is that the teenagers get stranded in the woods (which look nothing like Texas) instead of the remote and desolate plains like in the first film. The new scenery takes any of the creepiness out of the proceedings; how many horror flicks have you seen set in the woods? Probably a little less than fifteen million.

Ultimately, this film feels like some failed art-house director's take on the original. There's a lot of intentional ambiguity, hammy over-acting posing as social criticism, and a scarcity of any sense of pacing or tension. Shots linger for far too long and expose the silliness of the events unfolding on screen. The tone is far too preposterous to be scary, and far too deranged and "edgy" to be campy.

Take, for example, the cameo that ties this film to the original: at the end, Renee Zelwegger's character sees a girl being hauled off on a gurney. The role is credited to "Anonymous." It's actually Marilyn Burns who played Sally in the original film. Or also consider that Leatherface is portrayed as having some kind of gender identity disorder. The film is full of these lame and half-baked "twists" on the original. Deep, man. Deep.

To sum up: the film aims to have it all, swinging awkwardly from campy to serious and everywhere in between.

In other words, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation is the weird little kooky dance of horror cinema.

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation" - Maria's Take

Oh God! Leatherface is particularly terrifying and disgusting in this movie! That face! Those dead eyes! That blank expression! Ugh, it's just terrible!

Oh wait, that's Renee Zellweger.

The worst thing about this movie is that Matthew McConaughey is the best part. I'm not sure where the thought process was behind any moment of this film. I have never been so frustrated and confused at a movie in my life. Not only does it fall back on every standard cliche married to the horror genre, but it also relies on shock rather than tension for appeal.

I mentioned about halfway through the movie that it felt as if a twelve year old boy had seen one horror movie and decided to make his own. There are some ideas that could potentially be interesting. Vilmer's girlfriend is a great basis for an original character, but the writing and plotting is so painfully incoherent that her character becomes flat and convenient.

The ending was so sloppy and unclear I turned to the internet in order to try and get some semblance of an explanation. There are theories out there declaring this film to be a deconstruction of the horror genre, or art house answers to the commercial franchises; however, I think everyone just needs to make peace with the fact that this movie was just awful. Had this been something deeper than it was, it hid the real story a little too well. I can understand some of the theories, and a part of me would like to jump on board. Unfortunately, if this movie were trying to be clever it just (forgive the pun) masked itself behind too much incomprehensible bullshit to have any redeeming value.

It isn't that I didn't "get" the movie. I think there are several readings one might potentially find, but I didn't want to "get" it. I absolutely hate movies that try to be more than they are. One cannot slap a "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" logo on a film and then not provide gore, grime and thrills. This movie had very little gore, the grime was cheap and ineffective and the thrills were overshadowed by the countless times I was left feeling irritated.

This film is a monumental failure. Whether it was actually trying to be a fun, chainsaw-killing slasher movie, or an artsy schmartsy, self-deprecating genre critique, it failed. "Scream" deconstructed the horror genre and was still fun, watchable, and not too far up its own ass.

And, in the same vein of "Scream," there are certain rules one must consider when trying to make an American horror film:

1. You can't be smug. You will instantly alienate yourself from an audience, and will end up alone in your own "brilliance." People go to see horror films, especially franchise films, for guts and cheap jump-scares. You don't expect Saw 18 (or whatever one we are on) to be some sort of existential artwork. You expect Achilles Tendon-slices, and needle machines.

2. You have to know your audience. Unless you have been living under a rock, you must have heard about a new movie called "Human Centipede." A crazy doctor decides to sew 3 people together with one digestive system...just take a minute...got the mental image? Yeah, you're welcome. Why does this movie exist? Because people are gross. They like gross things. Why are they making Saw movies every October? Because people like torture porn. Why do they make more Twilight movies? Because people are disgusting.

3. Know the franchise. This has been the problem with all this month's movies. Each and every movie the producers keep trying to mix up or "re-imagine" (shudder) these old horror stand-bys. You go to a "Halloween" movie expecting Michael Myers. What no Michael Myers? Fail. You go to a "Nightmare on Elm Street Movie" to watch Freddy kill oversexed teenagers. Kill off Freddy? Fail. You go to see "Friday the 13th" to see Jason Vorhees take some counslers out with his machete. Jason's gone? FAIL! Get what I'm saying?

This movie was bad. It was painful. I dislike the way it made me think highly of Matthew McConaughey. The Leatherface movies will always be weird. I mean, he likes to wear other peoples' faces as masks. However, where the second one, (with the incomparable Bill Moseley) is really weird but tongue-in-cheek, this one was painful and frustrating.

Coming Soon - "Cutthroat Island"!

Geena Davis and Matthew Modine! This movie must've made a killing!

Oh, right.

Geena Davis now does quickly cancelled TV shows, and Matthew Modine was in "Funky Monkey."