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Title: Leatherface - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (2004) Starring: Jennifer Banko, Ron Brooks (II), William Butler, Miriam Byrd-Nethery, and David Cloud Director: Jeff Burr Rating: X (Mature Audiences Only) Runtime: 86 minutes Avg. Score: 4 Submit Comment Hits: 14

Review of Leatherface - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

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Comments for Leatherface - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

• Posted on 2007-12-19
  Awesome!
  
  If you loved the first Texas Chainsaw, and hated the sequel, then this movie if for you. TCM part 2, tried making the series funny and that just didn't work. The movie was gory but really silly. So when Leatherface was released, they went back to the first film and cut out all the comedy.
  
  This film has an awesome story, really neat gore, and not to bad acting. Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is a really under-rated film, mostly likely because of the other sequels which arent that amazing. The unrated version is the one to watch on this DVD, the R version just doesn't have the same glory. This is the best sequel to the franchise and a must buy to all TCM fans.
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2007-10-11
  Not that great...
  
  I remember watching this one years ago and decided to check it out again since it was on sale at Amazon for 5.49. I believe the idea for this sequel was to make it more like the original but to me it didn't succeed. I enjoyed the first sequel with Dennis Hopper and Caroline Williams and felt their performances were really great. Plus we had the original family returning with the introduction of one new character called Chop Top who was really grotesque and creepy. He sort of took over the role of the Hitchhiker from the first film (there is actually a corpse of the Hitchhiker in that one too). Returning from the first film were Leatherface, Grandpa and The Cook. TCM 2 may have not been as effective as the original but it was a lot of fun to watch and had some very suspenseful, disturbing moments. A lot of horror fans dislike the second film (also directed by Tobe Hooper) and say this one is better. I completely disagree. I thought this one was all around boring. I didn't really like the main characters, Michelle and Ryan, or the 'new' family of Leatherface and felt the performances were really weak. There seemed to be way too many people in Leatherface's new family. There is Mama, a little girl you wish someone would have smacked, Tex (played by Viggo Mortensen), another guy with a hook on one arm, Leatherface himself, the corpse of Grandpa and another demented man from the gas station who never interacts with the rest of the family. I didn't even catch all the names of these characters because there are too many and the film doesn't focus on any one for that long so no one really develops. I want to say this only runs at about 80 minutes. There are no chase scenes. There is also not that many death scenes. Actually I can only think of two. If I would have liked other things about the film, I could let that slide. I tried to give TCM 3 another chance but it's not one I would watch again. It just wasn't that scary nor did it provide any edge-of-your-seat chills or likeable characters with the exception of Ken Foree as the heroic Benny. Even Leatherface wasn't that good. He seemed tired. Maybe under Tobe Hooper's direction, he could have gotten more out of his performers. I would recommend the first two and also the 2003 remake which is surprisingly good. *Cameo alert* You do get to see Caroline Williams in this one as a reporter in the very beginning for a few seconds. 2.5 stars
  Score: 2
• Posted on 2007-09-09
  The beginning of a long ride from New Line Cinema
  
  Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 marks the beginning of a very long slew of TCM sequels from New Line Cinema. I will also add that it's a very long line of sequels that pretty much amount to reworkings of the original. This completely unnecessary installment focuses directly on the character of Leatherface, trying to make him into an unstoppable slasher icon like we saw in Halloween or Friday the 13th. In reality however, Leatherface was always just one part that made the whole TCM experience such a great whole, and the absence of the original family really makes this a less than enjoyable watch.
  
  TCM 3 intentionally goes out of it's way to completely disregard the events of the previous Tobe Hooper sequel, and provides an alternate outcome for Sally Hardesty of the original. We are treated to the tale of a young couple taking a trip on the Texas backroads. After a series of unfortunate events and car troubles, they are ambushed by Leatherface and the rest of the cannibalistic clan. Once they are captured, we witness the horrors that they unleash upon the couple inside their rural Texas home. So this is very much in the same vein of the original storywise.
  
  Here the family consists of an annoying little girl, woman with a mechanical voicebox, Viggo Mortensen as a cowboy, rip off of the hitchhiker, man with a hook for an arm, Grandpa corpse, and Leatherface. Although the characters are obviously barbaric and are grisly in appearance, they provide absolutely none of the effectiveness of the family in the previous two films. For one there are just too many of them, they have absolutely no personality, and we care nothing about them. They pretty much just serve the purpose of shock value with none of the heart or enthusiasm we saw from Jim Siedow(RIP), Edwin Neal, and Bill Moseley.
  
  The "comedy" that is described in the Amazon synopsis is virtually non-existent, they must be confused with another film, as I did a lot more yawning than laughing. "Uncut" also left me scratching my head because the gore here is at an absolute minimum for a TCM film. All in all this film paled in comparison to the Tobe Hooper movies and makes for a pretty mundane watch, even as a horror sequel. If you really love the series, you'll probably like it. If not avoid at all costs.
  Score: 2
• Posted on 2007-08-26
  LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAWMASSACRE III (1990)
  
  In 1990, a third installment to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was filmed and released, allowing Leatherface to continue to do what he does best: torturing, killing, and scaring the living hell out of his victims.
  
  MICHELLE (played by Kate Hodge) and RYAN (played by William Butler) are on a cross country trip from Florida to California, returning a car. However the trip takes a terrifying turn as the pair witness a series of bizarre events. Firstly, in the darkness of night, the pair get held up by traffic, due to the grisly discovery of corpses nearby. Then, stopping off for gas at a gas station, they experience a crazed man shoot a cowboy, who advises them on what road to take. Soon after a road collision they are stranded in the middle of nowhere, though not alone; the chainsaw welding maniac LEATHERFACE (played by R.A. Mihailoff) is soon in full swing, as the pair run for their lives. Michelle soon stumbles into the killer's home, where she is held captive and experiences the gruesome, dysfunctional insanity of a cannibal family, including TEX SAWYER (played by Viggo Mortensen), MAMA SAWYER (played by Miriam Byrd-Nethery), & ALFREDO SAWYER (played by Tom Everett).
  
  Although, not directed by Tobe Hooper this time around, LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III, is an amazing sequel, and just as scary and gory as THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE & THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2.
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2007-08-21
  A forgettable movie-watching experience.
  
  Completing my reviews on the "TCM" sequels, I end with "Leatherface- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III". To say that I was disappointed in this flick would not be entirely true. After having watched the complete mess that is "TCM 2", I was actually expecting something even worse in "Leatherface" but, alas, that is not the case. Now, don't get me wrong because "Leatherface" is not a good horror movie by any stretch of the imagination, but, at least, the makers of "Leatherface" tried to take a more serious approach with this movie than Hooper did with "TCM 2". Still, that being said, "Leatherface" suffers from many of the same flaws of "TCM 2". For instance, once again, there is too much lame comedy and generalized stupidity going on in this movie for my taste. The characters in "Leatherface" come off looking like fools and Leatherface's prowess as a horror movie villain is once again severely diminished by this lame attempt at comedy. However, this is clearly, at least to some extent, what the makers of "Leatherface" were after, although not to the extent that "TCM 2" was as I stated above.
  
  In all honesty, "Leatherface" suffers from a lack of the original "TCM feel" as I like to call it, that atmosphere in the original classic that made the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" great. None of the sequels are able (it may be more accurate that they don't even try) to recapture that "TCM feel" from the original classic, and this hurts the legitimacy of the "TCM" sequels as serious horror movies. Of course, the devil's advocate would say that the sequels are going in a different direction, trying to be original, or the comedy is what makes it good, but I say BALONEY!! The way I see it is if I liked the original so much, I would want to see more of the same out of the sequels, then why would I be happy viewing this comedy garbage?? Sure, there was some comedy in the original, but it was natural dark humor coming from how horrible and degenerate these villains were as human beings, and not from this intentionally stupid and over the top low-class humor that we unfortunately have in "TCM 2" and "Leatherface".
  
  At any rate, the major criticism remains that the sequels, including "Leatherface", do NOT have the original "TCM-feel", the sequels do not take themselves seriously enough, and Leatherface has turned into something of a wimp to put it nicely, although I will say that "Leatherface" does make a small attempt to repair Leatherface's prowess as a horror movie villain at least to some extent, but not very successfully.
  
  The plot in "Leatherface" is not bad per se, but is rather poorly executed which is very typical for a poorly acted (although not horrible acting) flick such as this. Basically, "Leatherface" is about two people who are driving from California to Florida, and in Texas, they fall into this clever roadside trap concocted by these brainless wonders of the Sawyer family where they begin a struggle for their very lives. On paper, that does not sound too bad at all, but in execution, this movie leaves a lot to be desired. This is mainly the result of poor/unconvincing acting, but that does not tell the whole story here.
  
  Indeed, "Leatherface" does start out with a serious attempt to make a horror movie, and there are some slasher elements (albeit quite generic) to this movie and more so than in any of the series' predecessors. While it is true that "Leatherface" is not a pure slasher in the pure sense of the term because of its very nature, it still somehow comes across as very artificial in this regard, a mindless and lifeless hack 'em up type movie completely devoid of any ability to evoke horror in any kind of a seasoned horror movie audience.
  
  Leatherface and the Sawyer family are clearly not as convincing killers as we have in the original classic...not even close, but what is even more glaring is the lack of any attempt to create a horror movie-like atmosphere, which was so essential to the original's success.
  
  To be perfectly frank, "Leatherface" does come across as a rather generic attempt at a slasher with chainsaws. However, the main problem is that the unique quality of the original "TCM" is completely missing, and the atmosphere of the original is likewise nonexistent. This fact, along with inferior acting, poor execution, lackluster screenplay, horrible directing, and unconvincing special effects all make "Leatherface" into an overall very forgettable movie-watching experience.
  
  The bottom line is that "Leatherface" much like "TCM 2" represents a lifeless attempt at recreating any semblance of horror that even remotely resembles the brilliance of the original classic known as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". In short, I'd skip the sequels altogether...you won't be missing much I can assure you.
  
  Score: 1