Texas Chainsaw (2013) User Reviews (364)

Fast paced but cheesy

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 21 December 2013]

Texas Chainsaw is the latest movie in the long-running series and a film that aims to be a direct sequel to the Tobe Hooper original, pretty much discounting the various others that have come along since. To be honest, these movies have such a gruelling premise that it's difficult to go wrong with them; a premise that screams horror and disturbing imagery all the way, so you'd have to be a really bad filmmaker to screw it up.

This film feels very much like a modern horror movie. It's incredibly fast paced, with action going on all the while; a film filled to the brim with chase scenes, quick-fire dialogue and constant movement. It ups the gore quotient considerably, so that we're subject to bodies being chainsawed in half and the like, while at the same time the genuinely disturbing atmosphere of the first film is long forgotten. It's horrible, but not horrifying. There's something cartoon-like about watching Leatherface on the rampage here.

Unfortunately, the story does take some very silly twists along the way, particularly towards the climax, and the ending is very poor. Not only does it feature a horrible bit of CGI effects work, it mixes up and muddles its morals and features some unbelievable behaviour on the part of the characters. I had the feeling things would turn out this way but it's too abrupt and nonsensical compared to what's come before, the tone is all wrong.

Still, it's not all bad. The cast are young and hip, and give some not-bad performances although they don't really wow you. The person making the least impact is Scott Eastwood; you register him as Clint's son from appearance alone, and certainly not from acting talent. Still, Alexandra Daddario is fine as a potential scream queen and it's nice to see her given the opportunity to shine in a leading role after playing support in the likes of PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF. The direction isn't too bad, and the early scenes tying it into the original work well, but this is light, cheesy and forgettable fluff in the end, nothing more.

I wish I can saw this movie in half. Keep the first half, tossed the second half, away and rewrite it. It's really that bad.

[ironhorse_iv · 4/10 · 30 May 2014]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is a series of horror films which depict people meeting their ends at the hands of an Ax-Crazy family in Texas known as the Sawyers. The most famous of the Sawyers is the chainsaw-toting manic known as Leatherface whom now played by actor Dan Yeager. Unlike the other Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, that were often reboots or retellings. 2013's Texas Chainsaw 3D was supposed to be a direct sequel to the 1974 classic film: Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The movie erase or ignored the canon of 1986 sequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 & 1990s Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III from existence. The film begins with stock footage recap of the 1974 film, and the events that happen after it, with the victim escaping the family's home. A lynch mob was gather up for revenge, and the Sawyer's family were killed off by them. The movie really expand the number of family numbers to a large amount. Honestly, where were half of these characters in the first movie!? For the most part, the family members that were added, are just there to get killed off, or pay homage to the first movie by having the actors in the 1974 film, to return. A good example are Gunnar Hansen as Boss Sawyer: Hansen last portrayed Leatherface in the 1974 original film and John Dugan reprise as Grandpa Sawyer. They even got Marilyn Burns, the original final girl to play a role in the film. One of new Sawyers members was an infant girl, who was spare and rescued by one of the townspeople. The infant grew up to become Heather Miller (Alexandra Daddario), a 20 year old woman who decades later, learns that she inherited a mansion from her biological grandmother. With her friends, she go there and they learn the hard way that Leatherface is still alive. First off, how is Heather in her 20s?? The movie doesn't know what time period, they want to place her in. Her and her friends look like they were dressed in late 1970s/1980s, but it's clearly pointed out that 2012 with the camera phones and tombstones explicitly saying the date. Leatherface would be in his 60s. Gees… he is able to run around in his age. Wouldn't Heather be like 48 year old, not in her 20s??? If the movie was place in the late 1990s where Heather would be in 20s, it would make more sense. I really don't see, the reason, why the movie had to set in the present day. The movie tries to hide this mistake, by conveniently trying to hide the year obscured and everyone seems to be going out of their way to not mention what year "August 19th" was. The movie has no sense of time. I have a hard time believing that Leatherface had time to un-earthed a rotten body in 10 minutes flat, just for a jump scare. The first half of the movie is just the same tiresome clichés structure of any horror movie, with a bunch of unlikeable teenagers partying too much, and having sex when they should be wondering why characters were getting whack off, one by one. The second half of the movie, has the balls to turn Leatherface into the anti-hero, when Heather learn about the truth of her past, and the townspeople decide to take their vendetta on her. Yes, the movie wants us to root for the cannibals! Heather was the most decent character in the film, but the movie had the need for her to team up with Leatherface against the evil town-folks. Wow, that's BS! Let's forget, that Leatherface killed most of her friends and try to kill her in the first half. This isn't a spoiler, since the audience knew fully aware that Heather is related to Leatherface, but why is she teaming up with him. Honestly, it would had made better, if she was given a Laurie Strode like role in 1981 Halloween 2, having to fight both the town folks and the chainsaw manic. The movie was made in 3-D, but it was rarely used. When it was use, it was just awkward or gimmicky. The movie is full of bad one-liners. The movie has a number of gorn like scenes that horror people might love, but it's badly done. Check out the awful CGI blood scenes to get why it's bad. The movie got first a NC-17 rating due to excessive gore, but after cutting it down. It was resubmit to the MPAA, and got an R rating. The movie was produced by Twisted Pictures & Lion Gates distributing. Both companies are known for their Saws movie series. There is a cameo of a chainsaw-wielding man dressed as Jigsaw in the film to hint about that. There is also a post-credits scene, that doesn't add anything to the plot. Watch it, if you want to. Overall: I get that the movie was made with heart with director John Luessenhop onboard. The obvious goal of the film was to attract genre enthusiasts who value faithfulness to the classics. It kept most of the homages, but it ruins it by the antihero concept. I do like the reappearance sound of the flash the camera makes, but for the most part, the movie is a laughable attempt to follow the original. The 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre is far superior to this film. It's still better than a lot of the other remakes and sequels out there.

Rather Watch The Remakes

[Fields201 · 4/10 · 4 January 2013]

I have a confession: I liked the two remakes by Platinum Dunes. I thought they were entertaining, dumb horror films and dare I say it, actually kinda scary. They weren't masterpieces or anything but I enjoyed them for the most part so when I found out yet another Texas Chainsaw movie was coming out, and even though I wasn't impressed with the trailer, I decided to go see it.

What was I thinking?

I think you are forced to see it in 3D because, well, it says 3D on it but most of the time you forgot you are even watching it in 3D. It adds nothing to this movie. The movie starts off showing clips of the very original Texas Chainsaw Massacre which confused me because it totally obliterates the remakes. Actually it ignores the sequels too as the story picks off from there. It starts off with these hicks burning down the home of Leatherface and his family and one of the hicks takes a baby and kills the mother. Flash-forward to.... how many years later? Is it supposed to be 2012 because the baby should around forty, not in her early twenties as she clearly looks like. Anyway, she finds out she inherited this house and her and her cookie-cutter friends and some hitchhiker who appears nice only turns out to be a thief all go there. Then Leatherface turns out to be in the basement and all hell breaks loose.

This movie is so stupid I don't know where to begin. Well, the actions of the characters are just stupid. Before I get into that, though, there is one good scene in the film when Leatherface is chasing them but it all goes downhill from there. The movie offers up these turn of events that make no sense whatsoever. A cop goes back to the house alone and there is no backup anywhere in sight for one lone cop in a house with a crazed psycho with a chainsaw. Then characters turn bad for stupid reasons and one of them that played an intricate part of the storyline just disappears somewhere, never to be heard from again. Then by the end of the film, I don't even know who to root for the main heroine turns completely idiotic. Oh, and the ending just plain sucked.

This film is bad in so many levels. I kept thinking, "Who wrote this crap?" in so many parts of the movie. There wasn't many people at the theater either and I saw it at a night showing. If that's an indication, there might not be another Texas Chainsaw movie. Oh well.

Ludicrous 3rd Act

[jamdifo · 2/10 · 5 January 2013]

First the positives:

1. The movie moves quickly, it doesn't drag, so edited well. 2. The middle part is half decent and what you expect for this series. 3. The female lead and her friend are very attractive. 4. Decent special effects. 5. Nice highlights from the original movie at the beginning.

Negatives:

1. Where did all these family members come from that wasn't in the 1st movie? Terrible answer to what happened after the woman escaped. 2. Are you really suppose to feel sympathy for a family who killed 4 people in the 1st movie and implied they killed countless others? They deserved to be shot and burned but the movie says it was wrong. 3. Why is everyone a jerk in the movie? One guy steals, 2 people cheat, people abusive, lying, etc. Only the boyfriend of the lead actress's friend wasn't, and he was the most brutally killed. Come to think of it, the mayor wasn't either, he did what had to be done, and he was the 2nd most brutally killed. Too bad the movie thought he was a jerk. 4. Too many clichés like the officer going to the house and not waiting for BACKUP! Guess what happened to him. 5. Tombstone scene showing grandma died in 2012, meaning 39 years after the 1st movie, yet no one aged that much. Eating human meat must keep the body young as Leatherface at 60 something moves awfully well. 6. This must be the only carnival in Texas that no one carries a gun. Also, amazingly, Leatherface doesn't cut anyone with the chainsaw moving thru the crowded carnival. 7. A van with a cut tire flipping over. That doesn't happen. 8. A sheriff who believes in equal rights for serial killers. Just absurd. 9. Terrible ending. Trying to have sympathy for Leatherface? How did anyone think that was a good idea? He's suppose to be scary! 10. Lead actress who suddenly forgets Leatherface killed her good friend and boyfriend, and now loves him because he's her cousin. Terrible! 11. How does a sheriff lose a deputy, see on video 3 cut up bodies, and just tell Leatherface to clean up his mess? Fire the script supervisor! 12. Leave evidence out so someone else can look thru it. Always the incompetent police dept. If that were true today, the US would still be like the wild west. 13. Have to take care of Leatherface? Let the cannibal rot. 14. If it wasn't for the thief, would Leatherface ever have gotten out of the house? How did he survive when Grandma died? 15. CGI gore, not that great.

I could go on, but too many more negatives, I'm done. I see why this came out the 1st weekend of the new year.

why this film is so bad

[mab71 · 3/10 · 14 January 2013]

Im not one for writing about films but after seeing this film though i had to. The idea of the film seemed good ,but that was about it. reasons why it was bad

1-when you first saw heather she seemed normal kind of woman,totally out of character to her parents .i know she was adopted but would be similar in personalities.

2-Are we meant to believe she is around 40 ,and leather face is nearly 60.

3-totally pointless in showing her friend having sex with her boyfriend if she wasn't going to find out.

4-sheriiff willingly let one of his officers walk into a house alone were a armed suspect is likely to be .

5- sheriff just turning blind eye to a mass murderer just because the guy he just killed was corrupt." just clean the mess up".

6- what really was the point of hitch hiker?

and lastly,do u you really sympathise with a mass murderer ,even if he is your cousin and your parents lied to you? she witnessed leatherface cut her friend in half with chainsaw.is that OK? plenty more reasons

"Texas Chainsaw 3D"- Absolutely insulting...

[TedStixonAKAMaximumMadness · 1/10 · 30 October 2017]

You know... there's varying levels of the concept of 'bad.' There's just plain-old bad. There's enjoyably bad. There's unintentionally bad. All sorts of different ways that simple, three-letter word can be used to give meaning to something. But then there's a film like "Texas Chainsaw 3D", a 2013 semi-sequel that seeks to continue the story right where the original Tobe Hooper masterpiece left off. It had potential. It really did. It boasted a high-concept story. It sought to connect itself to the iconic first film. It held the promise of top-notch modern day effects. It had so much going for it. And how did it end up? It ended up a very special type of that delightful term 'bad.' The type of 'bad' that's almost indescribable. Unforgivable, even. And most certainly unforgettable. "Texas Chainsaw 3D" emerges as not only indisputably the worst film of the franchise... but also indisputably one of the worst mainstream horror movies of all time. Yes. It is indeed THAT type of 'bad.'

Days after the events of the original massacre, the dreaded Sawyer family is all but completely wiped out in an act of vigilante justice, with seemingly the only survivor being a now-orphaned infant. Adopted by the same men who killed her family, decades later in the present day, the child- now named Heather (Alexandra Daddario)- has grown up and learns that she was adopted. What makes it all the more confusing is that despite the fact she should be in her 40's by this point, she's very clearly in her early 20's and acts as such. Which is just one of literally dozens of glaring plot-holes. But I digress... Heading out to Texas with a group of friends upon learning of her biological grandmother's supposed death, Heather is eventually confronted by her deadly past and encounters her relative 'Leatherface'- who begins to pick them off one-by-one. However, a series of troubling events will make Heather question her allegiances and motivations, as she is pulled between her current life and the call of her true lineage...

Oh, boy...

To get it out of the way, it's almost impossible to view this film without picking up on the unending plethora of errors, mistakes and general displays of incompetence that pop up in virtually every single scene. From the mind-numbing timeline issue of having the modern-day protagonist being in her 20's despite having been born in the early 1970's... to laughably inept digital effects that look like they were ripped from a 1993 TV-movie... to the fact that the opening sequence actually paints the evil cannibal Sawyer clan as innocent victims of rednecks gone rogue... every since facet of "Texas Chainsaw 3D" is frankly devastatingly poorly conceived and handled. It's beyond hack-filmmaking in its execution. It's something else entirely. Something far worse. I genuinely do not know what was going through director John Luessenhop's head during production. How could he knowingly make something so fundamentally and insultingly broken without realizing it? Does he really have so little respect for his audience that he thinks we can't even do simple math?

Even beyond these unforgivable mistakes, the rest of the film is a complete and utter failure. Not a single darned thing works. Visually, the film is uninspired and drab, with flat lighting and poorly framed shots that don't inspire tension or even really flow well outside of one or two early sequences. And it's made all the worse by the over-gimmicky 3D that intrudes repeatedly throughout the film at an inconsistent pace. It's like they forgot the film was supposed to be in 3D, so they jarringly added a few random effects in here and there that instantly take you out of the movie because they clash with everything else. Again... beyond hack in its execution. The script by a small army of writers is a bland mish-mash of every cliché in the book, and filled to burst with nonsensical inconsistencies and insane contrivances that aim to raise the bar on the series... but only succeed in tanking it over and over again.

The cast is just ridiculous. The women are all over-sexualized and completely vapid thanks to the awful writing, and the actresses assembled seem completely inorganic in the roles. Lead Daddario in particular being woefully bad, inducing far too many uncomfortable cringes in the audience as she stumbles through the film. She's looks like an uncomfortable child in a school play. And Tania Raymonde is too far over-the-top as Heather's slinky friend Nikki, and quickly grates the nerves within seconds of appearing. Not that the men fare any better at all- mainly serving as either cheap eye-candy or blatant storytelling devices. Trey Songz falls completely flat as Heather's boyfriend in a one-note performance that shows the dangers of stunt-casting semi-popular singers in film roles. Paul Rae is unintentionally hilarious as a conniving mayor who pops up now and again. And for the love of god... can we please stop trying to make Scott Eastwood a thing?

"Texas Chainsaw 3D" is a cynical piece of trash from a cynical filmmaker who clearly does not care one bit that he's tanking horror royalty. There's no other way to say it. It's amongst the worst horror films I've ever seen and it insults the audience again and again, all while destroying the integrity of that classic original film. It's a 1 out of 10. Avoid like the freaking plague.

Sacrilegious but Horror is suppose to take on the sacred

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 21 January 2014]

This movie starts with the 1974 movie. After Sally escaped, police officer Hooper goes to the Sawyer house and tries to arrest Leatherface. However an angry mob gets to the house and massacres the family instead. One of the mob kidnaps a surviving baby. Years later, that baby is now young Heather Miller (Alexandra Daddario). Suddenly she inherits an estate from a grandmother she didn't even know she had. She goes back to Newt Texas with 3 friends (Trey Songz, Tania Raymonde, Keram Malicki-Sánchez) and a hitchhiker (Shaun Sipos). There they encounter Leatherface who's been kept in the basement. Only there are more villains than the chainsaw wielding brute.

There is a flip in this movie. It's tantamount to blasphemy. It's probably why there are so many haters. But I almost feel like it's a badge of honor for a horror movie to flip the accepted view on its head. If you can't destroy the sacred in a horror movie, then where are we going to do it.

The best thing in this movie is Alexandra Daddario. It reminds me why I had her as one of my preferred choice to be Wonder Woman. Now I hate the Gal Gadot selection even more. She holds the movie even better than Jessica Biel. She's super hot. She can act. She has physicality. This is a well acted, well filmed, and an interesting take on the franchise.

An Excess Devoid of Thought or Merit

[greycomics-1 · 1/10 · 6 January 2013]

Beyond all the pink-cheeked, bated-breath laudation that has come from critics and horror aficionados in the 38 years since the release of the original film, it's not a stretch to say that the two things that worked together so effectively in the execution of the original was the stark, naturally-lit and flat documentarian style of cinematographer Daniel Pearl and the sparse writing of Hooper and Henkel, whose utter lack of exposition lend a terrifying, claustrophobic immediacy in counterpoint to sun-baked Southern Gothic vistas, which place the viewer squarely and unremittingly in role of Hitchcock's man filming in the corner, with all of the legendary director's flinch-inducing atmospherics and not of whit of his restraint, such as it was.

With so much latitude in which to effect a direct sequel (apparently given a seal of approval by Hooper, undoubtedly for monetary incentive and despite his directing a direct sequel in 1986), with so little to hamper questions of plot or motivation, Texas Chainsaw 3D fails so completely and morosely that one might wonder for whom the film was even made, for it definitely was not for a viewer with any sense of taste or even the ability to do basic arithmetic.

It is generally understood that the events of the first film take place in 1973 or '74. Once this film left the confines of those few brief sequences which dovetail immediately from the end of original, in which a lynch mob and the most ineffectual sheriff ever are party, directly or indirectly, to picking off the entire Sawyer clan to which Leatherface is kin, and then burning the farmhouse to the ground, and a member of the mob inexplicably taking the lone babe of family home to raise as his own, we skip, by all accounts of vernacular, media, and what little of civilization we see before plunging back into the wilds of rural Texas, to be modern day; a tombstone later in the film confirms that the year is in fact 2012. From this, we must conclude one of two things: Heather Miller (the now grown-up Sawyer child from the intro, played by a disturbingly thin Alexandra Daddario) is either the youngest looking 40-year-old heroin chic store butcher (as heavy-handed a nod to the nature vs. nurture debate as I've seen in film since being lampooned in Trading Places) in the history of cinema, or people were picking up retarded hitchhikers in VW bugs while wearing bare-backed polyester fashions of the seventies sometime between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Rodney King riots. So far is this discrepancy from being explained that all reference to the date of the original film's events are limited to "August 19th" with the year consistently being deliberately obscured.

The rest of the cast is equally unremarkable in presence and abysmal in performance, from the Tonia Raymonde shedding her more tame bad-girl image from ABC's absurd Switched at Birth series to become the requisite slutty slasher-bait, inexplicably involved in a love triangle, never exposed or explained beyond its smarmy, innuendo-laced exposition, with Heather's boyfriend, played by Trey Songz, included no doubt in an attempt to add urban flair and coax minority viewers that are probably sick of seeing Caucasian kids lumber around stupidly and getting fileted in the dark woods.

The greatest disservice to the original material was the ridiculous attempt, by way of the Sawyer family slaughter at the beginning and the near single-minded thuggery of the lead vigilante, now serving as the town's mayor, to make Leatherface and company sympathetic characters, even swinging for the anti-hero fences when the bloodthirsty mayor meets his boring and contrived ending. Were the mayor and his retinue of good old boys terrible people for mowing down a slew of people and burning the house to ash with Molotov cocktails? Undoubtedly. But we should not forget those people were part of an inbred family of murdering, cannibal sadists, something that no amount of rural oppression can allow any sane person to ignore.

The film exists for the same reason that the sequel to the Blair Witch Project was released: to produce a sexualized, tangential story with hot young actors in a shameless attempt to cash in on a franchise name. At least Book of Shadows attempted a story even if it was a terrible one. Avoid this one, unless you have enough morbid fascination to see both the death of a franchise's self-respect, and one torn button-down shirt which maintained its wearer's modesty purely by proving that one of the few forces in nature greater than gravity is a non-nudity clause.

DO YOUR THING CUZ

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 4 August 2018]

This is one of the weirdest, unexpected sequels since Halloween 3. The film opens with a quick flashback and picks up exactly where the last one leaves off. The police, along with some vigilantes torch the Sawyer house with the murdering cannibals inside. A little girl is saved and raised by one of the vigilantes. Now that she is grown, (Alexandra Daddario) Heather discovers she is adopted and the sole heir to the Sawyer plantation in Texas.

She travels there with 3 college mates and picks up a person along the way, because the unwritten code of a Texas Chainsaw movie is the hitchhiker/rider. As it turns out, she is not the only heir left and you come to sympathize with the cannibal with a chainsaw.

The film has its share of severed bodies, blood, and gore. The 3D action is climaxed with a chainsaw tossed at the camera. Remember this is a sequel. Keep the expectations low.

Parental Guide: F-bombs. Implied sex. No nudity. Tania Raymonde bra/panties. Alexandra Daddario open shirt cleavage...and how did her shirt become buttoned shut once it was ripped open?

"Do your thing, cuz!"

[waba-se-wasca · 2/10 · 15 July 2016]

Even on second viewing three and a half years later, the above line is still one of the most cringe-worthy I have ever heard.

I rated 'Texas Chainsaw' 2/10 back in January 2013 and I stand by my rating after watching it a second time. Even though it looks good, has a creepy atmosphere (at least in and around grandma's house) and some nice splatter scenes to offer plus a beautiful lead actress (Alexandra Daddario) going for it, this movie is an absolute mess.

First off, a real problem with 'Texas Chainsaw' is the fact that it takes place in the present but still is supposed to be a direct sequel to the original 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (1974). We know that the events in the first movie took place in 1973 and Heather was a little baby at that time. 'Texas Chainsaw' supposedly takes place in October of 2012 (grandma's day of death is September 29, 2012 according to her tombstone). That would make Heather 39 but she looks to be in her early twenties at the most. We see a number of townspeople and the sheriff in the scenes that take place in 1973 and they don't look much older later on in the present-day scenes, let alone 40 years older.

So when you watch the movie and do the math, you probably come to the conclusion that the movie must be taking place in 1993 or something. Heather's boyfriend drives an old Volkswagen bus and there are no cellphones or computers to be seen. The early '90s scenario seems plausible for about half of the movie until one of the sheriff's guys pulls out an iPhone and live streams his search of grandma's house. Now the timeline is completely ruined and the people who made 'Texas Chainsaw' knew it.

When you closely observe the movie, you will notice a few times when we see the date "August 19" but the year "1973" is not shown on purpose. One time we see the date on an old newspaper but the year is smudged out. Another time we see it on a tombstone but the year is obscured by grass. Very curious indeed. There is however one time where the complete date "08/18/1973" can be seen on a police report. That was probably overlooked. All this is distracting and it makes you wonder but I wouldn't consider it a major flaw if the movie was otherwise good. Nevertheless, it would have been a much better idea to have the movie take place in the early '90s to not mess up the continuity.

Another problem with 'Texas Chainsaw' are Heather's friends, who must be some of the most generic supporting characters ever. That's probably why they are killed off early on. The evil town people are not much better. The acting is mediocre at best but that is a relatively minor issue compared to the horrendous script with its thin and ludicrous plot.

It's incredible how anyone would approve a script that constitutes Leatherface's murderous family as victims of the bad townspeople. It is completely ridiculous that Leatherface, a notorious mindless murder machine, in this installment of the series is depicted as a poor backward guy who is just out for a little revenge on the people who did him and his family wrong years ago. Sure, he kills mostly just innocent people on his way to revenge, but he doesn't know any better, right? Insanity! Leatherface always was a cold-blooded killer, nothing else. He didn't have an agenda in the previous movies. He just killed. Period.

'Texas Chainsaw' tries to depict Leatherface as a kind of victim and fails badly at it. The fact that Heather bonds with cousin Leatherface the way it is shown here after he just chopped up all of her friends doesn't make sense at all. She actually begs the sheriff not to shoot poor Leatherface and what's even more unbelievable is that he complies. Yes, the sheriff indeed lets Leatherface go after he rampaged at the town fair, brutally murdered a couple of innocent people and gruesomely cut up one of the sheriff's own men.

Not enough lunacy? The sheriff just tells Heather and Leatherface to clean up the mess and walks away from the crime scene. What gives?! Nobody in their right mind would act like Heather and the sheriff do here. I tell you, nobody. Such a behavior is far from believable and almost an insult to anyone's intelligence. Maybe a plot as ridiculous as this would work if it was done as a horror comedy, but 'Texas Chainsaw' is dead serious and that makes it all the more bizarre.

The only scene that is really good is a very short one that comes after the closing credits: Heather's foster parents ring at her door talking about how much they love her now that she has money and then Leatherface comes out of the house swinging his chainsaw. Sure, it's a pretty stupid idea that Heather would actually let Leatherface kill off the people that raised her for many years even after finding out what they did, but the tongue-in-cheek way it is done in this short scene makes it really funny. Sadly, there is nothing of this funniness in the actual movie. I reckon the movie could have been much better if it was done in that over-the-top style similar to 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2' (1986).

'Texas Chainsaw' needs the audience to take a plot seriously that just can't be taken seriously and that is the big problem. It doesn't work. I'm sure most people have a facepalm-feeling at the end of the movie. I certainly would be surprised if you don't cringe when you hear "Do your thing, cuz!"

Maybe I'm weird but I love this one

[UniqueParticle · 8/10 · 2 May 2020]

Sadistic campy entertainment that is glorious! I'm one of very few people that appreciates Texas Chainsaw, oddly I saw in the theater and was traumatized a little. Dan Yeager did great as Leatherface! The cinematography is pretty good and I am satisfied with the way everything occurs.

really dumb yet still bloody fun horror sequel.

[jaguiar313 · 6/10 · 4 January 2013]

Is Texas Chainsaw 3D a good movie?... well that depends. If you can't get past a stupid script, cardboard characters and the fact that by the implied time line our plucky heroine (Alexandra Daddario) should be in her 40s not barely in her 20s, then, no. But, if you can sit back and just enjoy a hot babe running around being pursued by a chainsaw wielding maniac who has a knack for carving up her stupid friends, then, yes, it's unintentionally goofy, gory fun. Chainsaw 3D is a direct sequel to the 1974 classic that opens with a vengeful redneck mob laying siege to the house occupied by Leatherface and a lot of other family members that weren't there in the original. A baby is found on the property and we cut to 2012 (the date is confirmed on a tombstone as September 2012) where Heather (Daddario), has magically only grown up to be 20 something and is an amazingly hot butcher at a supermarket. She soon gets word that her grandmother (original Chainsaw heroine Marilyn Burns), that she didn't know she had, has died and left her a house in Texas. Whoa! Adopted and now rich! Heather goes down to the house with some generic stereotype friends who seem handpicked to be murdered which is smart because there just happens to be another family member living hidden in the house like Bad Ronald (70s TV movie reference. Google it.) and he just happens to like world peace, romantic evenings, chainsaws and wearing peoples faces. Before you can say,gratuitous ass close-up, Leatherface emerges from hiding and starts hacking up everyone he can find. Throw in some sleazy rednecks, some redneck cops (including Scott Eastwood, Clint's son) and it's a redneck smörgåsbord...literally as the body parts fly fast and furious. Sure, director John Luessenhop doesn't really generate much suspense or scares from the incredibly dumb script but, Chainsaw 3D reminded me of some of the lower tier 80s slasher flicks that were entertaining despite and because of how bad they were. There are numerous references to the original flick and I just had fun watching a chubby, balding Leatherface carving up all the unlikable characters when not chasing his hot cousin around trying to kill her. Alexandra Daddario was a fine (and I mean FINE) and feisty heroine and I liked her character's twist once she finds out who she really is and that she now has to buy her chainsaw wielding cousin a Christmas Card every year... if he lets her live. Yes, Chainsaw 3D is a very dumb and silly horror flick but, it also is blood drenched fun if you go in not expecting much and stop comparing it to the movie it's trying to honor. And despite how bad it's written, the film is trying to honor it's roots and we get some fun cameos to prove it and when it's all said and done it can be a good time if you just sit back and enjoy watching hot chicks in peril and sleazy rednecks meeting chainsaw justice. A few beers before the show wouldn't hurt... if fact it might be a good idea.

I already forgot about it

[Jason_Marsh_35 · 2/10 · 4 January 2013]

Pure garbage. They set the movie in 2012, 39 years after the original. The only character that aged was the Sheriff. The main character was a baby in 1973 but is miraculously only about 22 or 23 in 2012 (which they clearly display on a grave stone, 2012). Also in 2012 smart phones can stream live HD video in real time over a call. I wonder how much their data plan is? Which, by the way, brought the film from ridiculous to absurd especially given that streaming the video served no purpose in the story or the scene. A speaker phone would have sufficed and my disbelief would not have been called back from suspension. So yeah, those are just TWO of the myriad issues this movie has. This was worse than the remake, by far. There isn't a film maker in the world who could make a good sequel to the original, even Tobe Hooper couldn't do it and HE directed the original. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is a perfect film, it needs no more exposition, but this is the era of the retro cash grab. So everything cool from the 70's and 80's gets dragged out and crapped on for the youth market and they think the winks and nods to the source material will tickle us old fans nostalgia gland. Well screw you Hollywood. It doesn't. It's lazy film making. What I paid 10 bucks for was nothing more than a 1sr draft script chock full of slasher clichés and inept story telling. You know what made the original so brilliant? It wasn't about anything! It was simple, I dare say even plausible. But this movie BEGAN in implausible territory and only sank deeper into the abyss. Stay away if you have a brain. CGI gore, 'nough said. The 3D was not even adding any degree of anything, it was more distracting than anything, which is more the format, 3D just sucks.

every cliché in modern horror movies rolled up into a painful hour and a half

[tbmforclasstsar · 1/10 · 5 January 2013]

John Luessenhop's Texas Chainsaw 3D is a bad, bad movie. You know this. I know this. Unfortunately the producers and studio that backed this latest incarnation of Tobe Hooper's original genre-creating slasher film ignored what we, the audience, already knew, and decided to milk the franchise-cow for the sixth (and hopefully, final) time.

This new reimagining (as Hollywood likes to call it) starts off promising with archive footage of the original film. That was the first five minutes. After that, the movie spirals into unexplained and implausible territory, asking its audience not only to suspend disbelief, but disregard it completely.

The 2012 version of Texas Chainsaw is a direct sequel of the original, with the prologue taking place in 1974. Vigilantes show up at the infamous Sawyer home where the murders of several young adults literally just happened and proceed to torch it to the ground in a fit of vengeance. Amongst the chaos, a young Sawyer woman with an infant is found hiding in the garage. Then, in a laughably inane act of kindness followed by harsh brutality, one of the vigilantes saves the baby girl and randomly kicks the Sawyer woman square in the face.

If there was anything 2011's The Cabin in the Woods has taught us, it's that ridiculously attractive young adults will always venture out to parts unknown for no reason and behave in ways normal human beings would never agree to in real life given eerie circumstances.

Cut to Heather Mills (starring Alexandra Daddario's midriff and breasts). She finds out she inherited a home in Texas after her previously unknown grandma passed away while simultaneously discovering she's adopted. Usually this would tear at the soul of a normal person, being lied to your entire life by people you thought were your parents, but no. Heather's first instinct is to collect on her inheritance by dragging along her boyfriend, Ryan (Tremaine 'Trey Songz' Neverson), her best friend, Nicole (Tania Raymonde), and Nicole's boy toy (Keram Malicki-Sanchez) on an impromptu road trip. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker named Darryl (Shaun Sipos), apparently to add to the inevitable body count.

Texas Chainsaw fails to mention the time discrepancy as the original film took place in the 1970s and this new film clearly states it's 2012. Heather should be pushing 40, but no bother. In a movie like this, the only thing that matters is the gore, the scantily clad women, and the infamy of the original.

To read the rest of the review (IMDb form too short) visit: http://custodianfilmcritic.com/Texas- chainsaw-3d/

Probably the worst movie I've ever seen

[mortonzhou · 1/10 · 21 May 2013]

I love horror flicks. I thought the 2003 remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a pretty decent horror film. Not amazing, but entertaining nonetheless.

This version of Texas Chainsaw caught my attention in the beginning. Giving a flashback sequence to the original Sawyer family members being killed. Things just went downhill after that. Every character in this movie seems to lack a brain and/or is a complete a**hole. On top of that... there was no nudity. I mean c'mon.. what's a horror film without some nudity?! Just to name a few of many things that made this movie bad:

Farnsworth a.k.a. the KFC Colonel didn't think it'd be important to tell Heather, there was a 6"5' lunatic living in a hidden basement of her inherited house.

Even after all of Heather's friends are brutally murdered by Leatherface, whom she discovers to be her cousin, she feels sorry for him and loves him because he's "family." Screw that noise... ALL of her friends are dead because of him. It's not even like he's a close relative. She doesn't even know him. One minute she's scared sh**less of him and the next she loves him AND helps him kill a couple more people?? Are we supposed to believe that her thought process was: "Oh, hey Cuz, you just knocked me out in the kitchen, almost cut me up with a chainsaw in a coffin, tried killing me by flipping our van, chased me through a carnival with a chainsaw forcing me to hang on to a Ferris Wheel for my life AND killed all of my friends. But that's all okay.. I forgive you because we're family. Now I'm going to help you kill people and take care of you for the rest of my life." All I could say was... Seriously... wtf just happened.

Towards the end, the sheriff was the only character I liked up because he seemed to have a brain... Surprise!!! He's an idiot too! He decides not to shoot Leatherface even after he killed five people in just one night because he feels bad for him. His family died because they were a bunch of murders.... boo hoo. Are we supposed to feel bad for Leatherface??? I sure don't. Yet the makers seemed to think "let's try to get the audience to feel bad for him." Last time I checked, Leatherface was a scary serial killer. You're not supposed to feel bad for them. We, as the audience of a slasher film, have no interest in feeling bad for him. We want to be afraid of him. It is a HORROR film after all.

In summary. The plot and character development make absolutely zero sense... to the point where it makes you cringe. No thought was put into this movie. Seems like the makers knew Texas Chainsaw fans would go watch this movie so they didn't care to put effort into making it a good one. Don't waste your time and definitely not your money watching this movie. If you want to watch a Texas Chainsaw movie that isn't incredibly old. Go watch the 2003 version. Not a great movie... But it's still (approximately) a million times better than this garbage.

Do your thing cuz! hahahha

[rinspeed909 · 1/10 · 15 May 2013]

This has got to be the most god-awful crap I've seen in a long time. Remember that old joke where you want hours of your life back for wasting it on some crap movie? Well, that's exactly how I feel now. I only watched this movie being a long time horror fan especially of the Texas Chainsaw franchise. However, I have lost all hope that there could ever be a successful relaunch in the horror genre. This movie was just bad. Instead of recommending my friends and family a good movie, I'm going to be going around warning people not to waste their time on this one. I think 4.8 rating on IMDb is plenty generous for this mistake and a half. John Luessenhop, I hope you don't pursue any further film projects. You have displayed your 0 talent in this waste of everyone's time.

A Direct Sequel to the Original; The Filmmakers Had Guts

[Michael_Elliott · 7 January 2013]

Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

*** (out of 4)

Heather Mills (Alexandra Daddario) and her three friends travel to a small Texas town so that she can claim her inheritance but soon she realizes that Leatherface (Dan Yeager) is in the basement and her past has a connection to him. Texas CHAINSAW is a film that's probably going to swing fans of the series both ways but overall I actually thought it was the second best film in the franchise behind the original of course. I will say that the producers, writers and director showed some serious balls because much like HALLOWEEN: H20, this film is a direct sequel to the first film. Yes, the events here don't fully match up with the events in that first film but it was interesting seeing the clips from the first movie and how they tied up what happened after Sally got away and then started this new story. Does it all work? Not at all but I still found the film to be a lot of fun. One reason is that Leatherface is returned to his full glory of being something rather scary and I thought there were a couple great jump scenes. I normally don't fall for these jumps scenes but the ones here worked. I also thought the film delivered some very memorable gore scenes but those paying the extra cash for the 3D will probably be cheated. In fact, the few "3D" moments here really take you out of what's going on. For the most part I thought the cast was a lot of fun and this includes Daddario in her role in the lead. I also thought Yeager made for a good Leatherface and perhaps the best since the first film. Speaking of which, it's nice seeing that Tobe Hopper and Kim Henkel were involved and we even have Gunnar Hansen and Marilyn Burns in small roles. I'm sure the ending will lead to some controversy among horror fans. While it's incredibly predictable what's going to happen, I must say I liked it and it made me excitement for a sequel. Texas CHAINSAW 3D is far from perfect but it's a good way to get the franchise back up and running.

as expected!

[mm-39 · 7/10 · 9 January 2013]

Texas Chainsaw 3 D with a title has certain expectations to it. 3 D Chainsaw is the film that I expected it to be! I believe the movie will not get an academy award. What worked in the movie: The 3 D effects were actually good. The Chainsaw comes right at you! Other films with 3 D effects were fuzzy and Chainsaw was able to clean up the 3 D effects. My friend and I got a headache after the movie. Chainsaw 3 D blends the old 1974 Chainsaw massacre with C G I into the current movie and story. The old and new has a great segue. 3 D Chainsaw storyline shows how family feuds start with family backing family. The family theme creates a potential for a part two. What does not work for Chainsaw 3 D is a run of the mill script with the same plot devices, gore etc and ending which makes the film predictable. I give Chainsaw a seven out of ten because of the 3 D effects.

Embarrassing

[joshtownsend1 · 1/10 · 8 January 2013]

I honestly do not know where to begin.. First of all, the first part of the movie seemed to me like it was aimed at 14 year old's who have just discovered masterbation, not that I can't appreciate the female form but the way the camera flowed one of the female characters buttocks was plain ridiculous and that top the main character was wearing was just stupid, she needs to eat something.

But that aside, the story line, dialogue, acting and execution was utterly embarrassing. Now I am a huge fan of the TCM franchise, I even enjoyed the re-make and 'the beginning' but I found it difficult to sit through this movie, the line 'do your thing cuz' literally made me cringe, leather face was a joke in this film, and the 3D was terrible and pointless like with most 3D films.

Words just cannot sum up how awful this film is, even the gore is sub standard and not abundant. Simply put, this film should not exist and everyone involved should be extremely ashamed of themselves.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has been massacred by this abomination.

• Townz

Texas Jumpscares!!

[warp-95304 · 7/10 · 12 August 2020]

I'm the one of few people that like this film, Yes I liked it!! But!!!! Is this a movie? Or Stupid Five night at freddy's game, There are a lot!! Of freaking jumpscares in this movie.

So Disappointed.

[megdomes92 · 3/10 · 5 January 2013]

Being the extremely huge Leatherface fan that I am, I have been looking forward to seeing this movie since the first posters came out. Literally have been counting down the days. I rushed to the theater on opening night super excited because the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D facebook page shared a lot of information about the making of the movie and I expected it to be the best one yet. HOWEVER....

I was so unbelievably disappointed in this movie it sickens me.

If someone didn't know anything about the previous TCM movies, they would think this was just your everyday horny teenager horror movie. I believed that the TCM movies were always better than that, but now my opinion has changed.

The movie started out good, and had some good background information to later understand the present scenes. However, once we met the main characters of the movie it was obvious that it wasn't going to meet my expectations. And the fact that Trey Sonz was in this movie(even though his acting skills WERE better than I expected) totally ruined it for me. Also the makers of the movie made a huge error with the the main character's age (should be at least 40.) The killings were not that severe, the only 3D parts were with the chainsaw (which didn't even happen that much), and Leatherface was turned into this sweet character that you began to feel bad for. And don't even get me started on how Heather was acting at the end of the movie.

The whole story line was completely changed. During the first half of the movie it is just like the other TCM movies, but the last half turns into some weird love/family reuniting story which I absolutely hated. Plus the other movies really portrayed the fact that the movie was based off a true story. This new TCM makes it seem more like a fantasy horror movie. It's all just very confusing and makes me feel like a woman with a glass of wine wrote the story line.

See for yourself if you like but if you are a die hard TCM fan like I WAS, then I highly expect you to be disappointed and don't spend money on it. Thank god I got movie theater gift cards for Christmas...

So, here's what I did...

[queeroid · 8/10 · 20 November 2020]

Maybe if you watch all the Texas Chainsaw films in the order I did, you'll be able to appreciate this film as much as I do:

• 1. 1973 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
• 2. 1986 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
• 3. 1990 - Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
• 4. 1995 - The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994)
• 5. 1955 - Leatherface (2017)
• 6. 1969 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
• 7. 1973 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
• 8. 2013 - Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

With the gigantic mess that is the continuity between the many films in the series, I put them in somewhat of a chronological order, but in two separate tiers. Essentially there's the original run of films ('74-'95), and then the more recent sequels/remakes/prequels/reboots/what have you ('03-'17). And after all of that, honestly... "Do your thing, cuz" was a pretty awesome way to round things out. By the end of this watch order, big ol' nasty Leather getting a somewhat happy ending is actually pretty damn satisfying.

Chix Chat on Film Review: Leatherface resurfaces.

[EmmaDinkins · 6/10 · 6 January 2013]

This film was not exactly what I expected. I went in knowing that there would be plenty of severed body parts and basically an hour and a half gore-fest. And the case was that there was a reasonably high body count, but there was actually a plausible story amidst the carnage. The film provides a rapid fire back story that was a bit comical as victim after victim walked into a cleaving. This is followed by law enforcement showing up to handle the situation which gets totally out of hand. The film tells a twisted story of the lengths people will go to protect their family and broaches the question of nature versus nurture. When we first encounter Heather (Alexandra Daddario), she is at work and her vocation is a hint into her nature. Since this is a horror flick, the story quickly moves to place the players in harm's way. Typically, horror flicks have nonsense moments and this story was no exception. I released an audible 'wow, really' a number of times as I sat at the edge of my seat watching this story play out, especially the events surrounding the situations with Darryl (Shaun Sipos). After seeing the trailer, I had questioned why these young people would wind up in an isolated home with a chainsaw wielding murderer on the loose and as the story unfolded it made sense. There were many predictable scenarios in this film, one more than others and that being the simple fact that Ryan (Tremaine Neverson) was amongst the soon to be victims. As the onliest brotha* in the group of young people secluded in the woods equation and given the genre of film there was no doubt as to his fate. As far as Trey Songz' acting debut I will say that he wasn't bad. I am glad that he didn't burst into song though, which would have been totally out of place just like the timing and location of the little tryst that he decided to participate in. The flash imagery in dim light to show the eviscerated bodies and the conditions of Jeb's living quarters was appreciated since it is never necessary to see this type of gruesomeness in detail. The 3D premium should stay in your pocket since it was only used on the chainsaw; there was more 3D variety in the preceding trailers. I give this film an amber light.

*Note: 'Why'd you have to shoot Jimmie, he was my onliest brotha…' dialogue originated in Hollywood Shuffle.

A plle of steaming something coming out of Texas

[longcooljolie · 1/10 · 3 October 2017]

This movie was on Tubi and I clicked on it mistakenly thinking it was the 2003 remake, which is actually quite good. Realizing my mistake, I went ahead to see what this movie had to offer. It starts off with a rehash of scenes from the mid 70s movie that show all the carnage at the very end.

Guess what? This sequel tries to make some cockamamie story about how that blonde girl who got away in the pickup truck called the cops on the people in the Chainsaw House and what happened after that. THEN, once that gets resolved within five minutes, the action jumps ahead to the present day, 2012.

I'll spare you any more details because honestly, this movie isn't worth the time or effort. There is a whole new troupe of attractive young people who get caught in the clutches of a 21st century chainsaw killer. It's so badly directed and acted it would almost be laughable if it weren't so obvious they were trying to make a serious movie.

Think of this in the same way as the effect that "Batman and Robin" had on the Batman franchise before Christopher Nolan rebooted it 10 years later. Well, maybe it isn't such a good comparison because "Batman and Robin" is high cinematic art compared to this big pile of steaming Texas meadow patty.

Reprehensible

[wytsharkmedia · 1/10 · 19 May 2013]

** SPOILERS ** Woof...what a dog. This movie should exist only as a teaching example to young screenwriters and directors on everything NOT to do when constructing a movie.

First off, why bother? This franchise was played out back in the 80s when the infamous Cannon Group tried to make a go of milking it for dollars. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an icon in horror cinema, and for good reason. The utter simplicity of it's story and approach, matched with a lightning-in-a-bottle performance by a cast that was literally being driven crazy by director Tobe Hooper in 120 degree Texas heat, pulsates with a gritty realism that is hard to shake. The moment you slick things up and start noodling with the plot, the whole mess is going to collapse like an over baked soufflé.

The Michael Bay reboots had a certain something about them that made them watchable--even enjoyable--but this hackneyed attempt is rotten to the core.

In the featurette, producer Carl Mazzocone confesses that his plan was to reacquire the rights and create a 6 movie franchise like Saw. If the trajectory of that arc starts this low, somewhere around #4 they won't bother to make a movie, they'll just throw you down a flight of stairs when you show up to the theater.

Mazzacone is just thinking dollars, and it shows. His reverence to the source material only goes so far as to use a ton of it in the opening credits and give Gunnar Hansen (the original Leatherface) a cameo.

The script is everything I hate about current Hollywood storytelling. All the characters fit a type and never veer from it, never speaking or behaving like normal people. Every action they perform is in service of forwarding the plot. There's nothing organic or believable about a single person in the whole film, and thus: who cares. It's all just meat being carved up. And you can pour as much blood on it as you want, it doesn't make me care, and it doesn't make me scared.

I don't know how much to blame the director for my next gripe, because I suspect this has more to do with some arrogant producer forcing his creative input into the editing: for horror to work, it needs to breathe. Horror is all about the build of tension and the release. MTV style hyper editing will kill any and all suspense instantly. This film is in such a hurry it never pauses to let the audience bask in suspense. But it will hang around for 10 minutes at a stretch while it dolls out it's convoluted plot.

Yes, and lets talk about the horrible plot. When the idea of turning Leatherface into the hero at the end and having the main girl turn out to be his long lost cousin came up in early creative meetings, someone with half a brain should have spoke up and nixed it then and there. Just bad, just horribly horribly bad, and completely miscalculated.

But then this is the creative crew team that thought having lead Alexandra Daddario blatantly running around in a belly shirt the whole movie would be sexy, not completely awkward and distracting. Or, when Daddario gives Leatherface back his chainsaw so he can dispatch the corrupt mayor of the town and says "Do your thing, Cuz" that the audience would cheer in appreciation, not nearly kick in their flat screen in frustration.

To surmise: attractive actors are wasted on hack writing, decent cinematography can't make up for a director that doesn't know how to tell a story visually, a greedy producer dreams about franchise money and skips the whole part about making a movie worth watching. Awful, terrible and a total insult to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.