Texas Chainsaw Massacre Review

By Paul Anthony

Well this is my first blog back in a while and the last few months have been crazy with marriage than buying a new home, but today we are back to getting on track and no other way around it and that is doing a review on a film that I was actually excited to see, that’s right I was excited to see this film. Now This was the 9th overall film in the franchise and the first since the film Leatherface from 2017, now I will say I have yet to watch that film and look forward to seeing how that film truly is. When I had heard about this film I was looking forward to it because the last film I actually saw from this franchise was Texas Chainsaw which focused on a older Leatherface. This film continues that trend. Lionsgate who had the rights before was suppose to produce five more films after Leatherface but lost the right due to the time limit and the rights go to Legendary Pictures and was released on Netflix. Filming had it’s issues including having to find a new director during production. Filming had wrapped up in the March of 2021 than just 11 months later here we are.

Now this story takes place nearly 50 years after the killing spree of 1973, so in other terms 50 years after the events of the first film. Here We meet the main cast as they travel to abandoned Texas town of Harlow. There is Melody, Dante, Dante’s girlfriend Ruth and Melody’s younger sister Lila. We learn Melody and Dante are investors and they want other investors to join them to buy properties in Harlow to basically bring it back to life in this new age. Things go as planned at first until Melody and Dante go into a old orphanage and meet the owner Ginny who says she still owns the building which than provokes an argument, at that point when meet a very large man who she claims to be one of the longest students there. Because of the argument Ginny has a heart attack and Ruth and the large man rides with the sheriffs as they rush her to a hospital. Sadly she passes away and the large man snaps and kills everyone in the van and even cuts Ginny’s face and that is when we learn that the large man was really a unmask Leatherface. and that is when the killing spree happens again and basically killing everyone in his way. At this point we learn Sally, who survived the events of the first film, became a Texas Ranger to find Leatherface and get her revenge. I guess she couldn’t find a large man in a small town that had basically no one living there, though the film makes it clear you can find anyone that wears a mask. Anyway we get to the point where Sally arrives to save Melody and Lila but this time Sally feels the wrath of Leatherface when he kills her. We have a back and forth battle with the girls and Leatherface. Its clear that the girls won until the end when they are driving away from Harlow and Leatherface rips Melody out of car and chops her head off and dances in the street and Lila is stuck in the self driving car. Now there is a post credit scene and that is Leatherface returning to his old house which is the house from the first film.
Now I have some issues with the film and those issues are, why and how did a grown man like Leatherface end up in a orphanage, they failed to explain that part. next thing is the investors wanting buy this old town, that seems like a weak idea because who would find value in a ghost town. Next the main cast mostly with Dante and Melody, they basically had them look like the villains so when they got killed you didn’t feel sorry for them. Having Lila being a school shooting survivor felt random and rushed, Basically this film had no character development and no plot to truly stay interested in. Now the film does live on its gore and basically that is what saved the film from being a complete failure. You had Leatherface snap a cop’s wrist and stab him in the throat with it and throwing a spinning chainsaw, sort of like a Darth Vader throwing his light saber. In the end that gore pushes a failure to a C rating and sure if you are fan of the franchise give it a watch but the truth be told you won’t miss anything if you did.
Sequel Saturday Presents Inside Man : Most Wanted
By Paul Anthony
One of my favorite movies that I nearly forgotten about because I haven’t watched it in so long was a film that came out in 2006 starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster. The film was creative and had the star power to become a hit and sure enough it did. The movie’s budget was 45 million and ended up making 184.4 million which meant a sequel would happen at some point. Well shortly after the film was release it was confirmed that Inside Man 2 would happen and the three stars would return and once again Dalton Russel would plan another robbery and would be matching wits with Keith Frazier once again. However by 2011 Spike lee announced that the movie had been canceled but movies don’t stay cancelled well 8 years later we finally got a sequel though it was a straight to D.V.D film. Which meant no Washington, no Owens and no Foster. So what film would we exactly get? Well basically the same plot over again without the big stars which mean no real magic but was the film really that bad? First let’s look a the plot.
This film takes places five years later after the events of first film, once again the same bank is set to be robbed because not only did the bank have Nazi diamonds but also Nazi gold, the founder of the bank Arthur Case has been put on house arrest after police learn after and everything he own in that bank now belongs else where, which annoys his son who wants the gold to make up for the money that his family has lost but he also wants revenge, so he orders Dalton to be kidnapped and order his sisters to get the gold from the bank if they want to see him a live. Once again all these details are left for us to figure out in the end so the film would make sense to us and keep everything a mystery. the robbery becomes much like the first one where it looks like it failed but it really wasn’t just this time in a different way then the first film. However no one lives up to their bargains so in the end Dalton who has been masked is shot in the head.
First let me say this of this movie did hit theaters it would for sure be a flop because of the no name cast and the 13 year gap from releases but this didn’t reach theaters so in so many ways for a direct to video follow up it wasn’t bad, sure at times the acting was stiff which is honestly expected in this case, the plot in the end wasn’t bad but it just didn’t bring anything to the table to spice things up but did capitalize on the loop holes from the first film. In the end it was a below average follow up for a sequel but I am giving it a C or 70 percent because I have seen worse but that wasn’t the case for this film.
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