Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

The original Texas chainsaw film is a masterpiece. This is absolute rubbish from start to finish. There isn't one good thing to say about this film, acting terrible, not scary and it's just a waste of time!

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.

Texas Chainsaw is a very pointless film, and wields a chainsaw that clearly has no real teeth. The 3D gimmick quickly becomes tiresome as there are only so many random objects that can be pointlessly pointed at the screen (and when you watch it on TV, it is all null and void anyway), but the plot simply is not there and doesn't really add up (a murderous gang in a rambling house having a millionaire benefactor? A funfair crowd that pretty much ignores a chainsaw-swinging maniac in hot pursuit of a defenceless young woman?). Also, the main narrative premise makes no real sense in terms of the side we, the good viewers, are supposed to take. OK, there is some unlawful vigilante antics at the outset that sees off the Chainsaw clan, but are we really supposed to be that moved? This is a family that ruthlessly kills all who fall into their clutches, an ethos carried on by the surviving Leatherface (shacked up in palatial splendour, to boot), so the sense of moral outrage expressed by Heather (and the Sheriff) is really weird. Oh dear, the nascent Mayor eliminated a group of murderous cannibals in his youth, how awful! I sure hope that justice is served and that Heather and her human face-wearing Charge live happily ever after (with Heather effortlessly overlooking how 'Cuz' brutally butchered her boyfriend and best friend, but family is family, I guess). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a triumph of '70s nihilistic horror, but this slick, CGI-filled, 3D-charged farrago just needed to be hung on a meat hook. Très bad.

So this film bills itself as the direct sequel to the original 1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, even starting the film using archive footage from that film then continuing it on with a siege at the Sawyer house.The stand off at the house at the start really reminded me of the start of The Devils Rejects but not as well executed. The film then jumps about 20 years to a girl finding out she has inherited a house by a grandmother she didn't know she had so goes on a road trip to Texas with her friends to see it.I went into this film with really low expectation not expecting much at all but I quite enjoyed watching it but it is a very dumb film. So don't go into this film expecting a horror classic like the original. A couple of the dumb moments being the friends leaving a hitchhiker they just met in the house while they go shopping or how the main girl is in a crop top type thing for most of the film so her stomach is always on show and even when given a shirt to put on she only does up the top couple of buttons so her stomach is still on show constantly, even gets her shirt ripped fully open to then only do the top couple of buttons up again, it's very weirdly off putting. The acting is all OK nobody too awful, the story is alright, the first act is very normal predictable stuff, the middle I found quite interesting and then the final act was OK for me personally but it will definitely rub a lot of people up the wrong way I think. Final thoughts being quite enjoyable to watch but nothing special or memorable just don't take it too seriously. 6/10