Leatherface (2017) Lionsgate/Horror RT: 90 minutes Rated R (strong bloody violence, disturbing images, language, some sexuality and nudity) Director: Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo Screenplay: Seth M. Sherwood Music: John Frizzell Cinematography: Antoine Sanier Release date: September 21, 2017 (Direct TV)/October 20, 2017 (US) Cast: Stephen Dorff, Vanessa Grasse, Sam Strike, Sam Coleman, Jessica Madsen, James Bloor, Lili Taylor, Finn Jones, Chris Adamson, Boris Kabakchiev, Dejan Angelov, Julian Kostov, Lorina Kamburova, Nicole Andrews, Ian Fisher. Box Office: $1.4M (US, limited)
Rating: ***
Like superheroes, horror movie boogeymen have origin stories. Jason Voorhees was a mongoloid kid who drowned at summer camp and witnessed his mother’s beheading several years later. Michael Myers was a sociopathic kid who stabbed his older sister to death at age 6. Freddy Krueger was a deranged child killer burned to death by a mob of angry parents only to be resurrected in their children’s nightmares. Any horror movie fan worth his weight in stage blood knows how these infamous movie slashers became who they are. But what about Leatherface, the hulking star of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies? What made him Leatherface? His backstory is finally told in Leatherface, a direct prequel to the original 1974 hillbilly horror classic. It’s about damn time!
Forget Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, it has NOTHING to do with the TCM series proper. It’s a needless prequel to the needless 2003 remake. Neither of them count. Leatherface, on the other hand, is a decent entry in the series. Directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (the 2007 French horror Inside), it’s violent, gross, nasty and very gory. It plays more like a down and dirty killers-on-the-road action flick a la The Devil’s Rejects or Natural Born Killers than a horror movie. It doesn’t go as full-blown bat-crap crazy as TCM2, but Stephen Dorff (Blade) camps it up nicely as the unhinged lawman looking to avenge the death of his only child at the hands of the “hillbilly trash” Sawyer clan.
Leatherface’s story begins in 1955 at his birthday party where young Jed Sawyer (Kabakchiev) receives a chainsaw as his big gift. He’s expected to use it to kill the suspected pig thief they have tied to a chair. He can’t bring himself to kill so Grandpa (with his trusty hammer) does the deed for him. A little later, Jed lures a teenage girl (Kamburova) to an abandoned barn where his family is waiting to kill her. She’s the local sheriff’s daughter, his only child. Hartman can’t prove they killed her but he can still screw them over by placing Jed in a state-run mental institution “for his protection”. Ten years go by and he’s still a patient there. His name has been changed, again for his own protection, and the head psychiatrist refuses to allow Verna Sawyer (Taylor, The Conjuring) to visit her son despite the court order her lawyer hands him.
Meanwhile, it’s Nurse Lizzy’s (Grasse, the TV movie Roboshark) first day at Gorman House. She couldn’t have picked a better day to start. It’s the same day Mama Sawyer comes a-calling. In searching for her son, she agitates the other patients which causes a riot in which many die including the doctor (Adamson, the POTC movies) who, it turns out, is conducting sadistic experiments involving electroshock on his young patients. In the chaos, four of the kids escape and take Lizzy along as a hostage. They are Bud (Coleman), a hulking mute with bipolar; the seemingly-nice Jackson (Strike) and crazed couple Ike (Bloor) and Clarice (Madsen). Hartman leads the pursuit to either kill or recapture the young escapees who leave a bloody trail across the state of Bulgaria (standing in for Texas).
Leatherface has cannibalism, necrophilia, rotting animal carcasses and mass murder. There’s this one cool scene in a roadside BBQ restaurant where a meal break turns into a blood-drenched massacre. One victim literally has her head blown off by a shotgun. There’s another scene when Ike and Clarice do a three-way with a rotting corpse they find in an old trailer. There’s plenty of sick, crazy stuff like this in Leatherface and I welcome it. How long has it been since we’ve had a full-tilt-boogie gory horror flick like this? The closest we’ve come is last spring’s The Belko Experiment. Man, was that one every bloody! While the body count in Leatherface isn’t as high, it certainly exceeds it in terms of gore. We even get to see a chainsaw murder close-up. YES!
Dorff plays Hartman as a vengeful dad gone balls-out insane. He has a thing for bad kids which is why he has no problem killing them in cold blood. Taylor is also good as the Sawyer family matriarch who believes a family that slays together, stays together. HA! She may be right! You no doubt notice that I haven’t identified grown-up Jed. Neither does Leatherface. The mystery is figuring out which of the escapees is Jed. It’s not like they can tell you; all those years of the doctor messing with their brains did damage. They don’t remember much (if anything) before coming to Gorman House.
Leatherface is a cool throwback to the grindhouse movies of the 70s. The only difference is that it’s a more polished production. It doesn’t have the same grimy, grungy look or feel, but it more than delivers on the unease factor. At times, it makes your skin crawl. It also delivers lots of gore, but I already said that. This is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel/prequel fans have been waiting for.
