Harefooted Halloween: Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

What I Liked: Ken Foree of Dawn of the Dead fame (the ’78 version) is awesome as a survivalist who gets caught up in the Texas backwoods butchering.  He goes toe to toe with Leatherface AND Viggo Mortensen (Psycho (1998)) in this.  He’s the fuckin’ man.

All the Texas Chainsaws are thought of as slasher movies and yea, I would categorize them that way.  But beneath the surface they’re more weirdo psychological horror films.  The insane family that Leatherface is part of toys with their victims and bickers with each other.  The interaction between family members as seen through the victim’s eyes is what makes up most of these pictures.  We don’t have the usual pattern of a kill, paper thin storyline involving teens, kill, sex scene, kill, paper thin storyline involving teens, kill, surviving girl is on the run from the villain, kill, etc.  In the Chainsaws we’re not sitting around waiting for the next murder.  Instead we’re being entertained by the oddball bat shit crazy characters and getting a glimpse into their world.  In that way this series is unique and number III continues that tradition.

Short and sweet running time of only about 80 mins.

What I Didn’t Like: None of the actors in the villain roles really shine like in the previous two films.  They’re not as memorably cracked or possess any standout idiosyncrasies.

Although I do like the Texas Chainsaw formula this one doesn’t add anything new to the mix.  Part 2 is so cool and refreshing because they changed things up considerably and didn’t remake the same movie.  III is much more of a rehash of the first which is fine but nothing to get too excited over.

Overall Impressions: Not a whole lot to say about this guy.  It’s pretty middle of the road in terms of everything.  There isn’t anything particularly memorable in this installment.  If you liked the first two movies there’s no harm in checking out the third.