Harefooted Halloween: Leatherface

*Not to be confused with Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

What I Liked: The lighting is pretty sometimes.

What I Didn’t Like: Almost everything else.

Overall Impressions: You can place this in the “movies that never needed to get made” category.  Part of what makes Leatherface formidable and creepy is that he’s a hulking brute in a skin mask wielding a noisy powerful chainsaw.  Oh, and he’s fucking psychotic too.  Here he’s a normal sized teen with a heart of gold that acts rationally.  He only goes crazy because the movie requires it after a certain point.  I mean somebody’s gotta freak out and get all Leatherface-y, right?

I have a sneaking suspicion the script was a different film before some sloppy scenes were added to the beginning and end to tie it into the Texas Chainsaw universe.  The middle portion is a road rampage picture involving a deranged couple that go on a crime spree like Badlands, True Romance, Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers, Wild at Heart, The Sugarland Express, etc.  It has nothing to do with anything else and it definitely doesn’t feel like a Chainsaw or even a horror movie.

This was directed by the French team of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo who did the infamously insane gore-extravaganza Inside (2007) so I was hoping there would be a bunch of smart filmmaking and brutal chainsaw action.  Well ok, there’s one part where a guy gets ripped to shreds with buckets of blood pouring out but unfortunately in the end this picture isn’t interesting or very fun or yield any meaningful insight into the titular character.  In fact I outright reject the childhood and adolescence that they present.  The whole thing is completely off.  I can’t imagine Leatherface was ever remotely normal and that’s what they’re trying to sell you.  But I ain’t buying.