Better Late Then Never

The first must-see film of the year.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I've seen complaints that this film contributes very little to the origins of Leatherface, which is true. However if you go into this without that expectation you have a very solid slasher flick, which is surprisingly well shot might I add. A fun movie intended for lovers of the genre.

In case you are not aware from the title of the film, this is the origin of Leatherface, the main character from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film, itself, looks like it tried too hard to copy the Rob Zombie formula for horror film-making, particularly his style of extending the back-story of Michael Myers, as well as obviously taking a lot of inspiration from Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects. That is kind of ironic since Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects were at least partially inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In any event, as a horror fan, when I heard that there was going to be a Leatherface origin film, I was very excited! Unfortunately, that excitement quickly dissipated when I finally watched the film. It starts out slow, but OK, it seems like they wanted to work their way into developing the characters a bit. However, they just sort of gave up and it just fell apart very quickly. The writing was awful, the dialogue was terrible. At times it felt like I was watching a student film-making project. As far as horror goes, it had its moment but nothing "jump out of your seat" scary; mostly just ho-hum although a couple scenes were very gory still weren't really satisfying. The gory parts just kind of happen and then you're moved along. Lili Taylor was great but she was held down by poor production. If this film had a bigger budget and more time allotted to development, I think it could have been great. Sadly that was not to be the case and so now you just have another entry in the Texas Chainsaw franchise which will be forgotten just as quickly as it was released.

In Leatherface, practical make-up creates gruesome imagery without the intrusion of unwanted visual effects. The vehicular stunt near the close is spectacular and screams high production value. The alternate ending is vastly superior and buying the BD is recommended as it allows for this finale to be incorporated into the full feature.

I hesitated and waited for a very long time to actually watch this film, I hated the trailer, it was terrible, especially when they slap a 40 pound chainsaw on the table and tell this little boy to pick it up. The trailer was awful and that's what turned me off. When we just got off the band wagon of Texas Chainsaw(yet another remake) we get this low budget film with an advert that makes it look stupid. Whoever was in charge of making the trailer for this film should be fired, they picked all the shock and awe of the film to sell it, but all they had to do was be a little more discrete while trying to advertise the movie.This prequel erases all other prequels like "The Beginning" which was branched off the remake starring Jessica Biel. This film takes place before the original film, this tells the story of Leatherface how he was molded into a monster, even when you thought you had figured out the monster this film has a nice surprise and I welcome that idea. For once no glitz or glamour just a simple story, which sets up the original film nicely, what a smooth transition it makes at the end to the 1974 original. I gave it 7/10 just because of the little twist, so make what you want out of it, anything is better than that Michael Bay garbage.