Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

A young woman inherits the estate of her grandmother, whom she'd never met. She and a few friends venture out there to check it out. It's not long before they discover it's dark secrets, including housing a certain chainsaw-wielding maniac thought to be dead. There's a saying that goes, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." What they forgot to add was that if one fails multiple times at the same thing, maybe it's not meant to be. If more people practiced this, we could have avoided a lot of crap, like unnecessary sequels.

In the last few years, there's been a trend of reviving long dormant franchises. I'm not talking about remakes, but belated prequels and sequels to classic films. They've done it with The Exorcist, Indiana Jones, Tron, The Howling and a few other franchises. A question that arises when this happens is whether or not it's just for the money. In some cases, a series ended for good reason, either because the story had been told or the quality had taken a major dive. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of those series that started so well and made a steady decline into mediocrity.

Something interesting about the TCM series is that each sequel basically wipes the slate clean. Each claims to be the "true" follow-up to Tobe Hooper's film. Well guys and ghouls, that's exactly what the latest installment does. Like Halloween H20, we're pretty much supposed to forget everything after the first film. None of the other sequels were successful as the original had been, so I guess the makers of TCM 3D thought they could do it better. The outcome isn't a terrible sequel or film on it's own, but it's hardly something to write home about.

Apart from cameos by stars from the original, the rest of the cast is made up of unknowns. None of the performances are going to blow you away, but the actors do well enough. One thing the film does quite well is pay homage to the original. From the flashbacks over the opening titles to the dead armadillo, the film made me smile a few times. Probably the coolest of all though, is the recreation of the original Sawyer family house. In fact, the whole production design is really quite good.

The score for the film is very different from the original's, but is also very good. I love electronic scores, but here we get one that's more classic and that's perfect. Another one of the high points are the effects, done by the great Greg Nicotero and his group. I won't spoil anything, but there are some really graphic scenes and they're really well done. Despite there being quite a bit of gore, the film isn't without effective scares. There are some sequences, like one set in an overturned van, that are filled with tension.

The premise is interesting, but otherwise this film brings nothing new to the table. We've seen all of this before and in better films. There are also a number of plot holes, such as when the bulk of the film is supposed to take place. As I said, the actors do fine, but most of the characters are just cardboard cutouts. In the first three films, you get to know the good guys pretty well, but here most are just fodder. It doesn't help that there are so many characters to keep track of.

There are some moments in the trailer that made people really want to see this film. Unfortunately, some of these turn out to be missed opportunities. The carnival sequence in particular is nowhere near what it could and should have been. While some may be happy that this film ignores the other sequels, all that really does is makes things more confusing. Instead of trying to clear up the mess, they flat out disregard all three of them when they could have at least acknowledged part 2.

For a film that started pretty well, I was hoping the ending would be a satisfying one. This however turned out to not be the case. I won't give it away, but let's just say that you may find what happens really hard to swallow. The makers of the film probably thought they were being clever, but what transpires in the last few moments doesn't work. What we have here is another failed attempt to live up to a great film. As 90 minutes of dumb fun, you could find worse, but as a sequel this just doesn't cut it.

5/10