Movie Details
| Title: | Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation | |
| Director: | Kim Henkel | |
| Year: | 1994 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 03.28.14 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 03.28.14 | This Screening is part of event: The Texas Chainsaw Marathon AKA The Return of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You know, all through watching Dallas Buyers Club I suspected something was up but now after revisiting this I'm convinced that McConaughey's Oscar was payback for this performance going unnoticed. OR McConaughey won the Oscar when Dallas Buyers Club producers included this movie on the screener with an engraved note saying "Most Improved" in frilly fancy script. OR When William Friedkin met with mcConaughey to talk about his role in Killer Joe, Friedkin was worried that McConaughey didn't have the chops to carry such a heavy performance. "I can do it, Billy," he said. "I understand this character completely. Hell, I AM this character." Friedkin looked at McConaughey with concern in his eyes. "It's not that," Friedkin said, "I know you understand the character and his motivations. It's the fact that you don't have a remote-controlled cyber leg to hold you up in this one. The part's too HEAVY!" OR ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT Ok ok enough awesome McConaughey humor. Let's talk about this movie. So... ok the obvious point is that most of this movie is really really terrible. The characters are distilled to the point of satiric jokes (although the dick guy is hilarious and the bitch girl is almost as funny), the performances are terrible, the whole Illuminati angle is a complete mystery and I guess tries to answer a question that nobody ever asked, much of the action feels sloppy and low low budget (although thankfully this is pre-digital video so it still looks better than half the shit today), and Leatherface now just screams like every moment he's in a scene he's more Screamface than Leatherface. And of course... McConaughey has a fucking CYBER LEG that's receptive to any REMOTE CONTROL that... I don't know... gives him super stomping powers or something. So if you take all of that and disregard it, there's some pretty good stuff here. I like that it's shot in Austin (which I don't think the third one was even shot in Texas... I saw an awful lot of Joshua trees), I like how turn-it-to-11 insane McConaughey is right from the get go. I like a woman crazy thrown into the mix, although the first actual boob in the series gets inserted out of nowhere and - if I can type this without dying of irony - kind of cheapens the film. I like the throwback cast at the end and sometimes (SOMETIMES) the script feels sharp. And even though I hate the Illuminati thing, I like that they tried to take it somewhere instead of just telling the same exact story again. Now, whether I prefer an underground carnival or 20 year-old McConaughey working for Mr. suit-and-flesh-rings, I don't know. I'd probably put the third one above both other sequels. But it could have been worse. For a movie like this that maybe never would have been released were it not for Jerry Maguire and A Time to Kill, it SHOULD have been worse. So there you have it. the "original" series is done. It's a super fragmentary and relapsing series really. By this time Jason had "died" and Freddy fought dream warriors and... who knows what Michael Meyers did I don't really like most of the Halloween movies. But now I'll probably take a little break before dipping into the "reboot" series... It's funny what 10 years does... music videos and 9/11 changed a lot. |
