Texas Chainsaw 3D (2012) Review

Here is a film whose writers knew this very well.

The story? Cookie-cutter slash pic with a familiar face who doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen before. The pacing? Everything worth seeing takes 20 minutes and occurs somewhere around the middle half of the move. The atmosphere? No such thing – just grit and grime and slaughterhouse rules. The 3-D? Shamelessly crammed in during post. The characters? They’re dead.

Well, thank God for that.

Texas Chainsaw 3D
Token Black Guy and Token Super Hottie, now featured in glorious 3-D.

We here at Yell! Magazine like to go out on a limb and assume that our readers are medium- to high-level horror fans. It works out for us, because it saves a lot of time in writing reviews.

If you want to see three grisly deaths that you’ve already seen occur to character archetypes that you’ve grown to hate, then be my guest. If you yearn for a climax that’ll induce a cornucopia of aneurisms, then yeah – this is the movie for you, you sick pervert. Scrounge up 14 dollars and go watch something that you’ve seen a million times before.

However, if you want to see something new, worked out with a healthy dose of effort and a hearty supply of talent, go see Django Unchained – don’t even thank me. Just do it, and sleep well knowing that your life has been thoroughly improved.

Well, I suppose the film is not without its saving grace.

The Verdict:

Look, if you want to see the same movie that you’ve seen before because you’ve got a taste for that sort of thing, well – Texas Chainsaw 3D definitely follows formula. It’s got a handful of dumb teens who go on a road trip and then get their heads cut off, and then the heads are used in an all-ghoul bowling tournament where the grand prize is a bag of Sunchips and a gift certificate for Supercuts.

Or something. I don’t really remember the movie very well.

If, instead, you want to – oh, I don’t know – be surprised or challenged or moderately entertained – then just save your money and play that game where you have to trap the cat in the circle of dots. It’s actually a lot of fun.

BY THE WAY – THE LOW RATING OF THIS FILM WAS DUALLY CAUSED BY ITS LACK OF ANYTHING WORTH ACTUALLY SEEING, COMBINED WITH A PLOT TWIST THAT’LL MAKE YOU WANT TO DO A FRONT-FLIP INTO A SWIMMING POOL FILLED WITH MEDICAL WASTE – WANT TO READ WHAT IT IS? IT’S A SPOILER! AH, WHO CARES, ANYWAY?

See, maybe the writers were tired of portraying Leatherface as this big, scary, man-butchering meanie, so instead, they portrayed him as a loyal, kind-hearted soul who’s actually really nice once you get to know him. Now, I know that the idea that he was pretty much under the thumb of his close family was always a running theme in the original series, but – as far as I know – he was never outright sympathetic. In this story, he’s a borderline good guy.

Which, bold as it may be, is kind of wonky and out of place because – you know – he stiches masks made out of people’s visages to his face. Also, he cut that one guy in half with his chainsaw.

Then again, I suppose it could have been worse.