Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III Review (Film, 1990) #31DaysOfHorror
content warning: blood, gore, animal death, violence against women, racism
A mass grave is found near a Texas interstate. A couple from California, Michelle and Ryan, travelling cross country get caught up in an altercation at a gas station, sending them on an alternate route right by the new home of the cannibalistic Sawyer family.
If The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 was too much of a departure from the original film for you, you might have a better time with Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. It has similar beats to the 1973 film, with the news reports, the interaction with the local police, the scary encounter with a loner by a gas station, and a detour suggested by a local.
The big difference is one of style. This is the first mainline sequel not directed by Tobe Hooper. The result is a much more straight forward slasher aesthetic. Action sequences feature a lot of closeups and loud noises to show off exactly what’s happening and build tension. Nighttime is very dark, with the actors and sets barely coming into focus with a heavy use of blue filters.
The other big change is the level of gore. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre series is violent, but the first two films didn’t linger on the aftermath. If anything, they went out of their way to avoid showing what happened. You know that the family liked their sledgehammers and chainsaws, and you’d see the swing and the reaction, but rarely the contact.
Leatherface shows everything. It’s only because the screen is so dark that they get away with it. The film actually had to be re-edited to drop from an X-rating to an R-rating, which is likely where the violent scenes became so dark and disjointed.
The intention here is clearly a reboot of the series. New Line Cinema picked up the rights to the franchise after the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street and put Leatherface front and center. New family members are introduced, as they are wont to do in the sequels, but the killer is a very aggravated Bubba Sawyer.
Leatherface starts to feel a little more like the rest of the series going into the third act. Michelle finds a house in the middle of nowhere and asks a little girl for help. She, in turn, stabs her with her baby doll that as an animal skull for a face. The little girl is the youngest member of the Sawyer family, and her brothers, mother, and grandpa soon follow. The Sawyer family fights like they usually do, trying to stick to all the rules the family has to survive and keep the ancient patriarch happy.
The biggest problem here is perspective. Michelle and Ryan are not particularly likeable protagonists for a horror film. They’re a couple that constantly argue with each other over the smallest things. If they didn’t get caught by the Sawyer family during their road trip, they likely would’ve broken up before they reached their final destination. Benny, a survivalist who rescues the couple after their car flips off the road, is a good action hero, but doesn’t exactly fit the tone of the rest of the film. It’s like they pulled a forgotten character from a Predator or Terminator film and slid him into the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. Sara is too far gone when we finally meet here to get a good read on her. She is the last survivor of the previous group to cross the Sawyer family and is still processing the trauma.
There was a small trend in the late 80s/early 90s that tried to make gun-driven action sequences the big thing in slasher films. Leatherface, especially, feels wrong with guns going off throughout the second half of the film. The screenplay tries to justify this with the new father figure of the Sawyer family being obsessed with new technology, but the curiosity of Bubba playing with a speak and spell learning computer is just as ridiculous as the threat of a sniper rifle in a series defined by brute force and chainsaws.
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is a curiosity. The extreme violence actually being shown takes some getting used to. The inclusion of gun violence and so many even fights between the heroes and the villains feels a bit off for the series. It comes down to context. If this was the first film in a new slasher series, it would be a decent start. As the third film in a series meant to rebrand the franchise, it feels underwhelming.
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is available to rent on all digital platforms.
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