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Director: Kim Henkel
Screenplay: Kim Henkel
Cast: Renée Zellweger (as
Jennifer); Matthew McConaughey (as Vilmer Slaughter); Robert Jacks (as
Leatherface); Tonie Perensky (as Darla Slaughter); Lisa Marie Newmyer (as
Heather); Tyler Shea Cone (as Barry); Joe Stevens (as Walter Slaughter)
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #87
In the last of the original four
films of the Chainsaw series, the
only phrase you can think of is "what the hell were they smoking?".
And yet, whisper it, it's a lot better than Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) in terms of having
an actual personality to it. What was originally called The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with co-writer of the
original film Kim Henkel directing
and penning the script, is more compellingly memorable for all that crap I'll
still throw at it. Whilst Leatherface
inexplicably has had critical reappraisal, what you get here, as a group of
preppy students on prom night bump into the new Leatherface family, is a
slither of weird John Waters gutter
culture, which is all the best parts, couple awkwardly with illogical, baffling
plot twists and, unfortunately, some of the worst tropes of horror at this
point in the early nineties, when Michael Myers was about to get stuck in pagan
cults and Jason Voorhees was turned into a body swapping hell slug. The best
parts of this film, some of them in air quotes as "best" as well as
legitimately entertaining ones, make the lunacy of what took place as a sequel
at least distinct.
A lot of the pain with Part IV is entirely with trying to
replicate the original. It's the early half that's the real problem for me because
of how bad the main characters you first follow are. Renée Zellweger, as with another future star, stands out positively
and another female character, Heather (Lisa
Marie Newmyer), changes from an obnoxious figure to a strangely likable and
self-aware airhead who asks morbid questions out of mere curiosity, but it's a
dreadful group especially with the male characters to suffer through until the
villains appear to knock them off one-by-one. Neither was it particularly
clever to recreate exact parts from the first film like the door gag or the
entire meat hook hanging, painting a target on itself it didn't need. The music
is also dreadful in large parts, a peculiar mix which establishes why post-grunge
(or even just-post-grunge music since this was made in only 1994) is probably
one of the worst things to have happened to horror cinema since censorship.
Beyond this, it's a compelling mess
of dysfunction which entirely gets entertainment value from the Leatherface
clan and how far over into the deep end it goes. I was immediately aware that Henkel from the beginning wanted to
create an off-beat film that was intentionally humorous when, at the first
start at the prom, a random background female character comes in frame and
turns out to be talking to an imaginary person aloud in her own cloud of
thought. The film is quirky to an extreme and with this in mind, the
Leatherface family being entirely different even in how Leatherface himself is
depicted in each film is far less an issue for me when its instead a way for
screenwriters to add their own idiosyncrasies to them. There's one failure who
isn't even fun in a bad way, Joe Stevens'
Walter Slaughter who quotes famous figures all the time, another failed attempt
at capturing lightning in a bottle that was both Edwin Neal's Hitchhiker and Bill
Moseley's Chop Top. Aside from this, what redeems this film greatly is how
deliciously bizarre this menagerie is. My personal favourite is Darla (Tonie Perensky), a trashy female figure
who's proudly charismatic and no nonsense with a tendency to flash honking cars
outside her office.
Of course there's Matthew McConaughey too, and contrary to
the agent who tried to shelf this film permanently in case it damaged his
reputation, it's clear like with Viggo
Mortensen that he was destined for a lengthy career, even a film as
shambolic like this in his early career an excuse to outshine almost everyone
else onscreen. Randomly assaulting every other character, having an improvised
mechanical device to allow him to walk on a permanently crippled leg, with
apparently over a hundred TV remotes at hand charged to power said contraction,
it's not a role for him to be embarrassed about because, like Mortensen, he's clearly a young actor
giving over a hundred percent and showing a visible talent in how mad as a box
of frogs he comes off as here. It's kind of sad, knowing full well that The Next Generation is understandably a
disaster, that McConaughey was paid
for his clear acting talent with a lot of A-list Hollywood films, for every
good one, which are usually not as impressive as they could've been when, if he
could salvage a film as notorious as this one with just his screen time, more
horror films could've benefitted from him being cast in them.
Then there's the decision to have
a transsexual Leatherface (played by singer-songwriter Robert Jacks). One the surface, there's far more of a concern for
me now about it coming off as transphobic rather than caring whether its
blasphemous to the original version by Gunnar
Hansen or not. Take it as it is, a character who decided to dress like a
woman to the point of both wearing a woman's face and breasted torso flesh, it's
a fascinating direction to go with in gruesome implications. What actually
happens onscreen thought is that the character turns into the most John Waters like part of the movie, a
wordless drag queen-like figure who coos and holds his sat posture regally at
the dinner table very nobly, beneath the makeup and Liz Taylor hairdo a songwriter whose interactions with Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers should've been a sign of where the film, let along
this performance, would go in terms of the weirdness stakes. It's the most
inspired aspect of the film, even if it means Leatherface is no longer a threat
here, with less time onscreen menacing people with chainsaws when McConaughey is foaming at the mouth and
doing most of the sadism.
The film eventually stops making
sense, one of those rare films that phrase can be justified for. While hyperbole
is a dangerous place to go, this whiffs of the same weirdness a Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) only
with a higher budget and technical quality, but the exact level of
irrationality taking place when it reaches the finale, asking myself what
exactly I was witnessing. The entire reveal of an Illuminati group being behind
the Leatherface clan, the most notorious decision, is when this turn into
nonsense starts The entirety of this plot twist is dumb but the result is that
the final act is completely deranged to the point McConaughey suddenly becomes detracted from the rest of the film
for maybe ten minutes or so, a suited man with body modification and giant
piercings on his belly abruptly appears, random old people in a camper van take
part in the escape sequence, alongside death by aeroplane and an inexplicable
cameo from Marilyn Burns from the
first film. The result isn't a good film in the damned slightest but when most
sequels to horror films are known to be lazy and predictable, the weirdness
here is at least admirable even if it feels like your eyes have been spiked
with a hallucinogen.
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