Here’s what I’m thinking. If I already recommended to you that barely watchable sequel from 2013 and then, to rectify that, added the masterpiece that is the 2003 remake, why shouldn’t I recommend this one? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – The Beginning is an excellent prequel, a mean, disturbing but also, at times, darkly comical addition to the franchise. It explains why everything happened the way it happened in the previous movie. And yet it also sticks to the tried-and-tested formula of a bunch of young guys and girls trying to survive their encounter with the Hewitt family. It’s a perfect companion to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003 movie.
And it highlights just how good of a movie that is. It’s also the last good installment in the franchise we’re going to see for a while. As you probably remember, the 2022 movie, this time titled just Texas Chainsaw Massacre was quite bad. In fact, it was so bad that it was good with just a couple of redeeming qualities. With that out of the way, it’s time to really dig into The Beginning. The first thing that’s going to hit you is the grimy, damp, and rancid aesthetic. Everything you see feels like it’s decaying in one way or another. These visuals soon translate into an uneasy primal feeling that something is wrong. That something is terribly wrong.
After learning how our main bad guy, good old Leatherface, came to this world, we fast-forward to the year of our lord Cthulhu 1969. We’ll be following two guys on their way to Vietnam, accompanied by their girlfriends. However, before they get there, they’ll have to make a quick stop in the little Texas town of Newt. And I think you already know how that’s going to go. And our four poor protagonists run into problems almost instantly. You can count on all the characters from the 2003 movie to make a return, led by my favorite R. Lee Ermey. As a former US Marine and a formidable drill instructor, he will put the fear of god into you.
Or Satan, not that it really matters in a situation like this. I just want to point out that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – The Beginning is more of a psychological horror than a fast-moving monstrosities that were the other installments in the franchise. It revels in the unconformable atmosphere and depraved behavior never crossing the line into torture porn. Something I appreciate greatly. I really don’t like movies that are counting on that shock value and feature gore and torture for those purposes. Here, things are far more insidious and subversive.
We see how the severed bond between society and a single family unit can cause all sorts of horrific behavior. In that sense you can say that it’s much closer to the original than any of the other sequels. All of this is accompanied by some pretty graphic violence and gore. After all, this is a hallmark of the franchise they have to honor. There’s no CGI here, just good old practical effects. Effects that are highly effective. They actually had to edit no less than 17 graphic scenes to get the R rating. All kills are on-screen kills, another peculiarity of this movie.
It’s funny to think that after fans kept pestering producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller about unanswered questions from the previous part, the two of them along with Micheal Bay, who was the main producer, decided to answer those questions. They hired Sheldon Turner to write the script and here we are. The cinematography was amazing, now using even more saturated colors than in the previous installment. On the other hand, the camera work is not on the same level. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad it’s just the 2003 movie set some pretty high standards. I would also add the lack of scares to that category.
The movie is just so consistently and constantly nasty that scares just sort of blends into this nightmarish feeling. Perhaps this is a good thing as there won’t be any cheap jump-scares or stuff like that. Jonathan Liebesman, who directed one of the more underrated horror movies of the early 2000s, Darkness Falls, did a good job here. Too bad his career kind of veered off after this movie. The cast was just as good. Ermey stole the show as the twisted Sherriff and Jordana Brewster (Fast and Furious) was a good choice for the lead.
I also want to mention Diora Baird playing the role of Bailey who shot Hot Tamale that same year. To get back to the characters a bit, I still can’t stop thinking about R. Lee Ermey’s Sheriff Hoyt. Mostly because Ermey looks so much like Ed Gein, the very real serial killer who served as inspiration for the original movie. Just like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and many others. Even Slayer have a song Dead Skin Mask dedicated to Gein. Dance with the dead in my dreams, listen to their hallowed screams…
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Writers: Sheldon Turner, David J. Schow
Cast: Jordana Brewster, Taylor Handley, Diora Baird, Matt Bomer, R. Lee Ermey, Marietta Marich, Terrence Evans
Fun Facts: The cow which suddenly appears in front of our protagonists was actually crafted using a fiberglass shell that held together fake bones, blood and entrails.
Rating:
IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420294/
