Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 6, 2006, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
If nothing else, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning should help quell the frequent complaint that major-studio horror films wimp out when it comes to graphic violence and uncompromising cruelty. Just this year alone, Hostel, the Hills Have Eyes remake, the upcoming Turistas and (perhaps most of all) this latest Chainsaw entry have been unafraid and unapologetic about subjecting audiences and onscreen victims to severe levels of savagery and bloodshed. As for originality in the majors’ contributions to the genre, well…that’s another matter. Yet The Beginning is about as good as one could expect a prequel to a remake of a classic to be; it’s a seriously intended and sometimes quite disturbing film whose greatest liability just might be that it’s a Chainsaw movie, with all the limiting requirements that entails.
The hook of this particular entry is, of course, the opportunity to see just what made Leatherface, a.k.a. Tommy Hewitt (Andrew Bryniarski), the singular killer he is (or was; The Beginning takes place in 1969). Yet his mythology has already been so well-established through his previous vehicles that the nature of these explanations is almost a foregone conclusion; it’s not like he’s going to become a savage killer through a correspondence course or something. Even those who are only familiar with Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film can suspect his nature at least partially derives from upbringing, and one of the best parts of the new movie is its vivid portrayal of the demented folks he shares that lonely, imposing Texas house with. Most notably, R. Lee Ermey is back in fine, vicious form as Sheriff Hoyt—and, in fact, one of the most striking sequences in The Beginning involves his origin, revealing just how this perverted monster of a human being wound up wearing a lawman’s uniform.
Times are tough in their desolate area since the local slaughterhouse closed down, and Hoyt will do anything to put meat on the table for himself, Tommy, Old Monty (Terrence Evans), the Tea Lady (Kathy Lamkin) and Luda Mae (Marietta Marich). (The script by Sheldon Turner, with contributions by David J. Schow, is intentionally oblique about whether or how this bunch is actually related.) And who should happen along as The Beginning opens but a tasty quartet of attractive young people: Dean (Taylor Handley), who’s just been drafted into Vietnam; Eric (Matt Bomer), his older brother who’s just back from a tour of duty; and their respective girlfriends Bailey (Diora Baird) and Chrissie (Jordana Brewster). A spectacularly gross roadkill-making accident destroys their truck; Chrissie gets thrown from the vehicle, and watches helplessly as Hoyt arrives, puts her friends in the back of his car and drives them off to what she suspects and we know will be a truly horrible fate.
But before Tommy picks up the weapon that will make him famous and starts sawing, Hoyt gets his sadistic rocks off torturing Eric and Dean. (He may be forced into violence and cannibalism by the state of the economy, but Hoyt still loves his country, and too bad for the two guys that he finds a half-burned draft card in the wreckage of their truck.) Director Jonathan Liebesman, rebounding nicely from the incoherent Darkness Falls, stages the brutality with blunt effectiveness, does a lot with point-of-view shots to draw viewers into the victims’ plight and is well-assisted by the hard-edged cinematography of longtime collaborator Lukas Ettlin. Through Ettlin’s lens, the harsh Texas sun is as threatening as the deep black night, and this may be one of the few horror films that’s scarier during the daytime scenes than it is when darkness arrives.
Part of this has to do with the fact that it’s then that Tommy/Leatherface gets down to his best-known business, and by this point in the three-decade-old franchise, there’s the feeling that if you’ve seen one chainsaw massacre, you’ve seen them all. Though Liebesman presents the mayhem without flinching and Bryniarski brings a menacing physicality to the role, there are only so many places this story can ultimately go and still retain a place in the Texas Chainsaw universe. So there’s a “dinner scene” similar to, but not quite as good as, the one in Hooper’s movie, and a slaughterhouse chase similar to, but not quite as good as, the one in the 2003 remake. As the heroine alternately victimized and fighting back through these sequences, Brewster (like her young co-stars) is natural and appealing, though Chrissie lacks the spark of Jessica Biel’s Erin from the previous movie.
At under 90 minutes, The Beginning is adroitly paced, and it’s shot through with moments of black humor reminiscent of the very first Chainsaw (the best is a bit of bodily slapstick involving the morbidly obese Tea Lady). Yet the film also rushes over points that might have had more impact if explored more deeply; we see Tommy cut off and wear his first human face, but no psychological motivation is given for this action—he just does it. The movie naturally ends with Leatherface, Hoyt et al. alive if not completely well and poised to embark on their infamous campaign of murder, but the talented folks behind The Beginning might be advised to move on to fresher material rather than spinning their blades with yet another pre/sequel.
