Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24137 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-03-08
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

One word: weird
The title of this review says it all - this truly is one of the weirdest films I have ever watched in my vast history of watching horror movies.

Current stars, but then nobodies, Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey lead the freaky cast, as Zellweger and friends head away from their school prom, only to hit another person's car and injure them. They then head out to look for help, only to stumble across the ever-diabolical Leatherface and his family of splatter-happy cannbals, amongst which is McConaughey, who reaches an all time weirdness in this film.

Tension actually does run very high in the first half or so of this film, as Zellweger and friends are unaware of what's going on. There is just plenty of tension, and you will probably bite your nails once or twice.

Once all the tension is gone, however, it does get rather silly. The characters are just purely comical once you have watched them for long enough, and fail to be remotely frightening.

Despite all of this, it is a very solid outing - it is entertaining, which is what a film is supposed to be. It will give you a good hour and a half of fun, and it does achieve what it sets out to without having to resort to splatter. Worth trying, just don't expect it to live up to the original.

Dire
I can't believe this film is getting any good reviews. I found it absolutely pathetic and I'm a big fan of the other films and horror films in general. The more recent remake is loads better than this and the original beats it by a mile. Just found this boring with the same nutter just shouting all the way through and Leatherface is just an embarassment to the film. The others are much more clever.

FAR BETTER THAN IT'S REPUTATION

After a disastrous night at their prom, students Jenny, (Renee Zellweger) Sean, (John Harrison) Barry, (Tyler Cone) and Heather, (Lisa Marie Newmeyer) get stranded on a dirt road and ask local Darla, (Tonie Perensky) for help. Making their way through the woods back to wait for Vilmer, (Matthew McConaughey) they wind up lost in the surrounding woods. When they're taken back to their house, they are eventually captured by Leatherface, (Robert Jacks) and W.E., (Joe Stevens) and the rest of their family. Gathering up her strength and courage, the dwindling group is forced to fight off the family before they are all killed.

The Good News: There is an incredible amount to like here. Perhaps one of the best features is that it's a loving tribute to the original but changes them around enough to really get a sense of it being something new. The opening twist is pretty nice, changing the funeral trip to a prom night disaster, which is pretty nice. The chainsaw chase is still the highlight here, and while not being as intense as before, it's still a real spectacular action set-piece, taking a generally similar approach while altering events to a degree to be a winking nod to the ones before while also being new in it's own right. The dinner table sequence makes a nice come-back, and is, if not as psychologically disturbing, just as edgy and confronting. It's still a must-see experience in the film. Also quite impressive is the sequence where the victims are dragged to the kitchen to be stored away for later. It's an incredibly long, drawn-out sequence that is as disturbing as it gets, and it should rightfully be so in that situation. It's played for what it should've been, a really intense unflinching experience and it's all the better for it for having done so in that fashion. The film is incredibly suspenseful, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the opening stages. The forest setting given to the action is enormously menacing, almost from the start. The very low light, the constant fog that drapes the ground, and the fact that they just pop up in there out of nowhere really warps the mind. The sequence where they encounter a truck driving down the road and chase off into the darkness after it while only one stays on the normal path is full of tension and dread. Along the chase, this was the real highlight scene, and a strong contender is the opening murder. Having the victim chased down the road by a huge monster truck with blaring lights shining up the location and what eventually happens is quite a breathtaking action scene that really sticks out in the movie. Even more impressive is the gang-banger pace to the film. It rushes along from one even to another in a heartbeat, with the eventual capture around the fifty minute mark, allowing for plenty of time to be tortured in the house, and that also leaves the beginning to be a completely whirlwind experience. Add these together, and this has the makings of an underrated gem.

The Bad News: While it's a true hidden gem, there are a couple of nagging problems in this one. The most obvious one is that Leatherface has been severely diminished in status for the film. He's barely in the film at all, and when he is on-screen, he's really ineffective. The sequence of him taking the two friends out to be killed is twice as long as it should've been, as they keep escaping and getting recaptured. The mask itself is a real disappointment from the clever and original one in the previous film, and the sad fact that he had to wear a mask and outfit that made it seem like he was a drag queen isn't all that frightening. As is common practice for the series, there's really no body count here, and this in turn really reduces the gore in here. It's got some suspenseful scenes to help out, but the lack of gore on display is really frightening. The new family doesn't do much to help out, and at times they're not at all that edge to them that previous ones had. As such, the fact that it also changes some of the original's magic is a big misstep, and depending on how far an individual's perspective of that is, it's quite damaging to the original. The ending is also pretty hard to figure out and really doesn't do much to help with the explanations of anything. These work against it, but it's nowhere near as bad as it could've been.

The Final Verdict: A fun, if unoriginal romp through familiar territory, this is a really wrongly maligned film that deserves to be viewed objectively. It's not the best film in the genre, and it really wasn't pretending to be. If you can view films in that manner, give it a shot, but steer clear if that doesn't sound like you.