Leatherface

In an attempt to reboot the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise, along comes yet another prequel to Tobe Hooper's classic, this time called "Leatherface" (even though a 1990 film was also called "Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.") This attempts to tell the backstory of the infamous chainsaw wielding killer of the murderous Sawyer family. Not that we were itching for a backstory, because it's always scarier if the killer is a blank slate on which we can project our deepest fears. (See "Halloween," and how Michael Myers ended up being the result of a satanic cult or some such nonsense.)

We open with Verna Sawyer (Lili Taylor) -- the matriarch of the weird pig farm family -- goading youngest son Jed (Boris Kabakchiev) to kill a man who allegedly trespassed on their farm. It's Jed's birthday and she gifts him with a chainsaw, which she prompts him to use on the trespasser. Jed refuses. See? He's really just a good kid. Cut to a coupla' '50s kids driving through the country who get stopped by a boy dressed as a pig. Worried about the boy, the female of the duo runs after him, only to find herself a victim of the crazy family. (Why they are so murderous is still never explained. Perhaps that would have been a more interesting film.) When we realize the girl is the daughter of Texas Ranger Hal Hartman (Stephen Dorff) we know the family will be torn apart. That means Jed gets put into a mental institution.

Cut to ten years later, when nurse Lizzy (Vanessa Grasse) begins her first day of rounds. Fresh-faced and na�ve, she tries to get to know her charges, all of whom seem straight out of crazy-person central casting. She takes a liking to a guy called Bud (Sam Coleman), a beefy, long-haired boy who barely speaks. We are also told many of the patients take on new names in the hospital so, of course, our eyes fixate on him because he's gotta be Jed, based on the stature of the character in all of the other films. Patient Jackson (Sam Strike) takes a liking to the nurse. He is rather charming and the only one who is close to hot, so of course, Lizzy is drawn to him because she's a stupid girl. (This is a comment on the filmmaker's view of women, not mine.)

Blah, blah, blah; eventually, mom Verna demands to see Jed and somehow convinces one of the guards to unlock the doors and unleash the patients out into the world. This is how we end up with four patients on the loose together: Crazy, lustful Tammy (Nicole Andrews); unhinged Ike (James Bloor); kind Jackson; lap-dog Bud; and inadvertent tagalong Nurse Lizzie. (She can't stay away from Jackson after knowing him one day, apparently.) Truth be told, she's sort of kidnapped and has no choice, but still she gives Jackson the googly eyes.

So, off on an adventure they go. All Bud would have to do at this point would be to yell "Hey you guuuuys!" to turn it into a violent version of "The Goonies."

Murder ensues, none of the five get along all that well, and Verna and the police stay in pursuit. It all culminates on the Sawyer's farm with one little twist being the "surprise" of the film. The rest of it is one big bore, and makes us wonder why they even bothered.

Directed by the team of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, the writer/directors of the notable foreign horror film "Inside," "Leatherface" is a spectacularly dull exercise in making a horror film with unlikeable characters, zero suspense or scares, and nothing to really add to the mythology of the series. Had they focused on the family and maybe given poor Lili Taylor something more to do than demand justice, it might have been a fascinating character study. Instead, it's just old and tired.

The cast does what they need to do, all saddled with labored Southern accents they can't control. The dialogue is inconsequential, and the film has that typical grungy look of every tepid torture porn horror film of ten years ago. Perhaps this is a franchise that should have a chainsaw hack it apart and bury it forever.