Friday, June 11, 2010

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

For a change, we don’t get a scroll. Instead we just get a big block of text:

“August 18th, 1973. News of a bizarre, chainsaw wielding family – reports which were to ignite the world’s imagination – began to filter out of central Texas. Regrettably not one of the family members was ever apprehended and for more than ten years nothing further was heard. Then, over the next several years at least two minor, yet apparently related incidents, were reported. Then again nothing. For five long years silence…”

Oh, good gravy.

I guess the “apparently related” incidents are part 2 and part III?

I don’t really want to take the time to unpack everything that’s wrong with this, but I guess it’s my job, so here goes:

Everything.

Easier than I thought.

Astoundingly, this doesn’t mention Sally and her invalid brother Franklin. Then again, it doesn’t mention Stretch, or Enright, or Michelle, or anyone. At all. And in direct opposition to part III, no one was ever apprehended. And we can pretend that Sally is still alive, though we have no idea if she’s in a coma still, or not.

I’m not sure that there are three sequels to “Chainsaw,” at this point. I suspect that, instead, what we have is one original and three different attempts to make a “Part 2.”

All right. Let’s keep moving.

First burn-in: May 22, 1996.

Annnd… credits.

Including an “Introducing,” tacked in front of the guy playing Leatherface.

Credits over. Moving along.

We’ve got a pair of lips. Lipstick is applied.

Then the tube of lipstick is dropped, and the girl who just put it on wipes it off.

A girl puts on what looks like a prom dress. She calls out to her mom.

There’s a flash, and we watch an older woman take pictures of the girl, and a guy. They are dressed up to go to what I’m guessing is the prom.

Then we’re outside a gym, and a bunch of kids are running around, only we haven’t established any of them, so I have no clue who they are.

Then we’re inside the building but outside the actual prom, and some OTHER girl asks an older woman if she’s seen Barry. Who we haven’t met. The woman thought the girl and Barry broke up, but this is not the case.

The girl talks to another girl who talks with some sort of a tick. Then she talks to the first girl we saw, and her date. They haven’t seen Barry either.

So the girl goes outside, where a bunch of people who we don’t know are having a conversation. And the girl yells out, asking if anyone has seen Barry.

I haven’t seen Barry yet, but I really, really, really hate that guy.

The girl walks around, and catches Barry making out with some other chick. Barry calls out to the girl, who runs away. Her name is Heather, by the way.

Heather gets into her car and goes racing around the parking lot, while Barry chases her. He catches up to her and gets into her car as she pulls out of the parking lot.

Heather is mad at Barry. Barry says he only kissed the other girl once. And also, guys need sweet, sweet loving or they’ll get “prostrate” cancer.

In the back seat, that girl we saw at the beginning of the movie and her date sit up, and the girl says, “That’s a lie.”

Then Heather slams her car into another car.

Then she drives away, to complete the hit-and-run.

The girl whose name we don’t know? Jenny. Her date is Sean. There’s a bunch of exposition, so that we can know lots of things about these characters aside from the fact that they’re kind of hateful:

Sean: Stoner.

Jenny: Hasn’t felt the touch of a man. Sean is just a friend.

Heather: Dumb.

Barry: Dumb, mean, and a liar. Also, they’re in his car. Or his dad’s car. I’m not sure which. It’s not Heather’s car. So I’m not sure how Jenny and Sean got in there, or what they were doing there, and I’m not sure why Heather is driving it.

Regardless, they keep on driving, even though it seems they all hate each other and the prom is the other way.

Heather turns off on some freaky side road, which passes through the middle of the woods. Why? Who knows.

Everyone tells her to turn around, but she can’t find a place to do it. Then a car runs into them. Where did that other car come from? No idea.

Now the two cars are in a ditch. The other driver gets out of the car, and says he’s not hurt. Then he falls to the ground. Heather is all, “He’s gonna die.” The rest of them figure the kid will live.

Barry tries to drive his car out of the ditch. It won’t go. No one thinks to try pushing the car, because why would they?

Jenny is smart enough to try random dude’s car, but it won’t even start, so no luck there.

Jenny decides that they need to go get help, and everyone argues about who should go. Heather really wants to come along, but she asks Barry for a flashlight.

Jenny starts walking. Barry and Heather go with her. They have a flashlight. So they walk for a while. To build suspense. Also, Heather talks about a dream she had where she was chased by a murderer. She says they’re all going to die.

Heather jerks around and knocks the flashlight out of Barry’s hands. It falls to the ground and stops working, so Heather thinks they should stop walking and start a fire.

I am growing less and less shocked that Barry cheated on Heather.

Barry gets the flashlight working. There’s something dead on the ground. No clue what that is. This is the most poorly lit movie I think I’ve ever seen. It’s like they shot every outside scene using pen lights with four-year-old batteries.

They find a small building that has the light on. They go in. There’s a woman at the desk.

They tell the woman at the desk to call an ambulance because there’s a guy dying.

Heather demands that someone bring her a glass of water, even though there’s a water cooler perhaps three feet from her arm.

The woman calls some dude named Vilmer, who isn’t there to pick up the phone. She flashes some cleavage, which Jenny admires. For some reason.

The woman tells Jenny that they’re phony as three-dollar bills, but that they changed her life. She doubled her commissions.

Well, this is an awkward conversion.

Barry gets Heather some water. No idea why.

The lady talks to Vilmer, and gets him pointed in the right direction. She hangs up, then tells a blond joke, which Heather doesn’t get. Wow, is this not a fun movie.

The window shatters as something flies through it. Or maybe it just blows up, because really it just goes BAM and there’s glass.

The lady seems not at all worried about this. She claims it’s some “farmer’s wife.”

She goes to the window, and says, “Like I’m even interested.” Then she pulls up her shirt and adds, “See ‘em and weep, boys!”

Outside, a car drives by. There is hooting. The woman says that the high school boys are always doing something to get her to flash them.

She seems pretty nonchalant about the fact that someone just smashed her window.

Moving right along, we head back over to Sean and the hurt kid. The hurt kid mumbles something, and a tow truck drives up. I suspect these two things are unrelated.

A dude with a contraption on his leg gets out of the tow truck, and Sean asks if there’s an ambulance coming.

Contraption man walks over to the hurt kid, and says he’s dead. Sean says the kid is not dead. Contraption man snaps the kid’s neck. Man, some dudes just don’t like to be wrong.

Sean starts backing away from Contraption man. Contraption man tells Sean that there’s no point in Sean running away.

Sean asks what Contraption is going to do to him. Contraption says, “First, I’m gonna kill you.”

He keeps talking, and while he’s talking… um… I guess Sean runs away. We don’t actually see him run away, mind. Instead, Contraption says a few more lines of dialogue, and then gets in his truck and starts driving in an unclear direction.

I guess he’s going after Sean.

And now we’re back with the rest of the gang. They’re going to go back to Sean. The woman who did the flashing a little while ago says she’s can’t give them a ride. They ask if someone at the “service station” across the street could give them a ride, but the lady says the man who runs it is likely to shoot first and ask questions later.

Okay, so, there’s a service station across the street? Why didn’t they go there first?

And maybe it’s just the way the movie is shot, but the “service station” just looks like a house.

The gang starts walking down the road.

And now we’re back with Sean and Contraption. Sean is, in fact, running away, with Contraption driving slowly behind him. Contraption catches up to Sean, and Sean asks what he did wrong.

Contraption says Sean is just out of luck.

Sean asks that Contraption “give him a chance.”

If Sean really wanted a chance, perhaps he could consider RUNNING INTO THE WOODS, where Contraption’s truck can’t drive. That would sure help his cause. Also, as pointed out before Contraption has a crippled leg. So he probably can’t follow all that well, either.

At any rate Sean then runs down the road in the opposite direction, so Contraption starts driving after him. Backwards. He hits Sean. I think. It doesn’t really look like it, because it’s really poorly shot.

Then Contraption drives the truck over Sean’s body a few times, though we don’t actually get to see it, because everything is super-dark. Inside the cab, it just looks like the vehicle is nudging back and forth, and outside, it looks like the truck is just moving forward and backward.

If there’s something under the wheels, it isn’t visible.

I confess I’m feeling less than terrified at the moment.

And now we’re back with the rest of the gang. Heather’s feet hurt, and now she wants a piggyback ride.

Barry tells her to lose 20 pounds. Yes ladies, he’s a catch.

A car comes up the road, ignoring all the kids. Barry yells to the car, saying that they’ll pay the dude in the vehicle. He drives past them, and turns down a side road. Heather and Barry chase after them, leaving Jenny alone with the flashlight.

After a moment, Jenny finally starts walking after Heather and Barry. She whisper-yells to them. Why? Who is going to hear her? A maniac in a tow truck, perhaps?

Either way, she tells her “friends” that she’s going back to Sean.

A motorcycle drives by, but doesn’t stop.

Jenny starts calling out. She wants to know who is there. No one is there. Suddenly, a PLASTIC TRASH BAG BLOWS ON HER FACE.

I guess the writer/director couldn’t afford a cat.

Jenny presses on.

And now we’re back with Heather and Barry. Because I want you to understand how little fun Heather is to be around, allow me to share with you the little monologue she gives to Barry while they continue following a car that’s not headed towards their friend in any way:

“Barry, wait. Stop. What if they’re murderers and they want us to follow them, so they can hide behind trees and stab us? There could be dead people buried all around us, and we’d never know. They could tie us up in a cellar and no one would ever hear us.”

Barry points out that no one has cellars in this area.

So Heather KEEPS TALKING: “Okay, that’s it. Don’t call me dumb, Barry. I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I’m not stupid. I just act that way sometimes to get people to like me. All those stories about murders and people following me, I know it’s not true. It’s better than being bored. I’ll tell you what’s stupid, is that line you gave me about you and that girl, Brenda. Not even a little kid would believe that.”

Honestly, I’m not going to say that the original “Chainsaw” was a brilliant character analysis. The characters barely had names, barely had a reason to be where they were, and when you examine everything that happens in the original flick, it’s doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

But at least it was kind of freaky, and you didn’t actively hope that certain characters would be the first to go.

The fact that both these characters are vapid, even if they admit to it? It doesn’t make them fun to be around. Worse yet, it doesn’t make them interesting, either. I can appreciate that the writer is trying to give us something to cling to, but all he’s doing is giving them less sympathy, not more.

Heather concludes her monologue by saying that she wishes she was more like Jenny. It seems that Jenny’s mother is always getting married “every 15 minutes” and her dads are always hitting on her. Heather says, with envy, that she’s had P.E. with Jenny, and Jenny has a body to die for.

Now, somewhere in this world exists a longer cut of this movie, which makes some scenes even LONGER (Why? Why!?) and puts in a subplot about Jenny being molested by her stepfather. I tried to find it, but didn’t have any luck. And I can’t say I’m too hurt by that. Spending another 10 minutes with these characters doesn’t exactly hold a lot of appeal.

And speaking of Jenny, now we’re back with her. She’s still walking along. Alone. Calling out to Sean. At least she’s yelling again, instead of whisper-yelling.

The flashlight dies. Jenny stands there.

Heather and Barry finally reach a house. It probably took them longer to walk there than it would to get back to where Sean was. Heather says to offer them $50, but to not actually pay it. Just have them send a bill. She says her father does it all the time.

They get to the door. Heather knocks. No one answers. Barry says the people might be out back. In the dark. Right. So he goes to check.

All the windows are boarded up, by the way. But there are lights on.

Barry keeps walking, and peeks through a window slat. He just sees a broken-down old house. So he keeps on walking to the general “around back” area.

On the porch, Heather sits. She shuffles a little. Adjusts her dress. Then a dude walks up behind her, and sniffs her hair. The movie is shot in a strangely dark way, so you can’t really see much of anything, but it appears to be our old friend Leatherface.

Leatherface sniffs Heather’s hair. Really, she should clean the wax out of her ears because that porch should have made an awful ruckus when Leatherface climbed up on it from wherever he came from.

Barry keeps walking around the house, until some dude with a shotgun calls him out. They banter, and the dude with the shotgun calls Barry a moron. He speaks the unvarnished truth.

On the porch, they do the hair-smelling thing a couple more times to get some laughs out of it or to try and build suspense. Either way, it doesn’t work. Heather gets up, Leatherface knocks over a broom, and she finally sees him, and screams.

Leatherface grabs her and carries her towards the front door.

Barry almost decides to be a hero, but then he remembers that he’s got a shotgun pointed at him. Though even if the gun weren’t there, I sort of think Barry probably would have been, like, “Whatever. I have other options. Apparently Jenny is super-hot, and has low self-esteem…”

Leatherface drags Heather into the house. She gets free, and goes into another room, and latches the door.

There’s freaky stuff in that thar room.

Leatherface breaks down the door. He grabs Heather, and pulls her down the hall for a while. I will say, Heather puts up quite a fight.

Finally, Leatherface sticks Heather in a large freezer. Heather kicks her way out. Leatherface shoves her back in. They do this a couple of times, and Leatherface finally realizes he should put something heavy on top of the freezer.

Leatherface runs out into the hall, away from the screaming girl in the freezer.

Outside, Barry is still getting walked around by the shotgun guy. They go to the front door. Barry informs the man with the gun that if he goes inside, it’s considered kidnapping.

Then he decides to go in, noting that he needs to use the bathroom anyway. The moment he’s in the front door, he locks the other dude outside. And calls him a name.

The dude does not shoot the door. Even though it appears that none of these people are related to anyone in the first (or second, or third) movie, I guess he still remembers Leatherface getting in trouble for messing up the door in the first movie.

Barry wanders through the house, calling to Heather. And also, he really is looking for a bathroom. He’s very, very leisurely about the whole thing, considering there’s a dude with a shotgun outside the front door.

He finds a bathroom, and goes to make urine. He brags to Heather, wherever she is, about how he locked the dude with the shotgun outside. I like the fact that he has yet to consider how he’s going to get back out of the house.

He finishes emptying his bladder, turns around, and notices the decomposing body in the tub. He freaks, and runs into the hall without washing his hands.

Leatherface is there with a sledgehammer. He clocks Barry in the head.

You know what would be kind of awesome? If Jenny never saw any of these people again. She just wanders out of the woods, and catches a ride home, never to appear in another scene.

How cool would that be? No idea where she went, people all watching the movie and wondering what happened. I’d love that.

And it wouldn’t make any more or less sense than what’s happened so far.

Disagree? Okay, then. Question for you: Who’s the dude with the shotgun? And what’s with the guy with the bad leg? The opening text implied that these were all the same people, but guess what? With the exception of Leatherface, they aren’t.

Speaking of Leatherface, he kicks Barry for a while, then drags him into the room with the freezer. Heather calls out to Barry. Who knows why?

Leatherface pulls her out of the freezer and sticks her on a meat hook. Heather doesn’t enjoy it. But at least she stops talking.

Outside, we finally get back to Jenny, who flags down the Tow Truck O’ Death.

Contraption and Jenny back and forth, with a whole, “Where’s Sean?” “Get in, I’ll take you there,” thing.

That takes a little screen time. Then Jenny gets into the vehicle, and Contraption says that it’s dangerous to get in cars with strangers, and that some girl got in a car with a dude who cut off her arms and left her for dead. Contraption thinks that guy lacked imagination.

Jenny starts to realize getting in the vehicle was a bad idea, and Contraption tells her to look out the back window. She says that if he stops driving, she’ll look. He stops. She looks. She can see a dead Sean and that other random dude hanging there.

She asks, “What’s gonna happen to me?”

I’m not sure I understand why people in a movie like this ask that question. Also, she seems a lot less hysterical than she should be. She just saw that her friend was dead. On a freaked scale, she should be at something like a seven, and she’s at a two.

She throws herself from the vehicle and runs. At first, she does the same thing that Sean did. Run down a road so the truck can chase her easily. But finally, she runs into a group of trees, out of reach of the vehicle.

She’s kind of stuck in there, though, and she stops moving. Which is dumb, but still makes her the brainiac of her social circle.

Contraption shines a light on her, and babbles for a bit. He concludes with, “Okay. If that’s what you want. It’s up to you. Live and learn.”

Then he drives away.

Jenny looks around the dark, dark woods.

Nothing happens. Then: CHAINSAW!

Yep, it’s Leatherface. Time for running and screaming.

They do that for a bit, then Jenny makes it to the House O’ Death. She locks the door, and runs up the stairs.

Once again, Leatherface forgets it’s his house, and he starts slicing up the door.

Jenny, meanwhile, finds a dead stuffed cop. She takes his gun and starts walking down the stairs.

Leatherface breaks into the house. Jenny points the gun. It goes CLICK. Jenny throws the gun at Leatherface and runs upstairs.

She jumps out a window, and lands on part of the roof. Leatherface steps onto the roof, and they run around on the roof for a while. Jenny climbs the TV antenna, and then leaps into the air and grabs a cable, which I guess is the line to their phone?

Either way, it’s pretty strong, as she starts climbing along it, and that works great until Leatherface cuts the line.

(I feel ashamed to say it, but, “Oh, snap!”)

Jenny falls through what looks like a half-completed shed, and lands on the ground.

She gets up. We get a little cleavage shot. Jenny looks around. And then: CHAINSAW!

How did Leatherface get off the roof so fast?

Whatever. Chase sequence.

Jenny runs and runs, until she ends up at that shack again, where the woman who likes to flash guys is.

Hey, remember this scene in the first movie? Where Sally is running, and she talks to the Pump Jockey, who turns out to be evil? I’m sure that won’t happen again, right?

Nah.

The woman goes out and yells for a bit. Then she comes back in, and says, it’s “Nothing.”

Jenny retorts that there’s a guy out there with a chainsaw. She actually saw the word chainsaw three times in about five seconds.

The woman makes a phone call. This time, she calls a guy named W. E. W. E.? The guy who was tried and executed in the opening scroll of part III? The W. E. who never appeared in any of the other movies?

That guy?

My head hurts.

The woman comforts Jenny for about a minute, and then W. E. shows up. He was the dude with the shotgun, earlier. How did he get there so fast?

The woman tells W. E. to tie Jenny up. W. E. pokes Jenny a couple times with a device that administers a little shock. She falls down. He hits her a few times.

A little while later, she’s tied up in the back of the woman’s car. He shocks her a few more times for fun. The woman tells W. E. to tell Vilmer that she’s going to pick up some pizza and bring them home.

Is this another reference to part III? The pizza thing?

Also, don’t they eat people? What’s with the pizza?

The woman drives away, with Jenny in her trunk. She picks up her food at a drive-through window. The dude at the window tells her he can hear something in her trunk.

She says it’s someone she’s got tied up back there. She asks the dude if he wants to come see. He says yeah. She pops the trunk. He says he probably shouldn’t come out and look, as he might get in trouble.

She steps out of the car and goes to close the trunk again. She tells Jenny to shut up and quit kicking the car. Jenny says she can’t breathe.

Um. Jenny. Now is your chance to kick and run. Go! Go! Go!

Another person pulls up at the drive-through. A bunch of kids also walk by, none of them commenting on the woman talking to Jenny in the trunk.

The woman agrees to poke a hole in the bag on Jenny’s head if Jenny will shut up. She pokes the hole, Jenny shuts up. The woman closes the trunk.

A cop gets out of the car behind the woman, and asks what’s in the trunk. She gets all coy, and says she can’t tell the cop. Then the man in the eatery tells her that her drinks are ready, and the woman takes the drinks and drives away.

Then, as she drives away, the cops drive by and she gives a little wave. Just in case you thought to yourself, “Well, THAT was a stupid scene.” This way, you think it was a stupid scene, and you’re extra annoyed, because it’s actually two stupid scenes now.

Next thing we know, the woman is driving along a dirt road, and there’s Heather. In the middle of the road. Lying down. For some reason.

The woman stops, and Heather asks for help. The woman says she needs to go get a blanket, or something. Then she gets a broken branch, and hits Heather with it. Lightly. Because I guess she isn’t very strong.

While Heather says things like. “Don’t hit me. Stop.”

Not that she tries to get up and run away.

The woman gets back into her car, with the admonishment that Heather shouldn’t try crawling away, or anything. Then she gets in her car, and drives to the house. She pops the trunk, and brings the pizza in.

Leatherface and W. E. come out. Leatherface pulls Jenny out of the car and brings her in. W. E. pokes him with his electric toy.

The woman also tells them to go get Heather, since she’s crawling off down the road.

Inside, the woman talks to Vilmer, who isn’t happy that none of his batteries are charged. They argue.

Then W. E. comes in, all mad about the door that got chopped up.

Interestingly, the front door was just fine in the previous shot. Continuity much, people?

Vilmer tells everyone to be quiet a second, and opens the bag that’s holding Jenny, so they can have some crazy banter. I’ll admit, the banter sure is crazy, and I think if we had a movie that consisted of just Vilmer and Jenny, the creep factor would be a lot higher.

But no. We’ve got the other lunkheads in the movie too, which means that Vilmer eventually stops yacking about how he might or might not kill Jenny, and instead tells everyone to look at the busted door. Which he then tosses in the trash on the floor.

W. E. quotes something at the woman. (You know what? I’m tired of calling her that. So I looked up her name. Darla. I’m sorry, I just can’t hack it any more.). W. E. has been doing this the whole movie – at least half his dialogue is random quotes.

Interesting character trait? No. No, it is not.

W. E. goes out, and Jenny asks Darla for help. She wants to know what’s up with Vilmer. Darla says she thinks Vilmer is from outer space.

Vilmer and W. E. drag Heather in, and now Jenny wonders aloud what they’re going to do to Heather. Turns out, Vilmer is going to bite her in the face, while Leatherface lifts Jenny in the air, and W. E. pokes Jenny with his shock-stick.

This scene cuts to one in another room, where Darla comforts Jenny for no reason at all, and says she’s really pretty, and says she’s got a really nice dress that would look great on Jenny.

Jenny says, “I just don’t want to die.” Darla says, “Of course you don’t.”

Okay, first of all? I am SO happy this is the last chapter in the saga. This movie makes no sense, these characters make no sense, and I have no idea what’s going on.

Consider: We still have Leatherface, but no one else from the original family. Up to this point, we haven’t even seen Grandpa, the only character not named Leatherface that appeared in all the other films.

Second issue: So, are these people cannibals, or what? Eating human flesh is what these people DO. But not here. Here I guess they’re just serial killers. Except, not really. There aren’t many bones around, and they just bought a bunch of pizzas.

Consider the original. By now, Sally was well on the way to insane. Most of the second half of the movie is chasing, beating, and the dinner sequence. And what are these yahoos doing?

Talking. A lot. And while a little crazy talk can be fun, it’s more like they’re playing good psycho, bad psycho with her. To what end? This is a horror movie, right? So where’s the horror at? It’s like they keep forgetting what kind of movie they’re making.

But back to Jenny and Darla, with a note on an earlier scene:

A few minutes ago, Vilmer made a comment about the FBI having the house wired. And now, Darla goes off on some rant about there are people who control everything. Not the government, mind you, but some other group that’s been running things for 1000, or 2000 years.

Darla can’t remember which.

Having finished her crazy-speech, Darla is tossed out of the room by Vilmer, who then starts beating lightly on Jenny again.

He pulls out a knife, and counts backwards from 10, giving her these ten seconds to come up with a reason not to kill her. Her answer?

“You want me alive for some reason.”

This is good enough for Vilmer, who walks out of the room, saysing, “It kind of makes you think, doesn’t it? Smart girl.”

Ah. I see. We’re watching a movie about government plots. That might explain the distinct lack of terror I’m feeling.

Leatherface picks up Jenny and drags her back to the kitchen. Darla and Vilmer are beating each other up. W. E. is just kind of standing there. And Leatherface seems to be sad that Vilmer and Darla are fighting.

So Jenny gets up out of her chair, and grabs a nearby shotgun, which she brandishes at everyone. She tells everyone to get on the floor.

Darla, W. E., and Leatherface get on the floor. Vilmer decides to continue with the crazy talk. First, he takes out a knife and cuts himself. Then he tells Jenny the shotgun isn’t loaded. Then Darla says the pizzas are getting cold, so he knocks Darla over and steps on her neck.

Jenny tells Heather to get up, because she’s still lying on the floor. She’s been there all this time. Heather says, “Five more minutes.” Then she almost gets up, but changes her mind and lies back down.

Jenny, who appears offended that Vilmer is still stepping on Darla’s neck, sticks the shotgun in his back. He grabs it, turns around, and sticks it in his mouth. She pulls the trigger. CLICK.

Nothing.

Vilmer takes the gun from her, points it at the window, and pulls the trigger again. It goes BANG. Vilmer begins celebrating like the Sand Person who clocked Luke in Star Wars. Yes, really.

Jenny takes this chance to run away. She gets in Darla’s car, which still has the keys in it, and tries to drive off.

When she backs into the house, Vilmer jumps out of a window on the second(?)(!) floor and lands on the car.

So she drives, while he says crazy things and tries to grab her through the window. She stops the car, and he falls off.

She starts driving forwards, and the hood flips up in front of her.

So she gets out of the car.

And Vilmer grabs her by the ankles.

A minute later, he drags her back in the house, has W. E. hold her, and then he hits her in the face with a shotgun, knocking her out.

Elsewhere in the house, Leatherface dresses in drag. Including lipstick.

Darla goes to the kitchen. Remember how Vilmer has that contraption on his leg? Well, it uses a remote of some kind. Darla tells Vilmer he has to be nice to her, because she can always go back to her husband.

Then she takes the remotes and starts playing with his leg. They go into a passionate embrace. On the kitchen table. Darla appears to be dressed in a prom dress now.

Darla kind of shoves Vilmer off, and grabs a pizza, and goes into the other room, telling him to join her before the food gets cold.

It’s been like an hour. The pizza is cold, lady.

So now we’re in the dining room. Jenny is dressed in some crazy black and silver dress. And there appear to be more bones in the décor, though they don’t look human, for the most part.

Vilmer says, “Welcome to my world!” No idea why. Jenny is still unconscious.

He slaps her awake.

Leatherface, W. E., Darla, and a bunch of dead people are at the table. Jenny starts screaming. Her arms aren’t tied. Vilmer screams back. Finally, everyone stops screaming.

W. E. quotes something at an old dead guy who I guess is grandpa. Or not. No one ever says, and he looks younger and less dead than previous grandpas.

After all the screaming ends, Darla brings over a paper bag for Jenny to breathe into. Jenny says, “Are you gonna help me or not?”

Pretty sure she fell on the side of “not” a long time ago. Why keep asking?

Jenny goes on to say that Vilmer doesn’t work for anyone. He’s just crazy.

Darla says there’s something in her head, and if Vilmer touches a button, her head will explode. Jenny says there’s nothing in her head.

W. E. agrees. Tee-hee.

Vilmer pulls Jenny out of her chair, and says that Leatherface is sick of his current “face,” and that he wants Jenny’s. Jenny slaps Vilmer in the face a couple times, and says, “Don’t you ever touch me!” Vilmer gets the crazy eyes, and then takes a book off the shelf and starts to read it.

Jenny says, “If you’re gonna kill me, then do it.”

This makes Vilmer mad. So he hits Darla, and also W. E.

Grandpa gets up from the table and walks away.

Jenny says, “Now, I’m gonna leave, and no one is gonna stop me.”

I’d just about kill to have even one person in this movie act like a normal human being, or something close to it.

Leatherface gets up and yells. Jenny tells him to sit down and shut up. He does.

Vilmer comes in, throws lighter fluid on Heather, and sets fire to her. She waddles away. Darla puts her out with a fire extinguisher.

A horn honks outside. There’s a car there.

A moment later, there’s a man in a suit at the front door. And also his driver.

Vilmer asks the man what he wants. The man in the suit says he assumes that’s a rhetorical question. Then he refers to Vilmer as a “silly boy.”

He goes into the dining room. Jenny runs into his arms, and says that the people are crazy, and he has to help. He tells her that it’s all right, and does a whole, “There, there,” thing. And he has her sit down.

Suit asks if anyone knows what “this” is. I’d like to know, too.

Then he goes to talk to Vilmer. He says this is appalling, and continues:

“You are here for one reason, and one reason only. Do you understand that? I want to hear you say you understand that. It’s very simple. I want these people to know the meaning of horror. Horror. Is that clear? You don’t want to be a silly boy. Is that clear? Is that clear?”

Suit undoes his tie, and starts to unbutton his shirt. His torso has a strange pattern on it, and also it’s pierced in three spots.

First, he berates Darla for being with Vilmer. Next, he licks Jenny’s face, while Leatherface holds her.

He walks away. He picks up two pieces of pizza off the floor and puts them on the table. He leaves.

Vilmer goes to stand in the corner, and presses a button on his belt. He puts his foot on Heather’s head, and presses another button on his belt. There are crunching noises.

Jenny is finally getting her crazy on. She starts weeping and getting to like a six on the scale of ten.

Vilmer pulls out a knife and starts cutting himself again.

Darla says, “Don’t, it’s not your fault!” She tries to stop him.

Jenny stands up, and walks into the next room. She tries to break through the window, but it’s boarded up.

Vilmer comes and gets her.

They go back to the dining room. Velmar holds Jenny down while Leatherface brandishes his chainsaw.

Jenny grabs the remotes for Velmar’s leg, and starts pressing buttons. She wiggles out of his grasp.

Jenny runs out the front door.

Vilmer tells Leatherface to go get Jenny.

The sun has risen. An old couple, in an RV, drive along the road.

Jenny jumps in front of them and asks them to stop.

The wife says, “Don’t stop.” And also, “There’s a monster chasing her with a chainsaw!”

Then, after she lets Jenny in while they continue to drive, “Step on it, Mr. Spottish!”

I don’t know if he steps on it or not. About a second later, here comes the tow truck, with Leatherface on it, swinging his saw.

They pull alongside the RV, Spottish freaks, and they go off the road and ram into some branches, which causes the RV to flip onto its side.

A small plane flies by overhead.

The tow truck pulls up next to the RV. Jenny runs.

Leatherface and Vilmer chase her.

The plane dives, and rams a wheel into Vilmer’s head. He falls to the ground. There’s lots of blood, so he’s probably dead.

Leatherface, in turn, stands in the middle of the dirt road and screams.

A car honks. Jenny turns and sees it, and runs to get in. The car drives away.

Suit, from earlier, is in the passenger part of what I guess is a small limo. Jenny tries to get out, but Suit says, “You have nothing to fear.”

The car drives past Leatherface, who is still freaking out a bit. Leatherface watches it go, then does his little Leatherface dance from part 1.

But at least Suit is going to explain what we just wasted our time on, right? Wrong. This is what he says:

“This. All of this. It’s been an abomination. (Wow, is this guy ever right!) You really must accept my sincere apologies. It was supposed to be a spiritual experience. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. I suppose it’s something we all live with. People like us who strive for something – a sense of harmony. Perhaps it’s disappointment that keeps us going. Unfortunately, it’s never been easy for me. One of my many failings. Would you like to go to the local hospital? Or to a police station?”

Does anyone else think that whole thing reads like an apology from the writer/director, for making such a horrifically awful flick? “Sorry, folks! I tried to make a scary one, but it doesn’t make a lick of sense. My bad.”

A short while later, Jenny is sitting in a hospital, talking to a cop, who says: “You know, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. We will find out what this is all about. This is not the end of it.”

A woman is wheeled by on a hospital bed. Wow. It’s actually Sally, from movie number one.

Fade to a shot of the sun. Oh, and Leatherface doing his little dance.

And credits.

A fun note: The voices of “Couple in RV?” They aren’t the same as the people playing them. Those dudes are dubbed. That’s going to plague me. Though probably not as much as this little fiddle tune playing under the credits.

Though once again, I guess I’m just happy it doesn’t feature Leatherface rapping.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for this, I read along as it was happening so I could assure myself I wasn't completely insane in that this movie makes no sense.

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