Texas Chainsaw massacres plot

By Frank D’Adamo
Collegian Staff
October 11, 2006

There have been horror movies throughout time that have had the ability to give everyone a great scare. Some movies still contain this essence. The chilling parts of a movie are the music, suspense and shock factor, which leave people wondering, “Who’ll die next?”

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning does not deliver such aspects of a great horror flick. Instead, it brings about that same predictable formula of all the current scary movies: blood and gore.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning stars Jordana Brewster and Taylor Handley, and traces the evolution of killer “Leatherface” from the time he was an infant being placed into a dumpster and found by his future family of cannibals, the Hewitts. The movie shows the abnormalities of Leatherface, which always disturbed him. He made his living by chopping up meat. However, he lost his job when the building closed down. Leatherface and his family then resort to killing people and eating them. Such events mark the start of 33 killings in this installment of a franchise that was once considered classic, but has now seriously lost its touch.

There is no need to wonder why Leatherface was a gargantuan killer and why his specialty of killing people was the chainsaw. All one had to do was watch the original to see that this man was born with deformities and know how difficult his chilhood must have been. One would then understand why he turned into a psychopath.

Usually, remakes of a movie don’t do well with me. The 2003 remake of this movie was an exception, as it was halfway decent. However, my problem is there shouldn’t be a prequel or a sequel to a movie remake.

The bottom line is horror movies don’t scare people anymore. They simply just gross and disgust them. I sat in TCM: The Beginning kind of bored because it had no real threat of scaring people, or wondering what was going to happen next. For the most part, the movie came off as dull and not scary at all. I almost felt like I wrote the script myself as I was guessing what would have happened next. Of course, without fail my predictions came true, which eliminated the shock factor any true horror movie should contain.

The directors of horror movies today should realize that shedding blood and ripping off body parts does not scare people, it just makes them cringe.

If you are not a true horror movie fan, and are more into the blood and gore aspect, then I think you should see this movie. However, if you care about the survival of horror, then I truly say to these fans, don’t even bother, because you won’t be frightened. You will only leave the theater angry.

dadamof1@lasalle.edu