Nothing in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is quite as good as its teaser trailer, depicting a not-in-the-movie goof on 1981’s Excalibur. It does try a little.
An opening title scrawl informs us that only one member of the cannibalistic Sawyer family lived to see trial from the crime spree depicted in 1974’s original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and that the jury reasoned Leatherface was merely an “alternate personality” rather than an actual person. Therefore, he’s still out there, and well, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.
This time, the human-skin masked killer is played by R.A. Mihailoff (Trancers III) and has been gifted a new, pimped-out, gold-plated tool of terror emblazoned with the saying “The Saw is Family.” It’s a present from brother Tex (Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises), and Leatherface aims to christen it on the young couple (Rapid Fire’s Kate Hodge and Ghoulies II’s William Butler) traveling from California to Florida who unfortunately stopped for fuel at the clan’s Last Chance Gas station, run by milky-eyed, porn-obsessed Alfredo (Tom Everett, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown).
Initial scenes of the saw-and-mouse chase take place outdoors at night, and are both hard to see and clumsily assembled by Stepfather II director Jeff Burr. Much better is the second act, taking place in the surprisingly clean Sawyer kitchen; here, the movie reaches an apex with black humor and bloodletting. When you introduce a brother with a hook for a hand, a matriarch with a throat harmonica and a malevolent little girl who quotes The Coasters’ “Yakety Yak,” that tends to happen.
As an ally to our unappealing vacationers, Dawn of the Dead’s Ken Foree livens things up as much as he can. It’s not enough to be great. —Rod Lott