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Leatherface: New Prequel of Texas Chainsaw Massacre


D-Ray Kenobi
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  • 1 month later...

I don't know that anyone really was expecting great reviews. Hoping more than anything else. And it did get some good reviews, as I said, Variety had a pretty positive review.

I would venture to say that the release method for the film says that the company didn't have high expectations for how it would do, so that was a pretty big clue that the reviews wouldn't be great.

 

I'm bummed that I missed seeing it on the big screen. A local theater was showing it, as part of a horror film series. It originally said, incorrectly, that it would be showing on a Thursday through Sunday, so I was going to go to the late show on Friday. Then they corrected their website to show the actual plan for the festival, and it only was shown on Thursday.

 

But there have certainly been several more films that have gotten solid reviews in the past 25 years. If we use Rotten Tomatoes as a guide, and say 60% or better, Get Out is like 99%, Cabin in the Woods, Paranormal Activity 3, Insidious, Shaun of the Dead (horror comedy), Pan's Labyrinth, The Mist, are all positive, and I'm sure I could find more pretty easily. The horror genre isn't completely hated by critics. Now the slasher subgenre, that's a different story, but if you were to try to make a slasher film that was well respected by critics, you would pretty much have to forego most of what makes the genre special.

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Congrats, Tank! In all seriousness how masochistic are you all for expecting great reviews for a horror flick. There's been like IT and The Ring in the past 25 years and that's it. I immensely enjoyed the 2003 TCM but even that got bad reviews.

Um... You never heard of It Follows, The Witch, The Babadook... ? Just to name a few but I don't think you're looking hard enough if those are the only two you can name in the last 25 years...

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Ok yea totally spaced on Insidious and Babadook. Those were great but the rest of the movies you guys mentioned I wouldn't even count as what were talking about here.

 

You guys gotta admit, though, you usually don't even bother looking at the score of a horror because they're usually not given great reviews. Like romantic comedies. Even if the vast majority of people love them the vast majority of those movies are panned by critics.

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Thanks for the kind words.

 

I myself didn't love the released cut. The director's cut was much better, but Lion's Gate basically got scared of an arthouse spatter movie and decided they needed more cheap jump scares and a fast pace. SO they cut about 20 minutes of subtle character stuff, inserted a bunch of dumb jump scares, and shot a new opening scene that was basically just an improved studio note.

 

I know every writer likes to say the studio butchered them... but it happens.

 

Variety gave it a pretty good review.

As did most of the big horror sites, Hollywood Reporter, and LA Times. Which is really the best case one could hope for with a horror film.

 

One Halloween season later...um. Whoops?

 

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Wow. Thanks, Randy. Like I wanted to see that.

 

But I knew it would happen. When ti was just real critics it stayed in the 80s. As soon as it was open to any fanboy with a blog, of course it plummeted. Most of the bad reviews are basically from horror nerds who are mad that the movie didn't do what they thought it should.

 

The irony is not lost on me. I've apologized to Spielberg over my behavior and a letter to George Lucas is in the works.

But there have certainly been several more films that have gotten solid reviews in the past 25 years. If we use Rotten Tomatoes as a guide, and say 60% or better, Get Out is like 99%, Cabin in the Woods, Paranormal Activity 3, Insidious, Shaun of the Dead (horror comedy), Pan's Labyrinth, The Mist, are all positive, and I'm sure I could find more pretty easily. The horror genre isn't completely hated by critics. Now the slasher subgenre, that's a different story, but if you were to try to make a slasher film that was well respected by critics, you would pretty much have to forego most of what makes the genre special.

Very well said. The only horror movies that really transcend reviews these days are the ones that are really able to transcend the genre itself-- which is what Get Out, It Follows and Cabin in the Woods did. It's next to impossible to do that within an existing franchise, especially one with niche subgenre expectations AND a studio that has a checklist of certain things.

 

I had fun. I got paid. I have got plenty of work since then based on the script. Not everyone hated it. It's a real movie with my name on it, so for an angry movie nerd on the internet, I think I did okay.


Congrats, Tank! In all seriousness how masochistic are you all for expecting great reviews for a horror flick. There's been like IT and The Ring in the past 25 years and that's it. I immensely enjoyed the 2003 TCM but even that got bad reviews.

I still think you're a bag of weed that has somehow gained sentience cause I only understand half of what you say-- but I appreciate you saying that-- thank you!

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I haven't seen it yet because I am back logged with my tv and movie viewing and don't think to look at the On Demand options. Do you know anything (that you can say) about a dvd/blu-ray release for it? Because I definitely want to see it and it would be an instantaneous buy for me.

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  • 1 month later...

I just watched it. I enjoyed the movie and am glad I bought it! I should go rewatch the original movie at some point now, too.

 

Did you write both endings, Seth? I've never thought about the writing process for alternate endings before. If you only wrote one of them, I can probably guess which one it is. I'm just curious.

 

Also, I saw that there is a "making of" feature on the disc. Are you featured on that at all? I am much more likely to watch it if you are.

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Yes I am. So I cant watch it.

 

... there were two endings?

 

I only wrote one, but they shot a lot of extra action stuff so the difference between the two is likely editorial.

 

To be honest, I stopped watching the final cut about halfway through because I was bummed by how much the studio cut out.

And I am in the making of stuff, so I will definitely never watch it.

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I completely understand you not being able to watch it. I feel very uncomfortable watching myself, too. I'll definitely go ahead and watch it now, though.

 

I'm sorry that the studio cut out a bunch of it. I'm sure that has to be difficult to watch. I hope it didn't taint the entire project too much for you.

 

The two endings weren't entirely different, but it was a little more than just editorial (in my limited understanding of the term):

 

 

 

The "original" ending features the nurse escaping out of the house and hunted outside by Jed and his family. She is chased down by Jed as he brandishes the chainsaw and, after she pleaded with him, he cuts off her head and carries it back inside. Then it ends with the family feeding pigs and burning the nurse's clothes and Jed making his first face mask. The final shot is him smashing the mirror he is looking into.

 

The "alternate" ending has the nurse getting caught in another room of the house after fleeing the kitchen. After prompting by his mother and the old man, Jed cuts into the nurse's leg with the chainsaw and then leaves it there. I think someone then bludgeoned the nurse. It cuts to almost the same ending sequence, but instead of smashing the mirror, Jed gets up and we see the nurse's mangled body hanging there with the lower half of her face cut off. Jed creepily looks at her and then gets behind her, placing the chainsaw between her legs in a way that makes it look like a penis.

 

Since it is much more unsettling, I am guessing that the "alternate" ending is more in line with what you wrote and imagine that the studio wanted a scene of Jed in full on Leatherface mode chasing after the nurse outside with the chainsaw. Visually, I liked that, too, but I would have like it better without the head being chopped off so they could still use the shot of Jed being super creepy at the end.

 

 

 

 

Also, when I was looking things up online after watching the movie last night, I came across an article about Ted. I gather that he had some scenes cut, but where does he pop up in the movie?

 

Sorry for having so many questions here, but I am just really interested.

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Ted was the boyfriend driving the truck in the beginning (which was my opening scene. The existing opening scene birthday party, and the extra action ending in the woods were studio reshoots cause they were meddlesome idiots. We basically made an arthouse spatterfilm, and they wanted a mainstream jump-scare filled movie. They most of the slow character moments.

 

The Alternate ending was what I wrote-- but the chainsaw between the legs was courtesy of the directors. It was sort of a callback to TCM2, but I personally that it was unnecessary.

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Ted was the boyfriend driving the truck in the beginning (which was my opening scene. The existing opening scene birthday party, and the extra action ending in the woods were studio reshoots cause they were meddlesome idiots. We basically made an arthouse spatterfilm, and they wanted a mainstream jump-scare filled movie. They most of the slow character moments.

 

The Alternate ending was what I wrote-- but the chainsaw between the legs was courtesy of the directors. It was sort of a callback to TCM2, but I personally that it was unnecessary.

 

Thanks for all of the clarification, especially about Ted. :thumbsup: I completely missed what his name was

 

When I saw the alternate ending, it really felt like that was what you had in mind. It was nice, at least, to see that there was an option to play the movie with that ending. That will be what I recommend to people and will watch from here on out. I haven't seen TCM2, so I didn't catch that reference. I will admit that I only recently saw the original TCM, having only seen the reboot series before that. After hearing about your work on this, I went and bought the original. I enjoyed the reboots, but holy shit the original messed with my head and stuck with me for days from how unbelievably creepy it was.

 

Some of the character scenes you mentioned were also included as deleted scenes. There was a nice long one between Jackson and the nurse that I liked from those.

 

It's interesting to hear that your opening was the car scene and not the birthday party or the "alternate" opening of Jed watching the butchering of a pig with the chainsaw.

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I was really excited to watch the movie since you wrote it (and I like these types of movies, too). I was also a little nervous that I wouldn't like it because of that, so it made me even happier when I did like it. I'm sorry that the studio pulled their shenanigans on it, but I'm glad that it was overall a positive experience for you!

 

It was also interesting watching it after reading so many of your comments about writing over the years on here, especially in regards to the reveal of Jed's identity. I could completely see what you were going for with that, which was really cool to me.

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