Awe, yes. Leatherface: A Texas Chainsaw Massacre Story. We get to learn who inspired his physique, why he wears the mask, and a whole bunch of other s**t none of us ever cared to know.
Not everything needs a prequel, but these days it’s a bitch to avoid, so we might as well embrace it. But, before embracing it, we should consider using it as an advantage to actually elevate the world that our beloved stories took place but without detracting too much from the mystery that made its iconic characters so captivating.
I think Leatherface manages to somehow kind of stick to the latter part despite trying to flesh-out the masked killer while managing, however, to do absolutely nothing else as well. This is a pointless plot-heavy road-trip movie that’s so reliant on its ostentatious gore spectacle and elementary finger point at corruption fueling all evil, which the last Texas Chainsaw introduced, and the biggest crime because of this is that these sole prime offerings end up inspiring a tedious experience, which most of the other entries at least managed to avoid. Also, why advertise this as a Leatherface prequel just to reassure us that Leatherface was taught to kill (duh) and had potential not to so long as he stayed away from his blood family and the dishonest justice systems that hate them, as if that wasn’t already insinuated from just common sense when observing the situation? Like, I’m glad you got to spell it out, but for a whole movie? Boo.
At least the acting here is pretty decent — despite it all being dedicated to a stereotype for each character — and the movie is competently compiled together, but as a service to what? It’s all wasted in the end for the schlock encompassing it. Any attempt it makes at being more macabre than even the original also feels so forced in almost every instance. Wow, a necrophilia sex scene? So edgy…
Verdict: D
The Texas Chainsaw Massacres Ranked
“Leatherface” is now available to stream on Pluto TV.
Burning the Celluloid 
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