The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (Unrated Edition)

Many viewers found The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) to be needlessly mean shock cinema. But I always found it truly appropriate for the inherently cruel story and characters. They were meant to be insidious psychopathic cannibals, right? So following in the same shocking vein, this prequel opens with a viscerally graphic birth scene complete with a slimy animatronic fetus on the floor of a slaughterhouse. That visual alone ought to inform you if this film is for you. Clearly, it’s trying to push the limits of the 2003 reboot.The unsightly baby is rescued from an offal dumpster and taken to the old Hewitt house; the opening credit sequence is littered with visuals of lacerated flesh and the sounds of wet chunks of meat being squeezed between fingers; and the language describing Thomas “Leatherface” Hewitt (Andrew Bryniarski; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mother’s Day) is not just culturally insensitive, but brutal.In current day 1969 two twenty-something couples are driving across the country. After a car accident, Bailey (Diora Baird; Night of the Demons, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days), Chrissie (Jordana Brewster; The Faculty), Eric (Matt Bomer; American Horror Story, The Sinner) and Dean (Taylor Handley; Bird Box) are picked up by the sheriff and taken to his home. A glowing example of psychopathy, “Sheriff Hoyt” (R. Lee Ermey; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Rift, The Frighteners, Up from the Depths, The Watch) takes every opportunity to rattle our senses as the most vile entity we meet in this story. Leatherface is an animal, but Hoyt is a true monster.The pacing is strong. True to its 2003 and 1974 source material, this movie’s violence is jarringly abrupt and abundant. From roadkilled cow and dispatched bikers, to hammer homicide and peeling off entire faces, the action starts right away and takes few breaks from shocking us. For example, Leatherface’s hammer game is strong in this movie! Not since Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990) have I seen someone so brutally hobbled, making bone meal out of a poor guy’s knees.This Leatherface is also among the grossest (although not so perverted as in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), with a degenerative skin disease and his arms seem perpetually discolored in dry oxidized blood. He’s always sweaty, he’s always filthy, and his presence feels the most menacing of any TCM film (1974-2017).We see heads get blown apart, horrendous beatings, someone getting chainsawed in half, legs are amputated on screen, and skin get flayed before our eyes. We also enjoy (I think) the most chainsaw deaths and attacks of the entire franchise from originals to reboots. Personally, I’d say director Jonathan Liebesman (Darkness Falls, Battle Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans) did well by TCM fans, and his amped up brutality really just seems to follow the trend in TCM movies leading up to this.This movie is a blast for gorehounds! I haven’t seen 2003 recently enough to say for sure, but this and 1986 might just be my two favorite TCM movies.

Loved the movie! 🎥

The original Chainsaw Massacre is one of my favorite horror films. The other being Black Christmas. I love how these movies are not full of gore but invoke terror.

The Film: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-The Beginning-UnratedYear Made: 2006Let me start by saying that when I review a film, I like to do so without compairing to others. To read exactly what I think of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974 version, feel free to read my review on that film. I'm not going to compair, I'll just tell you what I feel with this film on it's own merit. Lets begin...The package. 4 Stars. The cover looks brutal, with what would be a face of a person that Leatherface cut off and did some nifty stitch work. I was dissapointed that when I opened up the CD case though, mine had no inlay inside at all, only the disc. hmm Not sure if this was normal or not but thats it. The extras on the disc are very nice and the CD is easy to pop out and yet the holder holds it into place very well. I hate when cases are put together bad and it's a nightmare to pop out the disc, this one is no problem. So all and all, I love the cover art, but was let down by the fact, no inlay at all.Spook Meter. 5 Stars. WOW, what can be said here except well, BRUTAL. This film is just creepy. I will never look at a sheriff the same way again after seeing the sheriff in this film. The family is creepy and the sherrif played the role extreamly well. I don't think I would ever want to meet that guy face to face, he played the role that well. I did not sleep to well after watching this film. This film is very intense, brutal horror plain and simple. This is not a "fun campy" type horror film by any means. This is a film that was made to make the viewer very umcomfortable and it does a great job at that. We see in this version of the film just how Leatherface became who he turned into later in life. I really liked how this movie started and did a great job explaining different things. Well acting overall, some parts I thought with some of the kids could have been a bit better acted out, but the sheriff and the family more then make up for that. Leatherface is very intense, I love how he at times would turn off his chainsaw for a moment and seach around for his victim, then start it back up when it felt he was near them. Little things like that can really add to the creepy feel and it did. He did not have his chain saw going all the time and when he did have that thing revved up well... hahahha read on.Gore Meter. 10 Stars! Oh wait.. It only goes up to 5 stars max. Ok, 5 stars!! The blood, gore is very extream in this film! While some horror films show the action and then leave a lot to your imagination, this film goes the other way in a big way! Just remember if you watch this, it's fake blood and people are not really being killed. You will have to say that to yourself a few times to get through this. I don't like to give much details away when I do a review. Let's just put it this way. Most all horror films don't even come close to the gore level that you will see when watching this. If you have a weak stomach, AVOID this movie. Personally I LOVED all the blood and gore. In this film it just came together very well.Profanity Meter. 5 Strikes. I can deal with gore, I can handle a creepy movie and thats fine. I was dissapointed that the profanity is also very extream. I just personally find profanity to actually take away from a film. Lucky for me I have a DVD system that cuts out language and it was working overtime when I played this.Sexual Meter: 1 Strikes. Nothing sexual in this film, just a ton of violence and gore.Final thoughts: This film does what it was meant to. It explains things very well and it is not a comfortable film to watch. With that said, overall I was very pleased with how well this was made. There are a few setbacks that I named above but I really overall loved this film. If you want a to watch a horror film that will freak you out and does not hold back the brutal violence, this IS the film to watch. I have to say, I really hope there IS another Chainsaw film in the future. I love this film, and I can't get enough of the Hewitt Family!! Leatherface! Keep that chainsaw warm and I hope you return to the big screen again soon!!!

Good price for the bluray usually i see it overly priced on other sites this is one of my favorite horror collection series so was happy to finally add it to my collection arrived super quick

very good

Well, not entirely. But sort of. There are some outstanding scenes at the beginning as well as the end; The idea of telling the orgin of the family was great, as I enjoyed seeing how Ermey became Hoyt, and how another charcater ended up losing his legs. It's Ermey who carries this movie, and I love the way he deals with the motorcycle chick and Sheriff Hoyt himself. I love the tension in the scene where the employee has to tell Leatherface to leave the premises of the meat packing plant. And, of course, things pick up near the end. The film has a great look and some decent cinematography. The problem is the script seems to run out of ideas midway through. The 4 'teenagers' aren't much on the acting side, and the whole 'Nam' storyline seemed really cheesy to me. This part was done so much better in the original remake in 2003. The acting was better, and there was much more to the story to fill the movie. Don't get me wrong, though. There was alot to like here for horror fans, and it's a decent rent. I just wish that they had explored the idea of 'origin' a little better; It was such a fascinating premise; Too bad they resorted to a cliche formula to try and tell it...