The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - Unrated (New Line Platinum Series)
by Jonathan Liebesman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Diora Baird, Jordana Brewster, R. Lee Ermey, Taylor HandleyDirector: Jonathan Liebesman
Brand: NEW Line Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1 EX; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1 EX
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 89 minutes
Published: 2007-01-01
DVD Release Date: 2007-01-16
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: N10654
Studio: New Line Home Video
Product features:
- The only thing more shocking than how it ended is how it all began! Born under unspeakable circumstances, a young orphan is taken in by the sick and demented Hewitt family and soon the seeds of a deranged murderer are planted. When two brothers and their girlfriends stumble across the house of horrors. Leatherface reveals his ravenous appetite for chainsaws and torture as the teens fight to surviv
Movie Reviews of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - Unrated (New Line Platinum Series)
Movie Review: Gore! Gore! Gore!
Summary: 5 Stars
For some time now, horror films are back with a vengeance - no more (or, to be precise: far fewer) boring PG-13 rated children scares. Movies like LAND OF THE DEAD, HOSTEL, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, MURDER SET PIECES, the recent remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES or the British BROKEN push the envelope regarding violence, splatter and sheer terror in ways not seen since the glorious 1970ies. If you like the aforementioned films, you will like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING.
A pre-title sequence, set in 1939, has an obese female worker giving birth to a disfigured boy at her workplace, an incredibly filthy slaughterhouse in a godforsaken remote part of Texas.
The baby is discarded in a dumpster (!) and picked up by a poor white trash woman sifting through the garbage. She and her husband decide to raise the boy.
Fast forward 30 years. The boy is a grown up man and works in the slaughterhouse. The abattoir is closed by the authorities due to hygienic reasons. Leatherface takes issue with that and kills his supervisor. The sheriff is out to arrest Leatherface, but is killed in turn by Leatherface's "foster dad", who assumes the sheriff's identity.
Meanwhile two brothers and their respective girl friends enjoy a trip with their jeep before the guys are off to Vietnam (one of them has second thoughts about being drafted). They run into trouble with a group of wild bikers. When being chased by a female biker they crash their jeep (a very odd accident, believe me!) and one of the girls is thrown off the car. While our injured youths are being threatened by the biker gal with a sawn-off shotgun, the police car with the "sheriff" arrives at the scene...
What follows is a non-stop horror trip and a bloody descent into hell...
As already mentioned TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE : THE BEGINNING is EXTREMELY gory (remember it is the unrated cut!). Without wanting to give too much away storywise, you can expect shotgun mayhem, a face cut off, teeth beaten out, penetration by chainsaw (more than once), someone being cut in half, bones broken with a hammer, severed limbs, bear trap mayhem, cannibalism, throat slitting, stabbings... A very unusual and gross effect was the cow in the car accident! The scenes in the basement are especially gruesome! Even more unsettling than the gore are the scenes of torture and terror. The whole atmosphere is very gritty and sick in the extreme.
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE : THE BEGINNING plays the horror straight and refrains from the annoying "irony" or "spot the refernce", which ruin so many horror movies (there is however a subtle reference to APOCALYPSE NOW, although it is not distracting). There is a bit of ultra-macabre jetblack humor regarding our "sheriff", who as veteran of the Korean war takes issue with one character's burnt draft card, although this does never compromise the horror. Lee R. ERMEY, a really GREAT actor, is perfectly cast in his role as sheriff and exudes an air of threatening menace and backwoods degeneracy throughout. And although ERMEY stands out, all of the other actors are convincing in their roles.
With the exception of the 2003 remake, I have watched all TCM movies over the years and although the fans of the 1974 original will loath me for it, in my view without any doubt TCM : THE BEGINNING is the best.
I also hugely enjoyed the DVD extra features.
There are several extended and deleted scenes, which in my view the filmmakers were right to cut from the finished film. There are 3 different alternate endings, one has an (underwhelming) coda, which unfortunately undercuts the violent and powerful climax and two are minor (lesser) variations of the original ending. There are optional commentaries for the deleted/extended scenes by the filmmakers.
The Making Of, titled "Down to the bone - Anatomy of a prequel", is excellent. Of particular interest for horror fans is the interview with special effects guru Greg NICOTERO, who explains the many gore F/X (for instance the cow that was torn to pieces in the car accident, was in fact made of glassfibre and filled with fake blood and intestines). It is incredible what these special effects wizards can accomplish! Actors elaborate on their respective characters. The shooting was unsurprisingly physically very demanding.
There is also the film's trailer, which I found disappointing and trailers for other movies (including SNAKES ON A PLANE, NUMBER 23, BUTTERFLY EFFECT 2 and UNDISPUTED 2 - LAST MAN STANDING).
Overall - a clear recommendation! A DVD any self-respecting horror fan and gore hound should own! Do NOT rent it - buy it! NOW!!!
More The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - Unrated (New Line Platinum Series) reviews:
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Summary of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - Unrated (New Line Platinum Series)
Take a bone-chilling journey into evil & witness how thomas hewitt became the infamous serial killer leatherface. Born under gruesome conditions an abandoned baby is found & taken in by the demented hewitt family. As he grows under their morbid nurturing thomas develops a ravenous appetite for chainsaws. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 09/04/2007 Run time: 89 minutes Rating: UrThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is a prequel to the recent remake of Tobe Hooper's classic 1974 splatter film, with an emphasis on the vogue for torture and bottomless depravity that characterize contemporary horror. As one might expect, The Beginning is just that, an origins tale about the Hewitt family of backwoods Texas. Step by step, we discover the source of their taste for human flesh, penchant for snaring young people passing through, and, most of all, how young Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) came to choose his favorite power tool and wear a mask made of someone else?s flesh. R. Lee Ermey is very effective in his perverse authority figure mode as Hoyt, the lawman who earned his badge through unorthodox means and now supplies specialized food to the Lone Star cannibals. Much less interesting than Hooper's two Massacre films, The Beginning (on which Hooper has a production credit) is not so much a tribute to the films he directed but a more sadistic continuation of the franchise. --Tom Keogh
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