Directed by Jeff Burr. Written by David J. Schow. Starring Ken Foree, Kate Hodge, William Butler, Viggo Mortensen, Joe Unger, Tom Hudson, Tom Everett, Jennifer Banko and R.A. Mihailoff.
Plot: a young, yuppie couple and a survivalist team up to survive an attack by Leatherface and the rest of the Sawyer family.
Called “generic” by some and “sadistic” by others, this Chainsaw movie has garnered mostly negative reviews. However, as is sometimes the case with us, we couldn’t disagree with the average critic more. We see this as one of the better Chainsaw movies actually and as far as horror goes, I find nothing about this overly sadistic. As a matter of fact, I can quite easily name several movies that came before it and have come after it that are much more tormenting than this film.
The movie follows couple, Michelle (Hodge) and Ryan (Butler), as they drive through Texas. On the verge of breaking up, at first, Michelle is quite annoying and Ryan’s a bit of a dick. They stop at a gas station and meet a hitchhiker named Tex (Mortensen). When Tex sees that the gas station’s owner, Alfredo Sawyer (Everett), is spying on Michelle while she’s in the bathroom, Tex comes to her rescue. Then, it seems, he’s shot to death by Alfredo, so Michelle and Ryan flee in their car. Things only get worse for them though as a random truck driver soon throws a dead coyote at their windshield, running them off the road. And while changing their busted tire, that’s when Leatherface (Milhailoff) shows up.
After all of that, Michelle and Ryan escape again only to crash into another driver, Benny (Foree). At least Benny’s one of the good ones though, because they soon find themselves encountering another Sawyer, Tinker (Unger) – and another and another. Together, the three of them fight back and while not all make it, it’s actually quite a positive ending for a Chainsaw film. I could have done without the dead coyote and the dead armadillo, but even those deaths weren’t graphic. The cast was excellent, the Freddy Claws was first-rate for a change (Benny believed Michelle and Ryan really quickly) and as mentioned before, the ending was admirable. Overall, this is like, DJ’s fifth favorite movie of the series, but it’s my third. Blasphemy, maybe, but we don’t care. These are our opinions and only meant for fun. We do recommend this though as we find it quite enjoyable.
Our score: 60.
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