A good prequel or sequel to the proto-slasher The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is not unimaginable. True, series co-creator Tobe Hooper didn t quite nail it with his The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, nor did the makers of surprisingly not-terrible Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. These near-miss efforts make it tempting to recommend abandoning poor Leatherface, the hulking, mute, flesh-mask-wearing chainsaw buff. After all, Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel s original film will always cast an appropriately large shadow over post-1974 horror.
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But the approach that the makers of Leatherface, a new prequel to the franchise, adopt is not only a bad one, it s poorly applied. Leatherface tries to show us what made the man we know the legend he is now. Sadly, the makers of Leatherface didn t put enough thought into a sleepy story that could easily be titled I Was a Teenage Leatherface.