The Sawyer Massacre

This is a well crafted film. Acting and production values, including makeup gore effects, are all very good.

Yet throughout most of this film, I was bored. There is much exposition, characters standing around and talking, revealing themselves to us. That's nice, but it feels pointless. We know they are doomed to die. Because this is a prequel, we know they won't win. They'll be killed.

So this film is mostly just watching these characters chatter about this and that, before they're led to the slaughter.

There's also some annoying silliness. Rex hangs out at the gas station, telling people that whatever they need -- lunch, bar-b-Que, camping equipment, lamps, anything -- can be had by going to his grandpa's house. "Yeah, he sells all that." No matter what the person wants, he's told that grandpa has it for sale.

So all these idiots go to the house. Well, they hang around the field outside for a while before they enter. A normal person would have left long before, but, these being horror characters, they're stupid enough to think that an old man in the middle of nowhere has a large and diverse inventory of sales items.

This film is called a prequel, but that implies an origin story, and this is not that. The cannibal family is already as they were in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So really, it's just more of the same.

Which is why this film feels so pointless. Why make yet another Chainsaw film about city slickers driving through a small town and being butchered and cannibalized by local rednecks? If you're going to invest so much talent and work into making a prequel, why not write an original story to go with it?

The filmmakers did a great job of slavishly recreating the look and feel of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only to slavishly retell the first story (i.e., avoid any originality, origin story, or point).

They have talent. I suggest they apply it to a new story next time.