Oh, hi! How are you, dear friend? It’s been a little while since we last spoke. I hope the holidays were kind to you and yours, and that you welcomed 2022 happy and healthy. There’s nothing new to report on my side of the world, well, I’ve been playing around with the idea of traveling in a few months to the Midwest to attend Slipknot’s new roadshow concert, listen, I am realistically considering my choices as I still feel super weird about traveling again by plane and stuff, I mean, the ‘vid should be under control by this Spring, no problem, but I don’t know, it’s just weird to think about being inches away from strangers, packed like sardines for a few hours—in a plane, no bueno, in a concert, si bueno, don’t get it twisted lol—I mean, it should be totally fine by then, yes, I know, I knoooow, but, like, shit, how can I really, reeeeally know, you know? Anyway, please allow me to stop rambling and let’s jump into today’s movie, my beloved, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990). *SPOILERS AHEAD*
By now, in this horror friendship of ours you must be aware of the fact that Leatherface is my favorite slasher villain as he represents to me—and please don’t judge me too hard for what I am about to say for the millionth time—an afraid little child, trapped in the menacing body of a killing machine, unable to communicate properly, existing by survival and instinct, protecting his family and going into fight mode when necessary, living one day at a time. This not-so-subtle role contradiction is what it’s so appealing to me; it is not a double life, but a balance between a docile soul, unable to understand his surroundings, and explosive rage, embodied in the form of pure muscle and power tools.
Case in point, have you ever noticed how Leatherface only shows up when intruders step into his home? He is not roaming around the streets of Texas, causing mayhem because he is bored and stuff, nah, he is at his home with his family, minding his own business, when—and only when—the thread of strangers wakes him from his dull reality and prompts him to react with violence.
This third installment of the TCM franchise gave us two new aspects of his personality that I really enjoyed watching, I honestly had zero idea I could like Leatherface even more but (surprise!) here I am telling you about it.
The first one was that he was playful, like, we literally saw him practicing his spelling with a peculiar gadget which asked him to spell the word Clown by first showing him the picture of a clown and oh my god, he kept spelling Food over and over again because he, allegedly, more likely, who knows at this point, must have captured and eaten a person in clown attire (don’t forget the Sawyers were cannibals), seeing Leatherface getting frustrated by entering the wrong word broke my heart for some reason; also when it came to the playfulness, Leatherface took the Walkman cassette player away from their current ‘house guest’ and oh my god, he looked like a sweetheart listening to it with the orange headphones and stuff (total 80’s nostalgia!).
The second new aspect of his personality was a mature one and, at first, I didn’t know how to feel about it but I then realized how cool it was –Leatherface was a dad! (Ah!) He fathered an adorable little girl, a psycho girl, but adorable nonetheless. Also, for what the matriarch of the family said, he—and I am so sorry for the following, actually, you’re too precious, please cover your eyes in three, two , one—got first dibs on the women they captured because, in her own words, “He does make the sweetest damn babies, you know. Junior likes them private parts. We knows what to do with them parts.”
I hope I didn’t traumatize you with that mental picture. My bad. The point was, Leatherface role in the family was to provide protection with his physical strength, and spawn cute babies with his strong genes.
Right, but what about the movie as a whole, you may ask? Straight answer, it was great! It had a bunch of interesting characters like Tinker who was an inventor and insisted technology was the family’s new friend (he built his own arm, Leatherface’s spelling machine, the Excalibur-looking chainsaw, plus other stuff), and Tex who embraced gender roles in a way that was welcoming and refreshing (he went from charming playboy [those looks!] to domestic goddess [that manicure!]). Let’s take a look at the following two stills and notice all the details, including the adorable drawing on the fridge done by the little girl:
As for the ‘good guys’ we had the couple from California who was driving thru Texas to deliver a car, they were bickering at times but it wasn’t annoying or anything, they served their purpose and that was that. There was also Benny who was a Good Samaritan, a local to the area, with plenty of chances to run for his life but alas, decided to stick around and be a hero.
All in all Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III had all the things we love and adore from the TCM franchise: a decaying isolated house, a home that is really a slaughterhouse, a cannibal American family with traditional values that are both negated and reassigned, where normality and monster become reversed, and where the legacy of repression weights heavily not only on the Sawyers but on everyone that comes across their path. (I LOVE THAT SHIT!)
In Love and Fear,
-Marath
P.S. If possible, watch the Unrated version, not the heavily censored R-Rated one. And skip the official trailer, it was silly.
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