Sara Watches Stuff

October horror madness continues with something from 2013. Ah, 2013. The year I graduated, and the height of the unnecessarily 3D movie. Texas Chainsaw 3D is the epitome of that redundancy - there is literally no reason for this movie to be in 3D. There is some blood that flies and at one point someone throws a chainsaw. That's the quality of 3D movie we were pumping out in 2013. For all its flaws, I love the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a great example of the Big Fucked Up Family movie. For some reason, I was under the impression that this Alexandra Daddario led movie was the remake, rather than a direct sequel. If you ignore the fact that none of it makes sense temporally, it's a pretty interesting way of doing the usual "same idea but this time 3D" sequel. Daddario plays Heather, who as a baby was taken from the Sawyer household as the town's citizens set upon them in vengeance for their penchant for murder (Leatherface, most notoriously)...

I know I've mentioned before my personal affinity for Big Fucked Up Family Movies, but I hate how often they neglect the exploration of the actual family dynamics and instead try to pile shock on shock. It's very much Alexandre Aja's modus operandi - he directed this remake along with 2003's  High Tension  - as he seems to thrive on creating movies that push the limits of "too far", but does so with choices that are often hard to track. As a big horror fan, I like to see people in movies get confronted with impossible situations. I want characters' limits tested. Aja's take on Wes Craven's 1977 movie follows the same story, where a family traveling through the desert find themselves stranded and under attack from a family of (sigh) mutant cannibals. I haven't seen Craven's movie, though it is generally agreed that the remake is superior; my issues with this movie come more from the carnival of horrors way the antagonists are deployed, not...