Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III * (1990, Kate Hodge, Ken Foree, R.A. Mihailoff, William Butler, Viggo Mortensen) – Classic Movie Review 5987

Three people – a California couple and a survivalist – confront the family of lethally crazy cannibals from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 – Leatherface and his family.

Little fresh imagination is evident in director Jeff Burr’s hugely flawed 1990 horror thriller film that plays like a blatant re-run of the first film, but with a greatly added gore quota and little added suspense or coherence.

It stars Kate Hodge and William Butler as Michelle and Ryan, a couple who get into deadly trouble while travelling through Texas, Ken Foree as a survivalist named Benny, R A Mihailoff as as Leatherface ‘Junior’ Sawyer, and Viggo Mortensen as Eddie ‘Tex’ Sawyer.

Some patchy performances, the lame attempts at humour and a blandly smooth production add to the general monotony.

This time, R A Mihailoff plays the demonic Leatherface, replacing Gunnar Hansen and Bill Johnson under the mask. Burr sought Hansen to return but no agreement was reached on pay. New Line wanted to start up a new franchise with Leatherface as the primary star, ‘going back to hard-core horror’ after the black comedy tone of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

Also in the cast are Joe Unger as Tinker Sawyer, Tom Everett Alfredo Sawyer, Miriam Byrd-Nethery as Mama Sawyer, Toni Hudson, David Cloud, Beth DePatie, Jennifer Banko as Leatherface’s Daughter, Ron Brooks, Duane Whitaker, Michael Shamus Wiles and Caroline Williams (uncredited as Reporter).

It is released by New Line Cinema, who bought the rights to the franchise from Cannon Films, which made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

Shooting took place in Valencia, California.

Predictably, it got into censorship problems. The Motion Picture Association of America gave it an X-rating, so New Line made cuts for an R rating and released it on 12 January 1990. It has since been released on home video in both unrated and R-rated versions. It was refused classification in the UK on its initial release, but now a cut version has an 18 certificate in the UK.

It is written by David J Schow, shot by James L Carter, produced by Robert Engelman and scored by Jim Manzie and Patrick Regan.

The uncut version runs 85 minutes and the cut version runs 81 minutes.

It is also known as Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Leatherface.

It fared even worse than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 at the box office, grossing $5,765,000 in the US, whereas 2 took $8 million in the US.

It is followed by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation [The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre] (1994).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5987

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