Leatherface

The youngest son of a family of murderous cannibals is institutionalised and proceeds to forget them, but things start to change after the institution's patients break free.

The conventional wisdom dictates that the villains in slasher movies (and horror movies in general) are more often than not better left undeveloped due to the idea that learning more about their histories and motivations takes away the mystery behind their seemingly-unfathomable acts of evil and compromises the all-powerful fear of the unknown in the process. We may get glimpses or pieces of exposition that give us just enough of an idea of the character to make us scared, but an extended delve into their backstory tends to be out-and-out unnecessary. That being said, if any slasher villain's backstory could theoretically carry a feature-length prequel, it's definitely Leatherface. His status as a mentally-challenged victim of constant abuse by his more lucid and aggressively sadistic relatives arguably makes him the most sympathetic of the slashers, so a film that explores how that came to be certainly isn't the worst idea for a prequel. That's the angle that Leatherface takes as it begins by showing young Jed Sawyer, initially seen being uncomfortable with the idea of taking part in his family's cruelty, being carted off to a home for criminally insane delinquents by the local sheriff (Stephen Dorff). Dorff does this less to ensure Jed's well-being than to spite the family and its matriarch (Lili Taylor) for murdering his daughter. Ten years and one name-change later, the boy formerly known as Jed has forgotten about his family but they certainly haven't forgotten him - enough so that Taylor's attempt to get him back causes a full-scale riot that results in Jed reluctantly taking to the road with a handful of other patients and a kidnapped nurse.

In fairness, Leatherface at least makes the effort to change up the franchise by swapping out the usual house-of-horrors approach for a road movie where the main group of youths are not under threat by a masked madman but by a combination of encroaching police attention (including an increasingly deranged Dorff) and in-fighting due to the group here consisting of a homicidal outlaw couple who have effectively taken the other three hostage as part of a plan to flee to Mexico. As someone who always considered Leatherface's relatives to be the worst part of any installment (even the five-star original), I'm actually glad that the whole second act of the film just ignores them completely. This is especially true of the decision to frame Leatherface as a nominal good guy who has to survive against the whims of an unrelated pair of maniacs and a vengeful sheriff, which is a plot thread that does a good job of carrying the film. Unfortunately, the novelty of this approach doesn't last too long and it's back to business as usual by the time the third act rolls around - while it's arguably effective considering the story it's trying to tell, it still manages to wring an especially sour note out of its inevitable conclusion. As a result, I have to add Leatherface to the increasing list of bad films in the franchise (which well and truly outnumber the good ones - or is that one?). As the eighth installment in the franchise, it adds a much-needed sense of variety to a franchise that was always rather repetitive, but even that isn't enough to salvage the whole film.