The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning Review (2006) Worth Watching?

It's about a group of friends who come face to face with a deranged family and a crazed maniac who will later become known as Leatherface.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning was directed by Jonathan Liebesman (who also directed The Killing Room and Darkness Falls) and stars Jordana Brewster (from The Faculty), Diora Baird (from The 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, Stan Helsing) and R. Lee Ermey (from Willard, Se7en).

What you know about fear... doesn't even come close.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is a prequel to the 2003 reboot, an origin story set in 1969 about how Leatherface came to be. Like the reboot, this is also a Michael Bay film meaning if you're like most people you'll either love it or hate it. I personally loved it, I actually loved it more than the reboot. The Beginning has the same crazy gore and stunning cinematography as the reboot, but a deeper story and more interesting characters all around.

The Beginning is the 6th movie in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, a franchise based on one simple story line: A group of friends traveling through the middle of nowhere Texas become the targets of a family of psycho killer cannibals, led by a chainsaw swinging freak. This is the 6th movie to use this same story line. So, needless to say I went into this expecting to see the same story with yet another cast. But, I gotta say, this prequel to the sequel really delivered!

It's gritty, grimy, bloody, disturbing and a wild ride from start to finish. The characters are also all surprisingly charismatic (aside from the chainsaw swinging freak of course, he just kinda grunts and revs his chainsaw constantly). I found myself not even thinking about Leatherface's origin story, the rest of the cast carried the movie for me. Every installment of the franchise seems to try to make the family crazier than before (of course, the crazy crown easily goes to Matthew McConaughey from Texas Chainsaw The Next Generation, his performance was WTF crazy). This prequel went the other direction and showed a seemingly normal family slowly slipping into madness, and made clear how they were able to actually get away with it for so long.

I have this prequel ranked #3 in the entire franchise so far, although I still have the last two movies in the franchise to watch. I rank the original from 1974 before this, only because without the original a prequel makes no sense, and have Texas Chainsaw 2 ranked #1.

Worth Watching?

Absolutely. Any fan of Leatherface should see where he came from and what made him. And this prequel gives you that plus the buckets of blood you've come to expect from this franchise.