Loony, gory ‘Leatherface’

Lili Taylor

In this oft-twisted prequel of the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” film series, the murderous psychopath Leatherface is shown as a youngster, giving the horrific screen bogeyman a tense, if utterly predictable, origin story set in the mid-1960s.

It follows a few mentally unstable individuals, one of whom is the teen son of Verna (Lili Taylor), matriarch of a family that has long been suspected of brutal crimes by the vengeful sheriff (Stephen Dorff).

Unintentionally starting a riot at the asylum where her son is confined, Verna is unaware that deranged escapees (James Bloor and Jessica Madsen) have forcibly taken a few other people—a new nurse (Vanessa Grasse) and her protective patients (Sam Strike and Sam Coleman).

It doesn’t take long to identify who among those people becomes the chainsaw-brandishing killer, but the backstory is still quite interesting.

Codirected by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, “Leatherface” is typically gory and repulsive. It’s just baffling and annoying that most of the expletives are muted out, like the film isn’t rated R-16 locally, and visually disturbing already.

It’s a slasher flick that’s made creepier by Taylor’s presence, her taunting mother/aunt character nicely startling most of the time. Also competent is Strike, an English actor in his 20s, intriguing enough as a handsome and noble simpleton who transforms into the scarred and extremely violent grotesquery. —OLIVER PULUMBARIT