Line #53 Film/TexasChainsaw3D


1	[[quoteright:263:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_1rsz_texas-chainsaw-3d-new-poster_1221.png]]
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3	''Texas Chainsaw 3D'' (stylized on-screen simply as ''Texas Chainsaw'') is a 2013 SlasherMovie directed by John Luessenhop and written by Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan and Kirsten Elms. It is the seventh installment in ''Franchise/TheTexasChainsawMassacre'' franchise and a direct sequel to [[Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974 the 1974 film]]; it is in no way connected to [[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2003 the 2003 remake]].
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5	The film begins with the Sawyers being killed and their family homestead being burned down shortly after the first film... except for one infant, who is rescued by one of the townspeople and taken in as part of the Miller family. And with that, Edith Sawyer becomes Heather Miller (Creator/AlexandraDaddario), who decades later, learns that she inherited a mansion from her biological grandmother. She goes there with her friend and boyfriend, and they learn the hard way that Leatherface is still alive. Pretty soon, the townspeople learn the truth as well and decide to take their vendetta to Heather herself.
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7	A {{prequel}} set in the timeline of this film was released in 2017 under the name ''Film/{{Leatherface}}'', delving into the namesake character's life during his late teens.
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9	!! This film provides examples of:
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11	* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Leatherface's chainsaws can cut through everything. Including but not limited to a car's carcass and a thick metal chain.
12	* AbusiveParents: It's implied Heather's parents, especially her father, are at the very least emotionally abusive, barely tolerating her and not even bothering to be gentle about confirming it when Heather learns she's adopted.
13	* AmoralAttorney: Amusingly averted. The Sawyer family lawyer seems to be a kind, if secretive, decent old man.
14	* AnAesop: Two wrongs don't make a right.
15	* AnachronismStew: During the scene where Heather learns about her real family, we clearly see the first film is set in 1973, seemingly placing this film in the late 1990s... except the dates on the tombstones explicitly set this film in 2012 (plus we have camera-phones). So, there's a degree of AssPull trying to make it seem like the first movie took place more recently than it obviously did, unless we're supposed to believe that Heather is [[OlderThanSheLooks at least 39 years old]]. (Even then, there's the many characters who haven't aged a day since August 19, 1973.) The date of death on all the Sawyer tombstones conveniently have the year obscured and everyone seems to be going out of their way to not mention what year "August 19th" was, except from one incredibly brief moment on the police record (which also screwed up listing it as "August 18th").
16	* AssholeVictim: Almost everyone who is killed except [[spoiler:[[NiceGuy Kenny]]]]. To wit:
17	** [[spoiler:Nikki and Ryan, Heather's best friend and boyfriend respectively, who were having sex behind her back (Ryan ''was'' trying to resist Nikki's advances, although not particularly strenuously).]]
18	** [[spoiler:Darryl, who proceeds to loot Heather's new house the first chance he gets and inadvertently lets Leatherface loose.]]
19	** [[spoiler:Burt Hartman and his cronies, who participated in the slaughter of the Sawyers and seek to finish the job with Heather and Leatherface.]]
20	** [[spoiler:Even the RedShirt cop who responded to alarm at the Carson house is too gung-ho for his own good, ignores the orders of his immediate superior (the Sheriff) to follow those of the mayor, and seems positively gleeful at the prospect of being the man to bring down Leatherface and finish the Sawyer clan off for good. And since he got a call on his radio to come to the slaughterhouse (allowing Leatherface to figure out where Heather was), it's pretty clear he was down with the whole "murder all the Sawyers and keep it quiet" agenda.]]
21	* TheAtoner: Sheriff Hooper feels horribly guilty for allowing the Sawyer massacre to occur under his watch, and is trying to redeem himself. [[spoiler: This is the main reason he allows Leatherface to walk free in the end]].
22	* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: Leatherface not only gets away with murder at the end of the film, he also gets revenge on the people who killed his family and reunites with his long lost cousin]].
23	* BadassBystander: The random cop who decides to venture into the mansion on his own not only out of a sense of justice, but seemingly sheer bloodthirst ("[[BadassBoast Having a chainsaw doesn't make him bulletproof]]"). [[spoiler: Doesn't end well for him.]]
24	* BaldOfAuthority: DoubleSubverted. While the bald Sheriff Hooper runs the police department, during most of the film, Mayor Burt Hartman is the real leader everyone listens to in the town. [[spoiler: That is until Hooper lets Leatherface and Heather kill him in the end.]] Afterwards, he makes it clear that he's now in charge by telling the two to clean up the mess before he leaves.
25	* BigBad: Leatherface officially takes this title in the film, being one of the last surviving Sawyer but later on [[spoiler: Mayor Burt Hartman takes the role.]]
26	* BitchInSheepsClothing:
27	** Darryl. He poses as a seemingly nice hitchhiker at first, but once Heather and her friends leave him alone at her mansion, he proceeds to loot and vandalize the place.
28	** [[spoiler:Deputy Carl Hartman. At first he tries to befriend Heather, but eventually he ends up turning out to be just as cruel as his father Burt, and he tries to get her killed]].
29	* BondOneLiner:
30	** "Welcome to Texas, motherfucker!"[[note]]An illogical one as it's spoken by a non-Texan, to a Texan.[[/note]]
31	** "Do your thing, cuz!"
32	* TheCameo:
33	** Creator/GunnarHansen who played Leatherface in the original film has a cameo as "Boss Sawyer". Creator/BillMoseley, known mainly to horror fans as 'Chop-Top' from ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2'' and Otis B. Driftwood from ''Film/HouseOf1000Corpses'' and ''Film/TheDevilsRejects'', is Drayton Sawyer.
34	** Marilyn Burns appears as Verna, and John Dugan briefly reprises his role as Grandpa in the opening.
35	* CanonDiscontinuity: Acts as a direct sequel to the original, thus negating the events of ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2'' which had the original family moving underground to a Texas carnival and Drayton Sawyer still being a public presence in the community with his chili. Ironically, this film still uses the Sawyer names, an element introduced in the original sequel.
36	* CarFu: Subverted. Ryan finds out the hard way that driving a van straight into a heavy gate will ''not'' break it down.
37	** Played painfully straight later against Heather.
38	* CastingGag:
39	** Heather's grandmother (Verna Sawyer-Carson) is portrayed by Marilyn Burns, who played [[FinalGirl Sally Hardesty]] in the original movie.
40	** Bill Moseley plays Drayton Sawyer in the opening scene; he played 'Chop-Top' in ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2''.
41	* ChainsawGood: Naturally. In fact, Leatherface has various amounts of chainsaws on a WallOfWeapons.
42	* ChekhovsGun: Heather's "crazy little birth mark" (actually a burn from the hot S-pendant her mother, as a Sawyer, wore) serves as a sign to Leatherface that she is a Sawyer.
43	* ContrivedCoincidence: When [[spoiler:Carl is tying up Heather in the slaughterhouse, she kicks him in the leg, making him lose his balance and tear her shirt open. Then the officer Leatherface killed gets a radio call to come to the slaughterhouse because Burt and his crew are going to take care of Heather there, and Leatherface just so happens to be pushing the car into the barn to overhear this. When Leatherface arrives, Heather has been left conveniently alone by the vicious men who want to kill her, and he creeps up behind her, opts ''not'' to kill her from behind, instead resting his inactive chainsaw in her shoulder to let her know he's there. He then walks around in front of her while she screams through her duct tape gag, turns on the chainsaw, and has it within inches of her breastbone before he notices her Sawyer-pendant scar. This finally leads to the reunion of the last two surviving Sawyers.]]
44	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Burt Hartman gets HoistByHisOwnPetard [[spoiler:when he is dragged into a meat grinder by a chain, a fate he was going to give to Leatherface]].
45	* DarkIsNotEvil: Heather is a member of the Sawyer clan and wears predominantly black, but is the heroine of the story and to an extent, Leatherface, who has a face mask made of human skin, but is simply protecting the Sawyer house and later is revealed to be the closest thing Heather has to a family member.
46	* DestinedBystander: Sheriff Hooper
47	* DespairEventHorizon: Part of what figures in [[spoiler:Heather's FaceHeelTurn: She hast lost all of her friends, her adoptive parents are abusive assholes, her other family is dead (minus Leatherface), and the town is bent on murdering her for ''no actual reason'']]. She breaks under the pressure.
48	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
49	** Lots of phallic shots of Leatherface's chainsaw, especially as it destroys a van.
50	** The shot as Leatherface stabs a kneeling cop... from behind...
51	* DisproportionateRetribution: Mayor Hartman decides that Heather has to die for simply being related to the Sawyers. Granted, it is ''technically'' her fault Leatherface is back on the loose, but only [[spoiler:because she left a random hitchhiker alone in her new house and ''didn't'' read the very important letter from the woman who willed the house, and responsibility for Leatherface, to her.]] But he doesn't actually know that.
52	* EpilogueLetter: Verna's letter is narrated to the audience near the end when Heather finally gets around to reading it.
53	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[spoiler:Heather and Leatherface at the end]], they love each other and will kill to protect each other.
54	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Leatherface decides to spare Heather the minute he realizes she's related to him. Also, despite being a murderous bastard, it is noticeable he ''only'' goes after those who tresspassed the mansion grounds or previously harmed his family: When Heather flees to the amusement park, he chases after her, but doesn't even try to harm any of the bystanders.
55	* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Heather at the end, she accepts Leatherface as family, and helps him kill Burt, and kills Burt's crony, making her a murderer and accomplice to murder. However, EvilVersusEvil is in full effect, so its debateable how far down the Heel slope she's turned.]]
56	* EvilVersusEvil: A cannibalistic chainsaw wielding serial killer versus a VigilanteMan KnightTemplar mayor and his gleefully murderous posse.
57	* FaceRevealingTurn: When Leatherface meets Heather.
58	* {{Fanservice}}: Plenty of MaleGaze is given to [[MsFanservice Nikki's]] assets, and half of her screen-time is spent in skimpy clothing or otherwise half-naked, and she is also rather flirty. [[MrFanservice Ryan]] also gets to demonstrate his muscled physique in a lot of scenes. And of course, Heather fills out her tops quite nicely, providing frequent bouncing and exposed midriffs.
59	* FanDisservice: Heather is nearly topless near the end of the film, but that's [[spoiler:being tied up in the abandoned slaughterhouse, awaiting her murder by Burt and his posse just for being a Sawyer, and after her life has gone so far south teaming up with her cousin, ''Leatherface'', is her best option]].
60	* FinalGirl: Heather plays it pretty straight, especially before Leatherface finds out [[spoiler: that she's his cousin]].
61	* {{Fingore}}: Heather finds Leatherface in her kitchen, snipping fingers off from a severed hand.
62	* GodzillaThreshold: By the end of the film, Heather's life has gone to such shit that ''Leatherface'', the maniacal cannibalistic serial killer [[spoiler:who's also her cousin]] is actually the '''sanest''' option she has for surviving the night.
63	* {{Gorn}}: The film is a shameless bloodbath.
64	* GraveRobbing: Heather finds Verna's body unearthed, sitting in her room and [[spoiler:in the epilogue, Leatherface is seen re-burying her.]]
65	* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Leatherface hoists [[spoiler:Kenny]] on a meathook, and saws him half horizontally.
66	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Leatherface towards Heather, when he finds out that they are related]].
67	* HistoryRepeats: Heather's story is a BizarroEpisode of Sally's in the original '74 classic.
68	* HooksAndCrooks: After Leatherface scares Kenny when he accidentally finds himself in the former's turf. The former scares him off with a meat hook and makes use of it when the latter tries to escape from him. Stabbing him in the back and dragging him down.
69	* HopeSpot: After Leatherface damages his van, Ryan eventually manages to speed away from him before he can kill him, Nikki, and Heather. [[spoiler:And then the van flips out of control and kills Ryan because Leatherface sawed through a tire]].
70	* IdiotBall: The movie is filled with them. Where to start?
71	** The first: Heather ''not'' reading the letter from her grandmother she was specifically instructed to could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Related, the lawyer could have emphasized it was important to read the letter ''immediately'', not "whenever you get around to it." Sure, he stressed that she should read it, but not within any kind of timeframe.
72	** The second: The kids all go into town to get supplies for their party, leaving the random hitchhiker they just met alone in a giant house filled with all kinds of valuables, and then have the nerve to act surprised when they return to find he's stolen everything of value that wasn't nailed down. [[spoiler: Oh, and he let Leatherface out.]]
73	** The third: Hiding in [[spoiler:the coffin that was pretty obviously dug up by Leatherface himself, which he left open, hoping he won't find you there. He does, and now you're trapped in a space impossible to escape from while he chainsaws through it.]]
74	** The fourth: Electing to [[spoiler:ram a heavy iron gate, wrecking your vehicle, instead of waiting for it to open automatically when you have enough of a lead on the chainsaw-wielding maniac that waiting for the gate costs you nothing.]]
75	** The mayor ordering an overzealous cop to secure a probably crime scene and suspect? Dubious, but okay. The Sheriff raising no more than a token objection before allowing himself to be shouted down then sitting by to watch the whole thing play out? Unlikely. Not ordering any other officers to head for the house to offer backup, even if they won't get there in time? This trope.
76	** One with positive consequences: [[spoiler:Leatherface creeps up behind a BoundAndGagged Heather, but opts not to kill her from there. Instead he slowly circles around in front of her, finally fires up his chainsaw, preparing cut her open straight through the chest. This allows him to see her Sawyer-pendant scar, leading to him ungagging her so she can confirm she's his cousin, and finally them working together to get revenge on Burt Hartman.]]
77	* IronicEcho: "Can't get around the Good Book." [[spoiler:First time it's spoken by Burt to Sheriff Hooper to justify the mob killing all the Sawyers, "An eye for an eye." The second time, it's said by Sheriff Hooper when he refuses to stop Leatherface and Heather from killing Burt, taking their own "eye for an eye."]]
78	* ItRunsInTheFamily: Heather makes bone sculptures without realizing she is a Sawyer. She also works in the meat department of a grocery store, carving up tasty cuts just like the Sawyers did (though she works with beef, not [[IAmAHumanitarian long pork]]).
79	* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Leatherface, Heather, and Hartman's son as well.]]
80	* KnightTemplar: The townsfolk, especially Burt Hartman who takes the law into his own hands and kills the Sawyers and goes after Heather for simply being related to the Sawyers.
81	* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Almost all the characters are either antagonists or assholes who have it coming. Heather was the most decent character in the film alive by the end, [[spoiler:but by then she has gone through a FaceHeelTurn.]]
82	* LightIsNotGood: Burt Hartman looks like a decent, clean cut mayor, but is revealed to be a SmallTownTyrant who tries to kill Heather upon learning she is related to the Sawyer clan.
83	* ManChild: Leatherface gets a lot of sympathy points for being portrayed as very innocent and child-like.
84	* MeaningfulEcho: The last shot of the film.
85	* MrExposition: Mr. Farnsworth.
86	* MyCarHatesMe: Self-inflicted. The van runs fine until [[spoiler:Ryan stupidly rams the automatic gate with it instead of waiting for the gate to open.]]
87	* MythologyGag: The second film is ignored, though the names Sawyer and Drayton (introduced in it) are used.
88	* NiceGuy: Kenny. Also arguably the ''only'' one.
89	* ObliviouslyEvil: Farnsworth explains Leatherface has no evil intent towards anyone, his AxCrazy behavior is how his family taught him to behave.
90	* OffscreenTeleportation: From the way Leatherface emerges out of the nowhere in ''locked rooms'', you'd get the feeling he doesn't walk, but teleports around the mansion.
91	* OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank: Leatherface drags one of his victims [[note]]POSSIBLY two, one still alive with some wounds, to be technical[[/note]] down a length of road, up a lengthy driveway (so lengthy you can't see the house it leads to from the road), into a house, and down deep into the house's sizable basement, all while leaving a clear one-two foot wide trail of blood for a later character to follow all the way, the trail barely shrinking in size, if at all, the whole way. To make things even more ridiculous, [[spoiler: said victim had been decapitated and Leatherface had left the site of the corpse to give chase to someone else and returned later, hence suggesting that the victim still had enough blood to do that after bleeding out from such a severe wound for possibly over HALF AN HOUR.]]
92	* PeekaBooCorpse:
93	** Verna [[spoiler: and Ryan]].
94	** Hilariously inverted with [[spoiler:Nikki]]. When a police officer is investigating the mansion, he gets so startled by [[spoiler:Nikki popping out of a box and screaming at the top of her lungs]] that ''he shoots her in the forehead''.
95	* PoorCommunicationKills: Mr. Farnsworth only told Heather the letter was "very important" and to make sure she read it, though he did stress this three times. But he didn't place any special emphasis on doing so ''immediately''. Heather also didn't make sure she read the letter ASAP. As a result, well. . . [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot the movie happened.]]
96	* PreviouslyOn: The film opens up with a montage of clips from the original film
97	* RecycledPremise: Following the first film, Heather looks into her dead grandparent's estate, picks up a hitchhiker who unleashes Leatherface and then escapes torture from locals until a gory comeuppance to her captors [[spoiler: turns her as crazy as Leatherface.]]
98	* RememberTheNewGuy: The opening scene features a small RedshirtArmy of Sawyers who did not appear in the original film and are promptly killed alongside Drayton and Grandpa. We do see them arriving at the house, but there's no explanation of how they got there in such a short amount of time.
99	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The climax has Leatherface getting payback on the townspeople responsible for killing his family.
100	* SchmuckBait:
101	** Leatherface's TortureCellar. No one who goes in there of their own accord comes back out.
102	** Nikki's yelling "Hey!" at a chainsaw-wielding maniac in a cemetery.
103	* SexSignalsDeath: [[spoiler:Ryan cheats on Heather with Nikki in the barn, and both soon end up dead after escaping Leatherface.]]
104	* ShirtlessScene: Ryan in his first scene, where he is working out.
105	* ShoutOut:
106	** Sheriff Hooper's name is a reference to Creator/TobeHooper, the director of the original film.
107	** A chainsaw-wielding man dressed as [[Franchise/{{Saw}} Jigsaw]]
108	* StartOfDarkness: [[spoiler: Heather]]
109	* TheStinger: [[spoiler:Apparently, Heather invites her abusive adoptive parents to her new digs. They're greeted at the door by Leatherface, and there's no way that ends well for them.]]
110	* StockFootage: Uses footage from the original film, in order to show that it is a sequel to that movie and not the remake.
111	* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: The majority of the Sawyer family.
112	* TearOffYourFace: Leather face does this in one scene.
113	* InternalReveal: The audience is fully aware that Heather is related to Leatherface.
114	* TokenGoodTeammate: Amongst the townfolk, only two seem to be relatively decent: Farnsworth (the laywer) and Hooper (the sheriff).
115	* TomatoInTheMirror: Heather finds out that she is a Sawyer a little before the third act [[spoiler: and acts accordingly after learning about her true lineage.]]
116	** ThatManIsDead: However, after the climax, [[spoiler: she drops her Heather Miller adoptive identity, and she was back on her birthright as being Edith Rose Sawyer, the next caretaker for Leatherface.]]
117	* TownWithADarkSecret: The Sawyers and what happened to them are something of an open secret in town, with the newspaper heralding the vigilantes as heroes, though the story is spun to make the Sawyers the aggressors. Keeping the "Lynch Mob" motivation a secret is the bigger concern.
118	* TragicMonster: Leatherface is essentially a orphan child in a grown man's body killing not out of malice, but instinct.
119	* TwoTimingWithTheBestie: Ryan, Heather's boyfriend, and Nikki, her best friend, have slept together at least once previously behind her back. They do so again during the film (while Nikki has her own boyfriend, Kenny). Heather doesn't seem to show any concern over this when she crashes the van into the barn to rescue them from Leatherface, despite them being half-naked and Nikki wearing Ryan's shirt. Then again, there is the small matter of the chainsaw-wielding lunatic with the mask of human skin chasing them, which might justify shelving the "what were you two doing" conversation for the moment.
120	* UnexpectedInheritance: The premise involves a young woman named Heather who inherits a mansion from a grandmother she never knew she had, only to discover that Leatherface still resides there and that she's his cousin.
121	* UnexplainedRecovery: How did Leatherface escape the burning of the Sawyer house and make it to his Grandma Verna's?
122	* {{Unreboot}}: Follows the original movie instead of the remake and [[CanonDiscontinuity ignores any other sequels]].
123	* ViewersAreMorons: The newspaper in which Heather catches up on the story of the Swayers is dated August 19th, which is the date the events occurred. Apparently, the filmmakers didn't think we'd make the connection if the paper had been correctly dated August 20th (since newspapers can't print news before it happens). Likely also the reason for the egregious blood trail noted above.
124	* VillainProtagonist: [[spoiler:Heather and Leatherface at the end.]]
125	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler: Hartman's son disappears from the movie after helping him capture Heather, and [[KarmaHoudini does not appear to have faced any comeuppance]]]].
126	* WritersCannotDoMath: See AnachronismStew. In short, the movie treats the modern scenes as modern at the time they were filmed (2012), while saying that the original film still happened as it did in 1974, meaning the modern characters are all ''two decades'' younger than they should be.

Context Film / TexasChainsaw3D