The Quad

Issue date: 10/24/06 Section: Entertainment

The month of October could mean a number of things, but for many horror fans, it is a 31-day countdown to the day of horror itself. Waiting in the anticipation of Halloween and all of its spooky festivities often leaves such fans searching for ways to kill the time in between. It should come as no surprise, then, that October is also the month where horror movies are in great demand.

The first of these major horror movies to be released is the sixth installment into the long-standing Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. Simply titled, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning," this movie serves as a prequel to the original 1974 movie and its 2003 remake. How well it actually serves its purpose to the franchise is another story altogether.

In much the same way as previous "Massacre" movies, this film opens with a group of teenagers taking a road-trip through the Deep South. This time around, two brothers (played by Matthew Bomer and Taylor Handley) and their respective girlfriends (Jordana Brewster and Diora Baird) are traveling through the back roads of Texas one last time (in more than one way) before the brothers are shipped off to Vietnam. Of course, their plans are forever altered when the teens get into an accident that calls for the local sheriff (once again reprised by R. Lee Ermy) to enter the scene. So begins what is basically the rest of what this film has to offer.

It has long been a strong belief and questionable theory amongst horror-film aficionados and gurus alike that the prequel is the one last resort of a dying franchise or the desperate attempt at quick cash off of a well-known name. If this theory is to hold true, then this "Massacre" film, ironically titled "The Beginning," is where it should end.

It is not to say that "The Beginning" greatly suffers from sub-par acting, poor plot and a lack of overall terror, but that it presents nothing new that previous "Massacre" films haven't done already. Where the franchise stands as of now, it is no longer a movie where you can sit and watch and expect great surprises or shocks that develop throughout the viewing. In the simplest of terms, this film runs in the same horror-movie routine and what you expect to happen will most likely happen.

What might be most disappointing about this film is Leatherface himself. The origins of Leatherface and the Hewitt family haven't clearly been known up to this point, but this prequel manages to answer all of the questions that have been forming since 1974 in the first 10-15 minutes of the film, greatly lacking in details, of course.

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