It's a prequel to a franchise that's been beaten into the ground, so expectations aren't high. The directing team of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are no slouches though, and rightfully deliver some top tier bloody gore. It may not match the tone of the original, but I appreciate that it's not out to repeat every beat from the slasher playbook. It was on track to being "good enough" for it's meagre aspirations, than BAM! It hits you with the dumbest twist I can imagine.
Building you up the whole movie that the portly slow kid is going to turn out to be Leatherface, then hitting you with the 'ol bait-and-switch, where it turns out the teen with the strongest moral compass, played by the objectively handsome Sam Strike, is the one truly on track to wield the chainsaw. What kinda b.s. Is that? You can get away with taking some liberties with lore, but this just pushes it over a cliff. Leatherface is a grunting, mindless maniac. There's no way he was once a perfectly normal teen who's just a facial scar away from becoming a braindead killing machine. The fact that the filmmakers thought they could pass off this idiocy for what they seem to think would be a clever "gotcha!" moment is nothing short of infuriating.
Building you up the whole movie that the portly slow kid is going to turn out to be Leatherface, then hitting you with the 'ol bait-and-switch, where it turns out the teen with the strongest moral compass, played by the objectively handsome Sam Strike, is the one truly on track to wield the chainsaw. What kinda b.s. Is that? You can get away with taking some liberties with lore, but this just pushes it over a cliff. Leatherface is a grunting, mindless maniac. There's no way he was once a perfectly normal teen who's just a facial scar away from becoming a braindead killing machine. The fact that the filmmakers thought they could pass off this idiocy for what they seem to think would be a clever "gotcha!" moment is nothing short of infuriating.