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Grind 2 Shine (movie review)
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by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
C+ Rated R 84 min
Paraphrasing the classic rock song, Born to be Wild: Get your chainsaw running-- get out on the highway–looking for victims–Chorus: born to be din..ner. Yes, this prequel explains how the Hoyt family became cannibals back in the seventies when one of the Hoyt clan killed the Sheriff and assumed his identity, becoming Sheriff Hoyt, hunter of hippies and draft dodgers to bring back to the house so Leatherface could butcher them into food for the family.
Ah yes, I love the sound of a chainsaw cutting into flesh in the morning. It’s gore-delicious. The story chronicles the early years of Thomas Hewitt a.k.a. Leatherface and how he worked in the slaughterhouse until it was shutdown and he was laid off. Then he had nothing to butcher, so Sheriff Hoyt provides him with fresh meat–hapless travelers down the remote road to the Hoyt’s little house of horrors. “This family will never go hungry again,” Sheriff Hoyt declares.
This time, two young couples– a quartet of nubile twentysomethings are stopped by Sheriff Hoyt. They are on a final trip before Dean (Taylor Handley) has to go back to Vietnam. His buddy, Eric, is planning to burn his draft card and flee to Mexico. But Sheriff Hoyt stops them and thus begins their horrific nightmare at the hands of the degenerate Hoyt clan. They have turned their house into a human slaughter house, where Leatherface’s weapon of choice is a gleaming but bloody chainsaw to cut up his victims while they’re are still alive. It’s the ultimate splatter tool, as flesh and blood are sprayed everywhere from the running blades of the chainsaw. Varoom–there goes another victim, cut in half. It’s messy but fast.
Michael Bay’s screenplay reincarnation of the Chainsaw horror mythology back in 2003 grossed 80 million. So, Bay had a greenlight to write this prequel, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, with enough a sure-thing guarantee to spend a little more money to assure that today’s young horror/gore audience would flock to see it. Of course, hiring R. Lee Ermey was Leibesman’s secret weapon. Emery was a real Marine Gunnery Sargent in Vietnam then when he retired, he went into acting in character roles. He rose to fame as the brutal drill instructor in Stanley Kubrick’s classic war film, Full Metal Jacket. Today, Emery is known for his Discovery Channel show Mail Call, on which he answers military type questions and kills watermelons with various military weapons.
The film focuses on the one victim that was left behind at the scene of an accident, Christie, (Jordana Brewster) who follows the boys and the other girl back to the house. She tries to save them, but all her efforts are thwarted by Hoyt’s determination to have them for dinner–on plates. Although the audience doesn’t actually see the bodies being cut in half, the sound of the chainsaw as it chews up bones and organs is the ultimate creep-out. Varoom, the chainsaw chills one to the bone, and when he kills a victim he thrusts the running chainsaw into the mid-section of the victim like a revolving sword. Oh man, that’s got to hurt for a split second.
In obvious ways, Lieberman subtlety goes for satirical effect, taking gore to new heights of overkill into the realm of parody. Christie utters some funny lines as she is prepared for cooking. How could a family be so twisted? “In breeding,” she suggests. It’s hew-haw gone terribly wrong out in the bleak desert. The Hoyt clan could be the Deliverance bunch alright, but don’t let Sheriff Hoyt stop you on that road to hell. It’s a one way ticket to being eaten. The Hoyt clan lives off the human road kill dragged in by the Sheriff. But he keeps it fresh until its ready for slaughter and cooking.
Just when the viewer thinks that Chrissie might succeed in rescuing her friends, she is stopped by Hoyt. One of the boys gets free but is recaptured. There is no law out in this desert, only the killing Sheriff Hoyt. Ermey is funny with his plug of chewing tobacco and his warped sense of justice. Hell, who cares about hippies and draft dodgers anyway? He’ll give them a course in no-mercy frontier justice just like the Viet Cong would do in Nam. Besides, they are the fresh groceries to cook for dinner.
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