I wanted to recap this film for the sole purpose of seeing Mary Camden get slaughtered. I don't like horror films, generally, and I've never seen the original version of Massacre, even though in college I took a semester-long horror film theory class for which the movie must have been required viewing. I either skipped class that day or fell asleep before the movie even started, but the point is that I don't have anything to compare this updated version to, so don't expect any of that. Nor would it really matter, since Mary Camden's inevitable horrific death scene is sure to make this the best movie ever. Let the fun begin!
John Larroquette, an actor for whom I used to have a great deal more respect, greets us with a TERRIFYING voice-over about how the story we're about to see is true. Except we all know that it isn't. As he speaks, we see a montage of shots that are made ALL THE SCARIER by the fact that they've been Adobe After Effects-ed to look like old newsreel footage. John tells that something terrible happened to five teens thirty years ago. Thirteen hundred pieces of nasty-looking evidence were collected at the crime scene, the most damning being the footage we are about to see of the initial crime scene walk-through. A mustachioed officer leads us to the basement of the Hewitt residence, stopping to pay special attention to some scratch marks in the wall, the fingernails that made them still embedded in them. John's voice comes back and introduces us to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The "crime-scene footage" fades out, and a title card fades in along the sound of a woman screaming. That's cheesy.
The opening strains of "Sweet Home Alabama" play over shots of teenagers frolicking in a river. Courier font tells us that today is August 18, 1973. Now the teens are driving in a beat-up van. There's Jessica "Mary Camden" Biel in the passenger seat, filing her nails. In the back, two kids make out loudly. That's gross. Even grosser, Mary has now decided to sing along with Skynyrd. God, I hope she dies soon. Also, I feel the need to point out that "Sweet Home Alabama" wasn't even released until 1974's album Second Helping, so, unless Mary possesses some psychic abilities we haven't yet been made aware of, this film is stupid. Actually, if you really want to get down to it, Skynyrd's first album wasn't even released until September of 1973, making the entire premise of the film -- it is later revealed that the kids are on their way to a Skynyrd concert -- completely false. But let's not be like those people who point out that the gun Billy Zane fired at Leonardo DiCaprio is Titantic wasn't chronologically accurate; period pieces are always bound to contain some flaws of this nature. Just usually not as glaring as not knowing the release date of the two top-selling albums of a still-popular band. The nerd character of this movie (you can tell he's the nerd because he's wearing glasses, and he's looking disapprovingly, yet also jealously, at the make-out couple) asks if someone could please shut Mary the hell up, thus endearing himself to me. The driver of the car, one Eric
href="/show.cgi?show=112">"Eddie" Balfour, tells Mary that she has a beautiful voice. I guess it's better than her mother's.
The make-out couple disengages for a second to remark that they didn't even know each other yesterday. Then they go back to it. Nerd interrupts the couple to tell them that every day, thirty-two thousand Americans are infected with a sexually transmitted disease, and two-thirds of them are their age. What is he, RevCam with all this health-class pamphlet knowledge? The girl quickly loses interest, and the guy flips Nerd off. Considering the other ridiculous chronological errors in this movie, I half-expected the guy to retort something about how HIV can be prevented by taking special drugs within six hours of possible exposure. Girl remarks on how great it is that this group was passing by El Paso just when she started hitchhiking. Everyone else in the car, except the make-out guy, is like, "Um, not really." Make-out Boy complains about the van's air-conditioning being broken, prompting Eddie to suggest that "Pepper" (the make-out girl) and he could always take their clothes off. Mary remarks that she hopes Skynyrd plays a song from their not-yet-released album at the big concert the band had before it gained widespread appeal. Character backstory alert: Mary also tells us that she's been living with Eddie for the last three years. Then Nerd lights a joint and the fun can begin!
Mary passes on smoking the joint, because we all know that she only likes to look at them, and we learn that the van o' teens is driving to the concert from Mexico, where they just spent the last four days partying. Mary expresses childish disappointment that Eddie didn't buy her a ring down there, so he gives her the joint instead. Which she then tosses out the window. What a bitch! Maybe everyone else in the van will kill her just for that and then the movie will end. No such luck: it turns out that no one minds, because there are two pounds of weed somewhere in the car. Mary is pissed; no one told her that they were going to Mexico to buy lots of pot. Eddie manages to charm himself out of a fight and asks Mary for a kiss. The ensuing make-out session distracts him slightly from the road. "Look out!" shouts Mary, attempting (unsuccessfully) to act startled. Eddie just manages to swerve in time to avoid some blonde girl in a little sundress walking down the road. Anne Heche? Maybe. She doesn't respond when Mary calls out to her and asks if she's okay. Nerd suspects it's a bad acid trip, but Mary and Pepper are concerned, so they run out of the van to check on her. When they catch up to her and ask if she's okay, Anne will only say that she wants to go home. To the Fourth Dimension! Mary makes a snap decision that they can't leave Anne wandering around the Texas countryside in this condition, so they throw her in the van and head on into town.
In the van, the four non-driving teens sit opposite Anne, who's all crying and stuff. "What's your name?" Mary asks her. "Celestia," says Anne. Actually, she offers the slightly more dramatic "they're all dead." Mary and Eddie freak out, but Nerd says he's "too stoned" to deal with any of this. Mary says they need to take Anne to a hospital. When the van passes a meat-packing plant, Anne gets all freaked out and tries to stop the car. Eddie fights her off and brings the van to a screeching halt. Anne sits back in her seat and opens her legs, which are suddenly all bloody. Everyone in the van is like, "ew," because they never noticed that Anne's inner thighs were coated with blood before, because the make-up department apparently decided they didn't need to worry about it until now. Anne pulls out a gun from between her legs (apparently she has a holster in her vagina), tells the group that they're all going to die, and then swallows the gun. Much screaming ensues, and the camera tracks back from the front seat to reveal that it was shooting the scene through the hole Anne just made in her head. The head then drops back, which was an unfortunate directorial decision because the more you see of it, the more you can tell how fake it is. Seriously, I'm pretty sure it's papier-mâché and a wig. Everyone runs out of the van to barf or whatever. Anne stays behind, due to her pre-existing condition of being totally dead. Smoke is still coming out of her mouth. That's pretty cool.
Outside the van, the girls scream and cry while the men try to remain strong. Well, except for Nerd, who yells that they never should have picked that girl up. Mary says that Anne needed help. Nerd retorts that she didn't get much from them. Pepper is all, "I don't understand…why did she have to pick us?" Then she cries and Mary hugs her. I can understand Pepper's reaction, but if I were in that situation, I think I'd be running around in circles screaming, "Augghh!!! Fuck!!! Aughhh!!!!" for a couple more hours before I entered the self-pity stage of the grieving process.
In a manly display of anger, Eddie grabs a bottle from the van and throws it off-camera. The resulting bottle-smashing sound effect this action produces is ridiculous, and it makes me laugh. I haven't been able to listen to a glass-smashing sound effect without giggling since Wet Hot American Summer. Eddie suggests calling the police; Nerd thinks that's a bad idea since there are two pounds of marijuana del México stashed in the crime scene. Eddie solves this problem by throwing the weed (which is stashed in a piñata, of course) into a nearby field. A grazing cow reacts to her early birthday present with a "moo." Now that the truth is finally out that her boyfriend is a drug dealer, Mary needs some time to sulk. Eddie walks over and tells her that he did it so they could "start a life" together. He does not add that Mary needs to get over this right now, since they've got bigger problems to deal with. Like the inside of the van, where blood is loudly and disgustingly dripping from the ceiling. Pepper states definitively that there's "no possible way" she's getting back in the van…
…which means the shot is of the van roaring down the highway. Pepper sprays some Febreze or its early-'70s equivalent around the place, like, isn't her problem more the BLOODY CORPSE HANGING OUT IN THE BACK SEAT than it is Nerd's body odor problem? Make-out Boy studies the body and says he guesses that "this is what brains look like." Yes, Make-out Boy, savor whatever moments you share with someone else's brains, since you certainly aren't sharing any with your own. We see that someone at least had the decency to cover Anne's head, or the remnants thereof, with a newspaper, although there may have been the more selfish motivation behind that of not having to see a half-blown-off face. Eddie says they won't be picking up any more hitchhikers in the future. I'm not sure which hitcher he's more upset they picked up: suicidal Anne, or irritating, whiny, awful Pepper. Both options seem equally horrible to me.
The car pulls up to a gas station. The girls run off in search of a bathroom, because women always have to go to the bathroom. The boys tell the crazy old female attendant what happened. She had already kind of guessed when she saw the bloody hole through their back windshield, but thanks them for keeping her informed. Eddie asks her to call the sheriff while Nerd and Make-out Boy stare at the cafeteria's display case, which is full of rotting pig carcasses.
Outside an outhouse, character development sort of happens as Mary "expertly" takes a good ten minutes to pick the outhouse door lock. When Pepper and Mary see the facilities they're expected to use, they abandon the operation. I guess that's supposed to be funny and/or add to the general atmosphere of rotting disgustingness that this movie is desperately trying to create, but it really doesn't make any sense. Surely if the girls had to use the bathroom so desperately that they would do that instead of helping seek the sheriff for the relatively urgent matter of Anne, they would have to go so badly that they would ignore the aesthetic and olfactory offenses in whatever bathroom they found. I know this because I once had to go that bad, and the only place available was in a subway station. In Paris. And I used that bathroom. I know this because I once had to go that bad when I was camping with some friends, and the only place available was an outhouse. With a giant spider in one corner and a wasp's nest under the toilet seat. And I used that bathroom too. If the need is great enough, it can overcome any obstacle.
Old lady hangs up on the sheriff and tells the crew to meet him at some old mill. The boys are like, "Uh, he can't come here?" The old lady says she doesn't know why he wants to meet there, and that he'll be there in two hours. She isn't very sympathetic when they point out that they will now be spending the two hours driving around town with a dead body in their van. Apparently out of options, the boys exit and meet up with the girls. They climb into the van and drive off. The old lady watches from her window.
The kids drive on FRIGHTENING-ly unkempt dirt roads as Pepper complains that Anne is "starting to stink." Stupid Pepper. Anne died, like, an hour ago. There's no way she's decayed to the point of emitting fumes. Maybe, upon the point of death, her bowels loosened, but even then I doubt she'd smell worse than anyone else in the van. Eddie drives over a bump in the road, which jostles Anne. She slumps over. "Ew," say the kids.
The van pulls up to a mill, and the teens get out. No sheriff is waiting for them. The group begins to lose patience. It's about damn time; I would have just left Anne at the gas station when I heard the sheriff couldn't be bothered to meet me there. The guys want to just dump the girl and leave, but the girls, for some reason, think it's wrong to dump a human on the side of the road "like a piece of trash." This makes Eddie the deciding vote, and since he's whipped, he sides with his girlfriend. The teens explore the mill to find a bunch of scary-looking dolls tacked up on the wall. That would have been all I needed to see to decide that hanging around this mill wasn't such a good idea, but the kids decide to investigate further. A dark figure runs by the doorway, and Mary follows it because she's stupid. Then she hears a noise and screams, but I have no sympathy because this is really all her own fault. If she had just tossed dead Anne out the window and gone to the concert, she could be waving a lighter to "Freebird" right now. The rest of the group run up to assist her, only to find that she was terrified by a possum. They laugh at Mary's lameness. Then they hear another noise, and locate its source: an ugly boy sitting in the shadows. He asks them what they "did" to Anne. Nerd says she did that to herself.
They bring the boy outside. He has trouble talking because the make-up department stuck fake "hick" teeth in his mouth, but is eventually able to relay that the sheriff is probably "home getting drunk." He tells them where the sheriff's home is, adding that it can only be reached on foot. Shouldn't the sheriff of the town make himself slightly more accessible? Because Eddie and Mary are stupid, they don't consider this fact and decide to go visit the sheriff. Back at the van, Boy quickly makes a nuisance out of himself by poking Anne with a stick. The remaining teens yell at him, so he runs away.
Mary and Eddie walk through a SPOOKY forest filled with the old suitcases and shoes that Mary and Eddie don't notice even though they're sitting in plain sight. The two finally reach the sheriff's house, a dilapidated plantation-style place that is obviously full of homicidal maniacs. They hammer at the door until a gruff voice answers them. Its owner comes out in a wheelchair, his inability to walk seemingly due to the fact that he doesn't have legs. He says he's not the sheriff and that the sheriff doesn't even live there, but they are free to use his phone to call him. He lets Mary come in the house, but not Eddie. Wheelchair dials the sheriff's phone number and hands the phone to Mary.
The sheriff pulls up to the mill, looking pissed off. He greets the kids by spitting at them, investigates the large bullet hole in the van's windshield, and guesses that the body's probably somewhere inside the van. And with that, he's proven to be in possession of better deductive reasoning skills then anyone else in this movie.
Mary's still on the phone. "Thirty minutes? Thanks, I'll be there," she says, and hangs up. She thanks Wheelchair for the use of his phone, and he calls out to her from somewhere inside the house that he needs "help." Mary finds him sitting on the bathroom floor emptying his colostomy bag into the toilet. There's also some goopy orange liquid running out of the sink, but I think that was just there for atmosphere. Either that, or Wheelchair found a way to do what the rest of us can only dream of: have his pipes run tomato soup instead of water. Wheelchair asks Mary to help him get back in the chair. She's so busy doing so that she doesn't notice a shadowy figure running by the bathroom door. How many freaking shadowy figures are we going to see in this stupid movie before something actually happens?
Meanwhile, Eddie's getting bored, so he enters the house.
Sheriff continues his expert search of the crime scene, asking Make-out Boy to "get the fuck out of [his] way" so he can check out the inside of the van. He sees the body and inspects the suicide weapon. Then he sticks it in his boot. Well, that's a good way to lose a toe.
Inside the bathroom, Mary struggles to get Wheelchair back in his chair. Wheelchair takes advantage of his position and alternately grabs and runs his hand over Mary's ass. I'll bet Jessica Biel was feeling pretty good about her decision to leave family-oriented television when she shot this scene.
Eddie wanders around the living room, where he sees three pigs. He walks into what I guess is the hobby room, where there's an old sewing machine and a working phonograph. Because antiques are SCARY! Eddie opens a door and sees a black-and-white television playing cartoons. He bends over to pick something up from the floor, only to have a guy come up behind him and chop him with what looks like an axe. Blood splatters across the television. Eddie's attacker drags Eddie into another room and slides a metal door shut -- but not before we see that this must be the famous Leatherface. The noise alerts Mary, and she abandons Wheelchair to investigate.
With reluctant assistance of Make-out Boy, Sheriff uses Saran Wrap to preserve the body. I wonder if they know about this technique in Vegas. Instead of whistling while he works, Sheriff tells stories about being a young patrolman and "feeling up" the prettier dead bodies. Sheriff notices that the girl's "a little wet down there," and makes some crude remarks that I don't care to repeat here.
Mary searches for her boyfriend, but all she finds is a peephole in the middle of a wall. She doesn't seem to find anything odd about it, and goes on her way until Wheelchair, who's somehow managed to get himself back into his chair without Mary's assistance, wheels up and orders Mary to leave. She does, and looks for Eddie outside.
Back at the van, Anne has been preserved for freshness and is ready to move. The sheriff supervises while Nerd and MoB lift the body and put it in his car. Pepper makes some remark about the sanctity of the dead, prompting the sheriff to lecture her that he has a ton of respect for the dead, then yell at the boys to stick the body in the trunk because he doesn't want blood and brains on his back seat. Ha ha ha. With Anne is stowed in his trunk, Sheriff salutes the kids and takes off.
Mary runs through the Forest of Doom, looking for Eddie.
Now we're inside a room filled with body parts and tools. Eddie's there too, but he's not exactly aware of his surroundings. Because he's dead. Leatherface makes preparations for something that I'm sure is going to be disgusting.
As the sheriff speeds off, Mary meets the other three at the van and tells them that she called the sheriff and he's on his way. They say he already came and went and took the body with him. Mary asks where Eddie is. They haven't seen him. A car horn honks in the distance, and the four run to find the source of the disturbance, thinking it's Eddie. It turns out to be a stick propped against the horn of an abandoned car. Nearby, MoB finds a set of teeth on the ground, prompting Pepper to get all freaked out again. Once she calms down, they continue their search for Eddie. Nerd reaches into another abandoned car and pretends that he's stuck in it. No one finds his joke very funny, so he stops. He pulls out a jar filled with some clear liquid and a picture of a girl. "Is that…the girl from our van?" Mary asks. It is. On the other side of the picture is another photograph, this one of the girl and what must be her family: a mother, a father, a brother, and baby of unknown gender. "Weird!" everyone says, wondering what the family was even doing here in the first place. Nerd says they were probably looking for the sheriff. He asks Mary for the van keys, saying he thinks it's time they got going. Mary won't give them up because she's afraid he'll try to leave without Eddie. The group decides to take a vote on it; Pepper says she'd like to leave her teeth "right where they are." But MoB, who is finally assigned the name "Andy," says he won't leave Eddie behind. So Mary and Andy go off to search for Eddie, and Pepper and Nerd trudge off to the Van of Disloyalty. Personally, given the choice between looking for my friend or sitting around a van filled with some girl's brains (and Pepper), I would have taken the former.
Eddie's getting hauled up by his feet above the bathtub. A box drops out of his pocket and into some nasty red blobby stuff that looks like Jell-O but probably isn't. Curious Leatherface opens the box to find a diamond ring. "Awww," he thinks, "young love is so sweet."
Mary and Andy head for the house, because Mary "knows" Eddie's in there. Wheelchair is sitting in front yard, having managed to maneuver his way down a rickety set of stairs the same way he got himself back in that wheelchair in the bathroom: through the power of careless script writing. Andy tells Mary to distract Wheelchair so he can sneak into the house. Their plan is a success and Andy, armed with a tire-iron, goes about searching the house for Eddie. Mary starts running out of things to say to Wheelchair, so she compliments his garden, which, as we see, doesn't actually much exist. This offends Wheelchair, so he pulls out a gun and shoots Mary and she dies. Okay, no, but I'm sure her death scene will be coming soon and I can't wait.
Inside the house, Andy finds a room with pantyhose hanging from the ceiling and live pigs hanging out. I'm starting to think that pigs just might be symbolic in this movie. Andy sees a refrigerator and opens it, apparently thinking that Eddie's pulling a Cherie from Punky Brewster and hiding in there. We get a shot through the back of the fridge of Andy looking around. He rejects OJ, soda, and purple stuff in favor of Sunny D, then goes outside and skateboards awesomely (and safely!) while rockin' electric guitar music plays. In the actual movie, Andy finds the fridge Eddie-less and closes it, managing to jostle the fridge so much that a big box falls off of it. It lands loudly, and Mary hears it and runs into the house. She finds Andy, who's fine. Wheelchair enters right behind Mary, which is perfectly reasonable especially when you consider that he doesn't have legs and the house doesn't have a wheelchair ramp, and proceeds to yell at them for breaking into his house. Then he challenges Andy to a fight. "Bring it!" he shouts, banging his cane on the floor. Wait -- he doesn't have legs. What possible use could he have for a cane? Oh, that's right -- because it comes in handy in about five seconds.
Suddenly, the wall behind Mary and Andy slides open to reveal Leatherface, who revs up his chainsaw and gets ready for action. Yeah, Leatherface! Go for the girl first! She's slower and weaker! Wheelchair trips Andy and Mary up with his plot-contrivance cane, and they fall over. Mary kicks a wooden door closed to keep Leatherface out, which it does for all of two seconds. Andy wastes precious seconds trying to pick his tire iron up from off of the floor, which even Mary knows is incredibly stupid, so she abandons him and gets the hell out of the house. This leaves Andy alone to fend off the chainsaw-wielding maniac with his precious tire iron, which he manages to do well enough to get out of the house. Leatherface follows, showing a remarkable amount of finesse when it comes to turning around in tight space with a chainsaw. I'm sure he's had some practice, though.
Outside, Andy stupidly runs right into a maze of sheets drying in the sun. Leatherface is right behind him. Andy gets lost and confused in the sheets, which gets Leatherface close enough to cut off his leg. Andy writhes on the ground in agony until Leatherface picks up him in a fireman's carry and walks towards the house. I don't know why Andy's so upset about losing a limb; in this movie, people without legs can do everything that people with legs can do, even if it's physically impossible!
Mary whines and whimpers as she runs through the Forest of Doom, but I don't know what she's complaining about, as all her limbs are still attached to her body.
Leatherface carries Andy into the basement. Andy screams and scratches at the walls, getting his fingernail ripped off. Just in case you didn't remember that from earlier in the film, it's shown in slow-motion in a disgusting close-up.
Night falls on Texas. Pepper and Nerd have been spending the last few chainsaw-free hours cleaning out the van. Mary runs in and tries to start the van, which, of course, is unresponsive. "Shit! FUCK!" screams Mary. I found that enjoyable. Suddenly, the sheriff comes to the window, and Mary's all grateful. She tells him that there's a man with a chainsaw on the loose, but Sheriff isn't paying attention to her: he just noticed a joint on the van's dashboard. "It's not mine," Nerd says. He's really starting to lose all the points he gained when he told Mary to shut up. Sheriff hauls everyone out of the van and makes them lie on the ground.
Leatherface picks Andy up from the floor and sticks him on a meat hook. That looks painful. Andy whimpers. Leatherface sticks what appears to be salt on Andy's new leg stump and ties it off. Um, I guess he's trying to help?
Sheriff looks at the kids' IDs while they lie on the ground. Mary cries a lot and tries to report an attempted murder. Sheriff says he knows what's going on; Eddie shot Anne while he was all hopped up on goofballs. When Mary tries to get up and yell at him for saying that, he shoots his gun into the dirt near her face. This sets stupid old Pepper off, like, thanks a lot, Sheriff. This movie definitely needed more wailing Pepper. Sheriff throws Nerd against the van and orders him to "show" him exactly what happened in the van.
Leatherface sits down to his latest arts and crafts project: a realistic face mask. Don't be too impressed, because Leatherface is totally cheating by making the mask out of actual human face. Eddie's face, to be exact. Leatherface takes off his old mask to reveal what his face really looks like. I guess it's supposed to be scary, but it really doesn't look that bad, besides the fact that the guy's nose is missing.
Inside the van, Sheriff tells Nerd to sit on the exact same spot where Anne did. Nerd moves brain matter and hair out of the way and does so. Sheriff pulls out the suicide gun and asks Nerd to demonstrate exactly how Anne shot herself in the face. Nerd tries to lie that Anne shot herself from under her chin, but Sheriff isn't buying it. He makes Nerd put the gun in his mouth and put his finger on the trigger. At this point, Nerd is fairly upset.
Mary stands up and asks what's going on. This distracts Sheriff, and Nerd points the gun at him. Mary and Pepper beg him not to shoot him. Sheriff yells at him to do it. So Nerd does it. At least, he pulls the trigger. Nothing happens, though, since the gun isn't loaded. And now Sheriff is really pissed. He pulls out his real gun, orders Nerd out of the van, and takes the van's keys. Pepper and Mary lamely try to stop him.
So Andy is still sort of alive, although he's probably very uncomfortable. He attempts to lift himself off of the hook, but only manages to get it wedged even deeper in his back. Ew.
Sheriff and Nerd spend some quality time together in the patrol car. Nerd reveals that he and his friends were all on their way to a Skynyrd concert. Sheriff says he likes Skynyrd, too. And why wouldn't he? It makes total sense that a middle-aged man who lives in the Texas back country would be so knowledgeable of the rock music scene as to know and enjoy the music of a band that has yet to release an album. Nerd offers Sheriff his tickets, prompting Sheriff to smash him in the face with a bottle. Nerd spits a couple teeth out and whimpers. Sheriff laughs at him, then radios for backup to come to the mill. And just in case you thought that particular plot point was necessary or even relevant, I'd like to point out that the backup never actually shows up at the mill, nor is there any evidence that it ever existed in the first place.
Pepper and Mary attempt to hotwire the van and get the hell out of town. Mary's having trouble because stupid, useless Pepper can't hold the flashlight steady. Finally, Mary finds the two wires and fuses them together, telling Pepper that she learned how to do that in "juvie." Pepper's all impressed, so Mary elects not to share that the reason she went there was for TP-ing her high school gym.
Sheriff drives up to the Plantation House of Death, even though we were previously informed that it could only be accessed on foot. Sheriff throws Nerd out of the car and onto the ground. Then he viciously kicks him while telling him that he and his friends never should have "messed with that girl."
Mary starts the van and takes off. Pepper and Mary have two seconds to be psyched about their good fortune, until the wheels fall off the van and they are again rendered immobile. Also, that scene may have been the funniest thing I've ever seen on film.
Suddenly, a chainsaw cuts through the van. The girls huddle in the center of van, but even there they aren't safe: Leatherface cuts a hole in the roof and grabs Mary's head. Much like Mary did to Andy, Pepper abandons her friend in favor of saving herself. Her selfishness has consequences, however, because now Leatherface is coming after her. She lamely throws some metal barrels at him, then falls over and gets killed. As gratifying as that was to see, I still wish Mary had been the one to die. She's still alive and watching the action from inside the van. Leatherface turns around to look at her -- AND HE'S WEARING HER BOYFRIEND'S FACE! Now he kind of looks like a bloated(er) version of Real World Seattle's David.
Mary takes that in, then resumes her attempt to escape with renewed vigor. She gets out of the van and heads into the Forest of Doom with Eddieface right behind her. Mary comes upon a trailer and knocks on it, apparently still under the impression that there is someone in this neighborhood who doesn't want to murder her. Some thin, meek-looking woman lets Mary in. Inside the trailer, Mary panics and runs around, finding its other occupant, a fat woman with an awesome beehive, in the process. Skinny tells her to sit and pours her some tea. She also regrets to inform Mary that she doesn't have a phone. "Phones are a hassle," Fatty says. Mary says that's just great, now they'll all die. Skinny says that the "sweet boy" knows better than to mess with them. She says that he has a "skin disease…didn't [Mary] look at his face?" Mary's like, "Yeah, I looked at his face. And it was THE FACE OF MY MURDERED BOYFRIEND!" Actually, she just cries. Skinny shoves more tea in Mary's face. Suddenly, a baby starts crying. Skinny takes a can of baked beans out of the fridge and goes to tend to the baby. I did not know that baked beans were recommended baby food. But now I know what to get for that upcoming baby shower!
Instead, Mary starts exploring and finds a picture frame. Inside is the same picture of the Heche family that was in the jar. Looks like someone had time in between murders to visit the local Kinko's and make a few copies. A phone rings. Mary takes a good minute to figure out that the two women were lying about the phone, and that the baby isn't Skinny's; it's the one from the Heche picture. "YOU STOLE HER!" Mary screams, because Jessica Biel is a much better actress when she's yelling. Oh, and now Mary's having trouble staying conscious, because she drank too much of that tea. This is why you shouldn't accept gifts from strangers. That's a lesson I'll bet Pepper's wishing she had learned before she accepted a ride from those four pretty teenagers in an old van.
Mary is revived by the Sheriff pouring beer on her face. She's in the Plantation House living room. Old Lady from the gas station is there, doing some ironing. Sheriff addresses her as "Ma," and then the freaky boy knocks on the window and asks "Grandma" if he can come in. And the movie all comes together, except not really at all. But at least we know who's related to who. Well, except for Skinny and Fatty. We never find out exactly how they fit into all of this. Grandma tells Boy that he can't come in the house, as he's being punished for some transgression. Then she tells off Mary for being like the people who made fun of her son, Leatherface. Whatever, let's get to the part where Mary gets killed. Grandma calls "Thomas" into the living to fetch Mary and get rid of her. Eddieface comes in and drags her away. The boy watches and runs off. Grandma hands Sheriff his pants from the ironing board, and he puts them on. I didn't realize he wasn't wearing pants until now. That's gross.
Eddieface tosses Mary into the basement and closes the door instead of following her down to murder her. Great. Mary finds herself surrounded by body parts and the tools that were used to remove them from their original owners. She also finds Andy, who is, incredibly, still alive. She tries to lift him off the hook, but she can't because she isn't good at anything. In fact, she only makes things worse. So he asks her to just kill him. She grabs a knife and, after much hesitation and sad background music, stabs him. He dies, and she screams and cries a lot.
But that gets boring after a while, so Mary goes exploring. She finds Nerd sitting, handcuffed, in a bathtub. He's alive, if not in the best of moods. He's also got some puncture wound in his back, although I don't know when or how that happened so let's just ignore it. Mary drags him out of the tub, only to see that creepy boy with bad teeth. He tries to help them escape. But Eddieface is wise to their plan and comes into the basement with his trusty chainsaw.
A mediocre chase scene ensues. Mary and Nerd reach the stairs, and Nerd puts his foot through one of them and starts whining. Eddieface is ready to slaughter everyone when his chainsaw shuts off, because it knows how important suspense is to horror films, even if the director doesn't. Eddieface gets the chainsaw going again, but the delay was long enough to give Mary and Nerd almost enough time to escape. Eddieface grabs at Mary's leg when he could have just as easily cut it off, and she kicks him and gets away. Boy attempts to help by biting Eddieface's hand, and gets thrown into a wall for his efforts. See you never again in this movie, Boy!
Mary and Nerd run off the hatchway into the yard. They run and run, followed by Eddieface, who somehow managed to get by the obstacle of a wooden door locked with a wooden bar that they placed in front of his chainsaw-having self. Mary drags Nerd into an abandoned house and they put a couch in front of the door. Much like everything else placed before Eddieface, the couch is quickly ripped to shreds and he gains entry. Meanwhile, Mary's just discovered that she managed to get herself and Nerd into a house with no escape route; the windows all have bars on them and the doors are boarded up. She hides Nerd in a closet and tucks herself into a corner.
Eddieface enters the room; Mary sees him through a hole in the wall. Most of this scene is what you saw in the trailers for this movie. I found Mary's loud, heavy breathing as annoying then as I do now. Mary pushes a rat off her legs and it squeaks, which gets Eddieface's attention. Mary looks out the hole again, but he's not there.
That's because he's right behind her. Eddieface punches through the wall and grabs Mary. He then drags her through the wall and into the middle of the room and prepares to slice her in half, but Nerd runs out of his hiding place to stop him. He pushes Eddieface, who drops the chainsaw. Unfortunately for Mary, he drops it right to her face. Awesome. She's going to die. She screams at the chainsaw for a while, apparently believing that if she expels enough air from her mouth with great enough force, it will be enough to fend off the weapon. Then she remembers that, unlike most of the cast, she has two full legs, and stands up. She half-heartedly tries to help Nerd fight Eddieface and is quickly pushed against a wall, from the relatively safety of which she can watch Nerd lose his fight with Eddieface, get hung by his handcuffs from a chandelier, and then get cut in half, from the groin up. Poor Nerd.
Mary runs out of the house, followed by Eddieface. Say what you will about him -- Eddieface is one determined guy with a work ethic to match! There is running and more running. Some of the running is in slow motion; some of it isn't. Finally, Mary comes to a fence, which she jumps over. Eddieface decides that he's so cool that he can walk through it. Unfortunately for him, the laws of physics decide to make their first and only appearance in this movie, and Eddieface trips over the fence and falls over, putting a chainsaw-sized gouge in his leg along the way. He whines about that for a while.
Mary finds the main road and runs in front of an oncoming car. It stops, and she runs up to it and begs for help, but the car totally takes off. Ha! Although would have been funnier if it just ran her over. Mary leaves the road and finds a meat-packing plant. Apparently she forgets that she's running away from a chainsaw-wielding maniac, and decides to explore. She runs through a maze of pigpens from a variety of camera angles and into the building. Of course, Eddieface shows up and grabs her feet. Mary fights him off and runs through a bunch of meat hooks and into a freezer full of meat. She gets all freaked out by the meat, although at this point you would think that she'd be pretty desensitized to that.
Mary tries to hide from Eddieface by sliding in between two flanks of meat. It doesn't work. She runs away, avoiding Eddieface's chainsaw on the way out (damn!), and he gets so mad that he pulls the sprinkler system. Well, okay: he only did that so we could see Mary in a wet tank top. Aw, yeah! Nipples are HOT! Mary runs around until she finds a meat cleaver. She picks it up and tries to figure out what to do .
The sprinklers shut off, and Eddieface skulks around the plant, looking for Mary. She's hiding in a locker. Eddieface walks by her, and she bangs on the door to get his attention. Eddieface looks through the lockers for Mary. He sees one locker with a shaky door and goes for it. Oops! There's a pig inside, not Mary! It's an easy mistake to make, but also one with dire consequences for Eddieface. Mary jumps out from the locker behind Eddieface and chops at him with the cleaver. He does not like this one bit, and is especially distressed to see that his good chainsaw-wielding arm has been hacked off. I'm distressed, too. Now he'll never kill Mary!
Mary runs out of the plant. Now it's pouring outside, for the threefold reason that it's symbolic, it looks cool, and, most importantly, it gives us another chance to see Mary's nipples. Mary runs through the rain and onto the road, where she plants herself in front of a truck. It stops, and a guy gets out. He asks her if she's okay, but she's decided to pull an Anne and go all catatonic. Inside the truck, Trucker tries to get some information, but all Mary'll say is that she wants to go home. Trucker drives by Grandma's gas station. Upon seeing it, Mary freaks out and tries to grab the steering wheel. Trucker pulls up to the gas station and exits the vehicle, saying he'll get her some help from the station. Mary follows him out of the truck and looks in the station window to see Trucker talking to Grandma, Skinny, Sheriff, and the stolen baby. Why are they at the gas station all of the sudden? Because they read the script and knew that Trucker and Mary would show up there, I guess.
Inside the station, Trucker asks for help with the crazy girl in his truck, and Sheriff leaves to help him. Mary sneaks inside through a back door and grabs the baby while they're distracted. Sheriff promises to check out Mary and leaves. Skinny turns around, sees that the baby is gone, and freaks out worse than Pepper, if such a thing is possible.
Mary tries to hotwire the truck with her mad juvie skillz. Sheriff takes out his gun and looks in the front windshield, but doesn't see her. So he comes up to the driver's side and opens the door -- but no one's there.
That's because Mary was in Sheriff's car all along! She gets it started and drives away, making sure to hit Sheriff on her way out. "Fuck you!" she says to Sheriff as he flies across the windshield. Then Mary backs the car up and runs over the Sheriff. Then she puts it in drive and runs him over again! And calls him an asshole! Okay, even though Mary didn't die, I'll admit that that scene was pretty awesome.
Mary drives away, playing with the baby. It's a tranquil moment…THAT IS INTERRUPTED BY THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF EDDIEFACE! He slashes at her car, but the chainsaw has little effect on a moving vehicle. So he glowers at the escaping car, but that doesn't have any effect either.
And now we're back in the crime scene walk-through film. The police officer leading it walks over to a piano, only to scream and die. The cameraman also dies, but manages to capture a blurred image of his attacker: Eddieface.
"The crime scene was not properly secured by Travis County Police," John Larroquette informs us. Um, NO SHIT. Two officers were murdered, and the film image of Eddieface is all they have left of him. The case is still open. This recap, however, is closed.