For many a military enlistee, drill sergeants are seen as demons from down under, seemingly present just to make their lives a living Hell. Having never served, I can't attest to the accuracy of such an assessment, but at least that's the way they're presented in the movies.
One of the most memorable, of course, was Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket." As brilliantly portrayed by R. Lee Ermey, he was the ultimate prickly thorn in the side, front and back of the cadets under his "care." Not surprisingly, Vinnie D'Onofrio's private character finally had enough of being called "Gomer Pyle," snapped, and gunned down his superior.
And now he's seemingly been resurrected, true demon style, in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning," a prequel to the 2003 remake of the original "Texas Chainsaw" flick from back in 1974. True, Ermey's character also appeared in the recent remake, but this time he's the main monster, possibly to the dismay of fans of the film series who likely think this one is supposed to be more about Leatherface, the non-lumberjack with a penchant for portable power tools.
The mute beast is present as is his homicidal weapon of choice, and there's a brief back-story showing how he came to be (being born and later laid off from a meat processing plant in some backwoods Texas town being the setup, while taunting by others -- thematically similar to the old Frankenstein and Hunchback bit -- serves as the behavioral catalyst). But it's all rather brief (most occurring in the opening credits montage) and certainly doesn't present much of a psychological portrait of the killer beyond what's usually present in such films.
Nevertheless, it's Ermey's deranged "sheriff" who's the far more interesting and scary villain. He also gets a little back-story. A former Korean War POW, he had to resort to cannibalism to survive, and later adopts the law enforcement role after gunning down the town’s lone cop who was about to arrest Leatherface early in this film.
Once the recruits, uh, soup ingredients, I mean victims show up in the story, he treats them like military recruits as if no superior officers were around to oversee his "training" of the enlistees. That even includes a standard bit of "drop and give me ten," although most military flicks don't depict drill sergeants beating the tar out of those doing the pushups (his zeal is motivated by one of the characters having burned his draft card in preparation of becoming a 'Nam dodger).
And they certainly don’t have a backup enforcer who's handy with the titular object. In essence, that's really all this film is about -- being a glorified snuff film. In the old days or horror flicks, the draw was watching one or more people (usually women) survive the horrors and deliver some major comeuppance to the killer or killers. Nowadays, the killers are the draw, and fans of such fare delight in how the villains off their victims.
But here's the problem with that. Unlike the earlier installments of the "Final Destination" franchise, there isn't any guilty pleasure in watching the gruesome ends as the filmmakers don't put any black comedy into their material. Instead, it's straightforward torture and murder, and the fact that the film is a prequel whisks away sort of tension or suspense as we know the killers aren't going to get said comeuppance this time around.
Accordingly, it's just more of the same old, same old, where the characters played by Jordana Brewster, Matt Bomer, Taylor Handley, and Diora Baird must deal with being captured, brutalized and finally killed by the homicidal and cannibalistic maniacs. Fans of the series might "enjoy" the offerings, but it's nothing the rest of us haven't seen done better before. Brewster gets the Jamie Lee Curtis type part, but while she might look fetching in her halter-top and tight bell bottoms (the film being set in 1969), her character doesn't have the spunk and resourcefulness to make us really get behind her efforts.
While Ermey's drill sergeant from Hell character and the brief Vietnam related material makes one think the film might be trying to deliver an analogy about the horrors of war, that's asking and supposing too much of it. Gruesome and twisted, it offers little to nothing new to the genre and is best suited only for fans of the Chainsaw pics. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" rates as a 3 out of 10.
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