Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) / HBO

 This is part of the Warner Archive, but it being available on HBO Max and shown on HBO Zone was still surprising to me. Seeing it available, I mean. Leatherface (1990), the third film in a oft-struggling franchise that seems destined to look for that lightning seemingly firmly entrenched in the bottle, that Tobe Hooper masterpiece from the early 70s that has influenced so many. This third film just remains too generic and unexciting to me, despite the casting of Ken Foree as a journeying former military guy in a jeep encountering Hodge and Butler as they are being pursued by the newer Sawyer clan. Leatherface, in the form of R.A. Mihailoff, was always okay, I guess. He has the look down, with a leg brace for that last injury thanks to the chainsaw, the decaying, raggedy teeth, and skin mask. The Saw is Family chainsaw seems to be one of the film's lasting highlights, though everyone brings up Viggo, of course, as Tex, the charmer of the Saw clan who gains the trust of women (Hodge, no exception), encouraging a member of travelers through their Texas territory to take a detour road so his devious brother with a hook-hand (of course, he has a hook-hand), played with hick vigor by Joe Unger (named Tinker; of course, he's named Tinker), can use his big truck to turn the cars over of motorists. Miriam Byrd-Nethery (I know her as the icky sister to husband Clu's creep killer in From a Whisper to a Scream (1987)) is Mama with the voice box on her throat who promises to cut out Hodge's tongue if she keeps begging for help while her hands are staked through the handles of a chair. With Everett as the peeping sicko running a ratty gas station pretending to fight off brother Tex to fool motorists like Hodge and Butler and yet another blonde girl (Jennifer Banco) as little sister Sawyer, the cast is complete of its family of lunatics looking to keep their meat locker filled of human beef. Even if the film was given the scissors treatment as late 80s and early 90s horror films often were, there is just this feeling of sameness. With the previous film in the series going full tilt boogie, the third film was bound to feel less extreme and bonkers. It was as if Burr's film and Schow's script had the right intentions but this period in the horror genre was being neutered and suffocated. 2.5/5