Did we need to know how Leatherface acquired his trusty power tool? No. Did I mind having the tale told anyway? Eh, not really, although The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning so closely follows the machinations of its 2003 big brother (itself a remake of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 splatter classic), it’s nearly as much as a remake as it is the prequel it proclaims.

The 1939 prologue depicts the birth of Leatherface in, appropriately enough, a slaughterhouse. Abandoned in a Dumpster, the baby is rescued by the Hewitt family, whose Uncle Charlie (R. Lee Ermey, Full Metal Jacket) understandably opines, “That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Fast-forward to July 1969, the era of Vietnam, where four friends (more or less headed by Jordana Brewster of The Fast and the Furious franchise) in a van find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere, then at the mercy of a crazed clan of rednecks who live in a spooky house. The big guy carries a chain saw. Sound familiar? It should, right down to the climactic family dinner, with the only key difference being Leatherface not possessing his grisly mask of flesh until he carves it away from one of his victims. Oh, so that’s how he got that … whew! Mystery solved!

Director Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans) shoots things so handheld, the film itself risks suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. The proceeding are too shaky, too dimly lit and too routine, yet there’s a lot to be said for watching Diora Baird (Wedding Crashers) bouncing around as she flees. —Rod Lott

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A real ladies’ man of an author (William Joyce) is convinced by his publisher to hop a flight from Miami to the Caribbean isle of Voodoo, because he thinks the stories of human sacrifices there might make good research for a rip-roarin’ adventure novel. Our writer is not convinced, however, until he hears of the island’s 5-to-1 girl-guy ratio, and he’s all, like, “Homina homina homina!”

Armed with a litany of sleazy pick-up lines (ranging from “What part of heaven did you fly out from?” to the less subtle “We’ve got some dictation to do!”), he soon scores with a blonde bombshell (Heather Hewitt), whose father is a scientist who feeds radiated snake venom to natives, turning them into crusty-faced, bug-eyed zombies. Although our hero quickly dispatches one with a tiki torch to the face, a random Mexican isn’t so lucky, losing his head to a zombie-slung machete.

I Eat Your Skin was directed by Del Tenney, the guy who gave us the legendarily awful Horror of Party Beach, and it shows. You get to see a tube shoved down the throat of a live snake, and when an alarm goes off, you also get to hear someone saying “Whoop!” repeatedly on the soundtrack. Certainly a cheapie like this can’t be scary, but it’s definitely charming in its own Playboy After Dark meets Revolt of the Zombies kinda way. —Rod Lott

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Few films have had such a long and troubled history as Exorcist: The Beginning, the fourth (or technically, fifth) film in the not-so-lucrative franchise. The Reader’s Digest version: Execs so hated Paul Schrader’s cut, that rather than salvage it in editing, they opted to start from scratch with a whole new script and cast. For this, they logically hired Renny Harlin, because apparently, making two movies with Sly Stallone (Cliffhanger and Driven) qualifies you as the go-to guy for psychological horror. And the end result? Not as interesting as that explanation. Mind you, this prequel is not a hoot-and-holler laughfest that was Exorcist II: The Heretic. But neither is it the woefully underrated thriller that is Exorcist III.

Stellan Skarsgård (The Avengers) stars as Father Merrin (Max von Sydow’s character from the 1973 original), in a story about his first face-to-face showdown with the devil. It’s the 1940s, and following a test of faith which he feels he’s failed, he’s no longer a man of the cloth, but a freelance archaeologist. He’s hired to go to East Africa to locate a valuable artifact, being the demon Pazuzu. While there, he finds a Catholic church buried beneath the sand that’s not on any historical record of the Vatican. And buried beneath that? An evil cave!

That’s when all the CGI creatures start attacking. Sadly, Harlin’s idea of a scare is to suddenly make one of these — a crow, a bat, a fly — suddenly appear, accompanied by a loud musical cue. It’ll make you jump all right, but only because your ears have been rendered deaf. A pack of hyenas get the most screen time, but unfortunately, they look as fake as the dog in the Scooby-Doo live-action movies. Just as forced is Merrin’s burgeoning romance with the village’s hottie doctor, played by Izabella Scorupco (GoldenEye). Having forsaken the almighty, Merrin makes a valiant pass for her pants. But no sooner have they locked lips when the bed of a sleeping kid mere feet away suddenly jumps across the floor and shakes violently. Lemme tell you, it’s an erection killer.

I was really only intrigued by the finale, which has Merrin regaining his Jesus powers and using them against a supporting character who’s all Sataned out, looking not coincidentally like Linda Blair’s possessed Regan. But that’s, what, 10 minutes out of nearly two hours? Granted, a few more scenes keep The Beginning from being a total loss:
• Lucifer snaps the bones of various local tribesmen attempting some voodoo-magic exorcism.
• A villager gives birth to a bloody baby covered in live maggots.
• Izabella takes a shower and you see half a booby. —Rod Lott

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Also known as Terror in Toyland, You Better Watch Out and — at least in my book — I Saw Mommy Fucking Santa Claus, the oddball slasher flick Christmas Evil begins on Christmas Eve, 1947, when young Harry spies his father dressed in full Santa regalia getting it on with his mom. This prompts Harry to go upstairs, smash a snow globe and dig into his hand with the broken glass.

Jump ahead a few decades and Harry’s all grown up, now played by Brandon Maggart (Dressed to Kill), a mild-mannered, but ready-to-crack employee at a toy factory. He spends his spare time spying on neighborhood kids with his binoculars and recording their good deeds and misdeeds into leather-bound volumes of Good Boys and Girls and Bad Boys and Girls, one for each year. When he spots the Garcia kid sneaking peeks at Penthouse, he records “impure thoughts” and “negative bodily hygiene” right there along with “pulled Sally’s hair.”

Tired of being bullied and used by his co-workers who refuse to get into the Christmas spirit, Harry paints his van like a sleigh and decks himself out as Santa, ready for a night’s spree of gifts and gore. For instance, he gives a bag of fenced goods to mentally handicapped kids, then slaughters a few snobby parishioners outside their church. He entertains at a holiday party, then murders a co-worker while he sleeps. Yes, this Santa’s all about balance.

You’ll spot Home Improvement matriarch Patricia Richardson in a small role as the mother of the porno-loving kid, but Christmas Evil all belongs to Maggart. He’s hilarious and gives it his all. If he showed this to his own daughter, singer Fiona Apple, it’s no wonder she turned out so screwy. The ending to this — the looniest killer-Santa movie of them all — is a real howler. —Rod Lott

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I hadn’t heard anything about La Setta — aka The Sect, The Devil’s Daughter and Demons 4 — before watching it, but I did so simply because it’s an Italian horror film directed by Michele Soavi (Cemetery Man) and written with the legendary Dario Argento. Looking at the cover, I couldn’t tell what it was about. Looking at the back cover didn’t help, either, because it’s in Italian. Yep, this is one of those movies that could be about anything — funny, because I felt the exact same way after watching it.

It’s supposedly about a woman and her relationship to a sect of Satanists. Lots of things happen. There are lots of squirm-inducing set pieces like bugs up your nose, a scary … well, you know, scary things! Aren’t you scared yet? Context? Sorry. It’s all just ingredients — a plot that isn’t for following, but for yanking you from one contrivance to the next.

The acting isn’t any worse than Soavi’s others, but if your lead actress is going to act like an Italian who’s supposedly an American (or whatever the hell’s going on), you’d better surround that person with a plot that will distract me. As for star Kelly Curtis (Trading Places), her name certainly seems American (and she is, being the sister of Jamie Lee Curtis), but she acts and sounds as if she doesn’t quite have a grasp of the English language or has never observed rational human behavior.

None of her reactions to all the strange goings-on seem very realistic. After having an old man die in your house, then your friend is murdered and then comes briefly back to life to try and kill you, there’s no time to relax, Kelly. It’s time to start figuring shit out. —Richard York

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