Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990): D+

Tobe Hooper’s imprint is nowhere to be found on Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, a failed attempt by New Line to reinvent the titular chainsawer into a Freddy Krueger-style villain. Two bickering ex-lovers (Kate Hodge and William Butler) driving cross-country run into trouble when they hit a stretch of deserted highway used by Leatherface and his new family (including Viggo Mortensen) as a hunting ground for fresh meat. Forced to run for their lives in what appears to be a magical Texas rain forest, the couple team up with a heavily armed military survivalist (Dawn of the Dead’s Ken Foree) to battle Leatherface and his clan, but dreadful director Jeff Burr is thoroughly incapable of generating either the suspense of the original or the campy hysteria of its first sequel. “The Saw is Family,” reads the human skin mask-wearing killer’s new power tool (as well as the film’s tagline), but after this dreadful attempt to cash in on Hooper’s genre-defining masterpiece – now available on DVD in the infamous X-rated cut that, unsurprisingly, still sucks – someone should have permanently buried Leatherface and his bloody annoying relatives.