Random thoughts generated during last night’s audience and press screening of New Line’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” opening today:

1.      No movie is pointless. After discussing the subject with a fellow critic after the screening, I’ve come to the conclusion I can’t help but agree with him on this. No film, no matter how awful, idiotic or devoid of any interesting quality whatsoever is ever truly pointless as they do in fact exist for some reason or another. Sometimes that point is difficult to find (you watch “Without a Paddle” or “Ultraviolet” and see if you can find one), other times not so much. In this case, this prequel imagining the origins of the Hewitt clan and their maniac with a chainsaw relative Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) exists to gross audiences out as much as humanly possible; no other reason for this one’s existence even a possibility.

2.      Why do people climbing into an empty car after being chased around by a psycho killer never check the backseat?

3.      Anyone walking into this movie not knowing how it is all going to turn out is a moron. Even if you’ve never seen “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” 1974 or 2003, you still have to realize that they could not have even happened had something awful happened to the Texas cannibals slaughtering travelers foolish enough to come their way beforehand. So, listen up people, you know how it is going to end, don’t pout when you aren’t surprised.

4.      With that in mind, if you’re going to buy a ticket to see this movie (or tag along to a free screening with your boyfriend) don’t get all offended and walk out in a huff when things start getting disgusting. Again, this is a movie about people who kill using knives, cleavers, machetes and, yes, chainsaws. You knew what you were getting into when you walked into the theater. Sit down, shut up, squirm in your seat and take it like a grown up. Yes it is disgusting. Yes it is revolting. Yes it is sadistic. But you knew that, and if you want to start crying that you didn’t than you really need to open your eyes and stop acting like a helpless little bimbo. I handled it without throwing up my popcorn and so can you.

5.      Do horror films set in the 1960’s and ‘70’s have to use the same stupid songs over and over? Is there some rule that says they must I’ve never heard about?

6.      As much as I like gore and sensationalistic B-movie horror, I’m starting to think films like this one are becoming too much for me to take. It could be a sign of getting old, but watching people get butchered just for the sake of being butchered, especially when I already know logically how it all has to come to an end, just isn’t fun anymore. Maybe I don’t like how real flicks like this one feel, how lived-in and alive their filmmakers are making them. The thing is, with no real comeuppance there is no real satisfaction. Do protagonists have to get away? No, not at all. Do they have to unleash some sort of payback for me to at least feel marginally okay by the end? Yes, I think they do, and too many more like this one or “Wolf Creek” and maybe I’ll have to beg off reviewing them for now on.

7.      According to the production notes I flipped through before the screening, co-writer Sheldon Turner is currently writing scripts for Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston. Good gawd, who in their right mind authorized that?

8.      R. Lee Ermey deserves better than this. So does Marietta Marich. Heck, so do probably Jordan Brewster and Matt Boomer. All of them are quite good, especially Ermey, Marich and Boomer. They all deliver performances that stick with you long after the curtain closes, the first two having a couple of moments I might never forget. Granted, unforgettable if your idea of a sublime good time is to be creeped out of your ever-loving bones and holding your seat so tightly you break four nails and bruise a finger.

9.      Did I really give Jonathan Liebesman’s last film 2003’s “Darkness Falls” two-and-a-half stars? What the hell was I thinking? This guys a hack, and if he stole anymore from Tobe Hooper, Michael Bay or other directors they’d probably arrest him for plagiarizing. Then again, those two were on the set as producers. Want to take bets they did most of the directing and then just let him have the screen credit?

10.  How the heck did this get an R-rating? Maybe “This Film Is Not Rated” got it right after all. The MPAA really is asleep at the wheel. Oh. Wait.  I already knew that. This film is so jittery and washed-out I almost forgot.

I guess that’s it. There isn’t too much else about “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” I can think to say. The movie is what it is, and if you don’t realize that before you choose to enter the theater than you’re an even bigger fool than the producers behind this one already take you for.

Film Rating: 1/2ê  (out of 4)