The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - Arrow Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

When you’ve got a wildly successful remake that scores over a hundred million bucks at the global box office, what are you gonna do? You do a prequel origin story, of course! After Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes kicked off their horror remake brand with the surprisingly good The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, it only took a couple of short years to get a prequel of the remake into theaters. Sadly, the results were frustratingly lacking in weight, worth, or guts.

Taking the idea of showing how the cannibalistic Hewitt clan took control of their small town, we have a little flourish of originality. Set in 1969, we see the birth of Thomas AKA Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) and how he became a chainsaw-wielding nightmare. We get to witness Charlie (R. Lee Ermey) murder the local police and become “Sheriff Hoyt” and seize control of the town, feeding victims and passersby to his growing family. All of that was cool and exciting, and actually kinda scary. 

The problem with this great, gory, and exciting origin material is that it's intercut with another group of hapless travelers destined to become chainsaw fodder. Frankly, the film gives us no reason to care about Chrissie (Jordana Brewster), Eric (Matt Bomer), Bailey (Diaora Baird), or little draft-dodger Dean (Taylor Handley) as they travel across Texas. While this film was briefly fresh and somewhat new, it gives up on originality and treads the familiar territory of screaming, buzzing, and bloody dismemberment. And since it’s a prequel, it’s a locked, predictably closed loop with few surprises.

I caught this in theaters, I have it on DVD somewhere, but it’s not one I often revisit in this sprawling franchise. So this 4K was something of a reasonably fresh experience. I was surprised to see how much and how well the early material worked. But then I hit the same wall I've always come to with this one. Just after the harrowing car-vs-cow accident and our band of blood-filled normies endure their first meeting with Sheriff Hoyt, I became increasingly bored. I just steadily lose interest as the movie plays out, no matter how visceral, gory, or well-executed the kills are. It's not scary, it's not surprising - all of it just plays out as expected.

I will say the Unrated Cut that runs about six minutes longer does play better than the R-rated Theatrical Cut, but not enough to raise it higher in my estimation. The best I can say is it’s diverting, and R. Lee Ermey looks like he’s having the time of his life killing bikers, hippies, and draft dodgers. To borrow the namesake of a prominent conservative organization, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning would have done better by strictly focusing on the family, and not trying to make us care about the walking, talking saw fodder. 

While I don’t think much of it, I can safely say that TCM: The Beginning is not the worst Texas Chainsaw Massacre film ever made! Texas Chainsaw 3D was pretty bad (even if the 3D was cool), and then the 2022 Netflix Texas Chainsaw Massacre was pretty awful too. In between those, the legacy prequel Leatherface was pretty damn good (even if it plays a bit slowly) and worth the time. Now with the franchise rights up for grabs and names like Osgood Perkins among many others circling the carcass, it’ll be interesting to see what comes next. Hollywood is in no way finished with this franchise. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning gasses up for its own 4K UHD release from Arrow Video.  A single-disc release, the film and all bonus features find themselves pressed on a BD100 disc. We were issued only a check disc for this review, but final retail editions should amount to the same thing, complete with reversible insert artwork, booklet, and reversible replica poster. The disc loads to an animated main menu with Arrow’s standard menu structure.  

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning aims to replicate the overtly yellow-toned appearance of the 2003 remake. In the hands of cinematographer Lukas Ettlin, this prequel is quite a bit brighter overall than what Daniel Pearl pulled off. It still maintains a moody, dark, and shadowy atmosphere and skews more yellow/green, but it finds ways to somewhat distinguish itself. Primaries are again more passively rendered given the yellow push, but blues and reds do get some splashy playtime, especially around the initial car accident scene involving a stray cow. 

As I understand it, this one was finished on a 2K digital intermediate, but the details in facial features, costumes, and set design still look impressive. Nothing appears soft or worryingly scrubbed. There might be some lingering edge enhancement in play, but it's not distracting and I didn't spot any unsightly anomalies. Film grain is apparent without appearing intrusive or distracting. Similar to the 2003 remake release, the Dolby Vision grade isn’t overly aggressive, favoring the film’s yellowed color scheme while offering nice enhancements to shadows and blacks. Bitrate remains nice and high. I never owned this one on Blu-ray; I just didn’t like it enough to take the plunge, but I’m finding this 4K edition very appealing.

Like its 2003 predecessor, Arrow packs The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 4K disc with a variety of audio options. If you plug in for the Unrated Cut, you get three tracks - DTS-HD MA 7.1, 5.1, and 2.0. If you're only into watching the Theatrical Cut, you only get the DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. For this review, I spent most of my time with the Unrated Cut since it's the stronger of the two versions. Similar to the remake disc, I felt the 7.1 track was the most dynamic and interesting, giving more power and heft to the action at hand. Likewise, I thought the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track to be very effective on its own. You can’t go wrong with either, but I’ll absolutely put the 7.1 ahead of the pack. The balance for dialog, sound effects - both gas-powered and squishy- and the score was more effective and engaging. Again, I sampled through various scenes with each track, and all three options are solid. With that, I do think the 2.0 is fine and does the job, but it feels narrower and loses a lot of the impact for the bigger terror sequences. 

Not as good as the 2003 remake, this prequel doesn’t exactly rise to the top for the bonus features. Again, we get a new commentary from Steve Barton and Chris MacGibbon that’s worth the time. The old archival track with Liebesman and friends is still a great informative listen. After that, we pick up three new Cast/Crew interviews alongside the archival making of and other tidbits. Not a terrible selection at all, there’s great stuff here, but it’s not nearly as extensive as the 2003 film.

• NEW Audio Commentary featuring Steve “Uncle Creepy” Barton and Chris MacGibbon
• Audio Commentary featuring Jonathan Liebesman, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller
• NEW Hoyt, Actually - Interview with Lew Temple (HD 10:48)
• NEW Original Skins: KNB FX - Interview with Jake Garber and Kevin Wasner (HD 15:15)
• NEW Light and Sawdust - Interview with Lukas Ettlin (HD 15:18)
• Down to the Bone: Anatomy of a Prequel (HD 45:04)
• Delted & Extended Scenes w/ Optional Commentary (HD 13:12)
• Hoyt Protects Thomas
• Motel Scene - Extended
• Luda Mae Scolds Hoyt
• Chrissie Finds Dean - Extended
• Alternate Ending #1
• Alternate Ending #2
• Alternate Ending #3 
• Theatrical Trailer

You can make an entertaining, worthwhile remake, but you can’t always make an entertaining and worthwhile prequel to that remake. Thus, we have Jonathan Liebesman’s 2006 origin flick, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Early scenes are fresh and new as we follow the trail of the Hewitt clan’s slide into murder and cannibalism, but the film’s main band of normie victims are cutout characters waiting for the gas-powered blades to rip them apart. Far from the best of the franchise, it's amazingly enough not the worst Texas Chainsaw film out there. But thanks to Arrow Video, we can take a look at both cuts of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning on 4K UHD in Dolby Vision HDR. A/V is strong for both cuts, and the package of extras might not measure up to the 2003 film's selection, but it's a damn good slate of informative material. Splitting the hair between a great disc for a rough movie, I'm calling this release from Arrow For Fans Only. Folks who love it and need it in 2160p Dolby Vision will get their money's worth and then some.