LEATHERFACE first hit the screen today

On this day--12 Jan.--in 1990, Jeff Burr's LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III first hit the screens. It was a, yes, Troubled Production.[tm] With Freddy Krueger fading, New Line was hoping to use this picture to launch a new low-cost horror franchise to pay the bills and studio interference in the production, from the script stage forward, was intense. Burr himself--the 2nd director hired for the project--was fired a week into production, then rehired, as there was no on available to take his place. Then, on cue, the MPAA bared its hindquarters, slapping the movie with an X rating--the last movie to be so rated before the MPAA created the NC-17--and forcing the creators to remove the gory stuff.

Still, the finished film managed to be pretty fun, with some great cannibal characters, hilarious dialogue, Viggo Mortensen back before anyone knew what a Viggo Mortensen was, always-rock-solid Ken Foree and a fresh take on the title character himself. There have been 6 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE pictures in the decades after this one, but this was the last one that was even remotely worth watching.