Even as it sinks into far-flung insanity, "Texas Chainsaw" earns points for auspiciousness. Following 2003's inferior but acceptable remake and 2006's tauter, improved prequel, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning," this unrelenting little morsel of depravity dares to return to its roots, picking up immediately after the classic 1974 original in an alternate reality that pays no mind to the events of 1986's deliciously (and very, very darkly) comedic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2." Throughout, director John Luessenhop (2010's "Takers") and screenwriters Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan and Kirsten Elms seem to be at war with which style to infuse the proceedings with: the grimy, gritty docudrama aesthetics of the older films, or the slicker—if also gorier—Platinum Dunes reinvisionings. One thing is for sure: as bold and frequently intense as this new installment is, there must have been test screening-inspired studio interference on the project's way to release. How else to explain the movie's nonsensical established setting of 2012 when, save for a tacked-on sequence near the end involving a camera phone, it is plainly obvious the picture was meant to be set in the early '90s? By pushing the timeline forward by two decades, any person with the most cursory of math skills will see that it doesn't hold water—that is, unless our fresh-faced heroine, a baby in the 1973 prologue, is supposed to be a 39-year-old woman who hangs with college-aged pals.

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