The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning opens with an homage to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, one of the most unexpectedly literate referents I've ever seen in a B-picture. For that brief shining moment, I thought there might be something to this otherwise shameless cash grab from New Line. Not that a horror prequel should be filled with snooty literary references, of course, but merely that the screenwriters had invested some thought into the scenario. If they could slip something like that under the radar, then they might be able to invest the ensuing scenario with a little creativity. Stranger things have happened, after all. It's not totally beyond the realm of possibility, and with a brief whiff of something interesting in the opening frames, the prospect of sitting through the remaining 83 minutes carries at least some hope of enjoyment.
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