HAIR METAL MOVIE MADNESS #11: LEATHERFACE has a (Lääz) Rockit in his pocket… Care to blast off? by DARK SIDE

Posted on October 4th, 2009

: “OUTTA MY WAY, LADY!!!”

Many of us grew up in the 80’s watching the movies and listening to music. One song from that era can bring back so many great memories. Sometimes… songs remind us of movies (or vice-versa). HAIR METAL MOVIE MADNESS brings back those memories by connecting the songs we loved from the 80’s to the movie(s) they were attached to. Visit The Small Town Critic every Saturday to rock out with us to the songs and movies that shaped a generation…

27 more days til Halloween! Silver Shamrock!

Ah, October. My favorite month. Time to start getting psyched for candy, toilet-papering people’s houses (what we call “rollin’” here in Mississippi) and other assorted, gratuitous vandalism.

It’s also horror movie season. Boom. So let’s get the ball rolling with another early favorite o’ mine…

Texas Chain Saw Massacre III: Leatherface (1990) was the biggest budget production of the original Chain Saw franchise before Michael Bay got his grubby little hands on them. It starred a young Viggo Mortensen as the handsome and deadly “Tex”, reliable character actor Tom Everett as a babbling maniac and genre legend Ken Foree as a heroic survivalist nut.

Oh yeah, and Leatherface sports a sweet mullet.

Despite the extra money and effort put into it, it’s my least favorite of the original franchise (Yep, even 4, the one everyone forgets about starring Mathew McConaughy and Renee Zelweger). The script was phoned-in, resulting in a watered-down version of the first film. But the Foree, Mortensen and the slick production made the film watchable. I have fond nostalgia for it because it was my first TCSM film. After seeing it, I believed such scenarios were probably happening in real life. Out there, somewhere, there was a guy like Leatherface waiting to ambush the foolish and ill-prepared. Thus began my obsession with identifying horror cliches and investigating the real-life stories that inspired our favorite horror films.

THE SONG:

Last year at a Testament concert on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, I had a freakin’ headache. The crowd was so thick, I kept getting knocked out of my spot. Some drunk teenage kid puked on my shoes. I was ready to leave before the main show started. Then the opening act started. I didn’t even know the name of the band, but the singer looked like Iggy Pop’s grandpa and the bassist was clowning and mugging for the crowd like he was Blackie Lawless or something. They acted like they were hot beans and we were their biggest fans. I respected that but I still didn’t know who they were.

Then they played a song I recognized. It suddenly dawned on me that the band was Lääz Rockit and the song… “Leatherface” from TCSM III. My mood instantly changed and I started rocking out to the intense performance. Now the song holds a special place in my heart.