The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

After the success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Platinum Dunes producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller began brainstorming story ideas for another installment, deciding a prequel would allow for more narrative possibilities. They contacted Scott Kosar, who wrote the 2003 remake, but he was tied up with other projects, so they turned to Sheldon Turner, whom they worked with on The Amityville Horror (2005). The producers asked Turner to answer questions posed by the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre story concerning the Hewitt family.[5]

Director Jonathan Liebesman was not certain about taking on the film until he learned that it was to be a prequel. He proposed not trying to explain too much of the killer's motives, and that "the movie needed to feel like the beginning of hell."[5]

Principal photography began in Austin, Texas, at several of the same locations as the 2003 film. Liebesman asked for Lukas Ettlin as cinematographer, who had shot every student film Liebesman made. The filmmakers decided on a desaturated red, white and blue color theme, representing "the decay of the American dream, the family that's gone off the rails." The film was shot in chronological order, and after the depiction of the car crash, Ettlin changed the shutter angle from 180 to 90 degrees for the rest of the shoot to make everything appear more hectic.[5]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning was released on October 6, 2006, in 2,820 theaters, debuting at number 2 at the box office, grossing $18,508,228 on its first weekend. Its second week saw a 59.6% drop in attendance, grossing only $7,485,290 and coming in at number 5 at the box office. During its third week it grossed $3,779,829 and came in at number 10 at the box office. The film dropped out of the top ten and into eighteenth place with $1,269,942. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning would fail to regain a top ten spot at the box office for the remainder of its theatrical run,[6] ending with $51,764,406 in total gross.[3]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning was released on DVD by New Line Home Video on January 16, 2007. This release included both theatrical and unrated versions of the film, as well as a double feature with the first film. EIV would release the film in the UK on February 19 that same year as both a two-disc uncut edition, a single-disc theatrical version, and as a part of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre collection. New Line would re-release the film in 2008 and 2009 before releasing the film on Blu-ray on October 15, 2013. The film had previously been released for the first time on Blu-ray by Ais on July 6, 2010.[7]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 15% approval rating based on 87 reviews and an average rating of 3.80/10. The site's consensus states: "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is full of blood and gore, but not enough scares or a coherent story to make for a successful horror film."[8] Metacritic reports a 30 out of 100 rating, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[9]

Peter Travers from Rolling Stone awarded the film zero stars, calling it "putridly written, directed and acted", also criticizing the film's "obvious" plot turns.[10] Nathan Lee from The New York Times panned the film as "an invitation to hard-core sadism".[11] In a more positive review, Peter Debruge of Variety thought "Liebesman hews close to the 2003 pic's bile-tinged snuff film aesthetic ... Purists who wondered what had become of the family dinner scene (left out of the remake) should be pleased to find an even creepier version recreated here."[12]

At the 27th Golden Raspberry Awards (2006), the film was nominated for a Worst Prequel or Sequel, but lost to Basic Instinct 2.[13][14]