Metacritic reviews

Like the film's punishingly gory set pieces, the storytelling itself is meaty.

The gory carnage is sparingly but vividly staged, the suspense-driven plot twisty enough to tax the brain.

Leatherface is well-made pulp, not a masterpiece like Hooper’s original. But given what this character means to horror history — and how badly he’s been treated — any upgrade’s a gift.

A production line effort with an eye on cashflow rather than the demented work of art Hooper loosed on the world, this eighth entry is above average for its attenuated series. Gore levels are as high as expected and, naturally, the finale leaves things open for further instalments.

This “origin story” is a somewhat mixed bag. But it’s also an earnest and well-crafted attempt at course-correction, straying from stock slasher recyclage to provide a different story that actually connects a few dots in the very tangled cinematic “Chainsaw” universe to date.

While Leatherface, a prequel directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury (“Inside”), works OK as a gory horror film (necrophilia, beheading, partial defenestration and beating eaten alive by pigs are a few of the delights), it makes less sense as part of the surprisingly (and needlessly) expansive “Texas Chainsaw” universe, as it were.

Leatherface tries to show us what made the man we know the legend he is now. Sadly, the makers of Leatherface didn't put enough thought into a sleepy story that could easily be titled "I Was a Teenage Leatherface."

Leatherface is second only to Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” remake in horror’s pantheon of terrible origin stories.

Leatherface is the worst Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie ever.

Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's anonymous work here could've been overseen by any hipster looking to make a mark at Platinum Dunes.