After seeing so many follow-ups that are influenced by momentary trends rather than by what made the original “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974) stand out, “Leatherface” (2017) is a pleasant surprise. Featuring a whole host of nasty people embarking on creative bouts of gore and violence, and with cinematographer Antoine Sanier delivering atmospheric shots of the Texas backwoods, this is a surprisingly good prequel.

The downside to the film – written by Seth M. Sherwood and directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury — is that it’s slick. The 1950s vibe of kiddie Jed (Boris Kabakchiev) being raised by the Sawyers and the 1960s vibe of Jed in a mental hospital don’t quite register.

The costume designers do a decent job with flower-print dresses on the women and white T-shirts on the men, but more mid-century cues and perhaps a dirtying of the film quality would’ve helped.

Surprisingly strong cast

“Leatherface” has a surprisingly strong cast built around the rivalry between Sheriff Hal Hartman (Stephen Dorff) and Sawyer matriarch Verna (Lili Taylor). In the cold open, Hartman’s daughter is killed in the Sawyer barn by what could’ve been a freak accident or could’ve been murder by the Sawyers.

From this point forward, Sherwood does a nice job of writing characters who are capable of the nastiest acts imaginable but have believable motivations.

Other than the main character – whose villainy comes from either nature or nurture in the end (you can probably guess from clues in the other films) – there aren’t strong arcs in “Leatherface,” but there are personalities. When a group of patients and one nurse goes on an impromptu escape/road trip from the mental ward, these people interweave in interesting ways.

Nurse Lizzy (Vanessa Grasse) believes she can help her patients, but that belief keeps being challenged. The patients include a range of good to bad people. Jackson (Sam Strike) is protective of Lizzy and oafish but harmless Bud (Sam Coleman) in the face of the nastiness of hillbilly couple Ike (James Bloor) and Clarice (Jessica Madsen).

Every actor sinks their teeth into their role. And while I’m sure the making of “Leatherface” wasn’t the real-life horror story the making of the 1974 original was, they are asked to do some pretty gross stuff (or at least stuff that reads as gross on screen). Corpses – both human and animal – play into the story in ways you might not guess.

One of the series’ best

The fact that four of the road-trippers are mental patients works in the film’s favor. Even when they don’t seem unstable, we know it’s possible there is a good reason why they were in the ward.

Furthermore, we don’t know how the sheriff’s grief and thirst for vengeance will manifest, or precisely what Verna and her clan of Sawyer boys will do – although we can assume it’ll be crazy. “Leatherface” also delivers a twist about its title character that I was proud to correctly guess.

This prequel completes a trilogy that plays out as “Leatherface,” “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974) and “Texas Chainsaw 3D” (2013). Obviously, the middle entry still is the elite one, but the prequel’s continuity lines up with it well – aside from being too glossy. Its ability to get lots of production value for its buck might actually hurt it.

But “Leatherface” is easily superior to the 2013 film, and should not be lumped in with the misfires in the “TCSM” saga. The folks behind this entry clearly love and understand the source material and do their best to live up to it.

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My rating: